The Woman at the Well

A Woman John Never Names

John never tells us her name. Pastor Lindsay Rangel opened John 4 by pointing out that John sets up this story without giving the woman at the well a name. She said she doesn't know if John did that on purpose, but in many ways she thinks it is because her story could be our story, and there is something in her encounter with Jesus that every one of us can learn from.

That fits the way John writes. There are a whole bunch of authors in the Bible, Pastor Lindsay explained, and they write from different perspectives. Luke was actually a doctor, so he wrote from a medic perspective. John writes from a very personal perspective, and she believes it is because he doesn't just want us to know what Jesus did. He wants us to know who he is.

So she asked the church, as they keep reading through John, to pay attention to who Jesus notices, who he makes space for, and who he makes time for. "Because we are not just learning information about Jesus, we are learning about who he is."

Then, as a musician, she told everyone to grab a Bible, either analog or digital, and turn to John 4.

Through Samaria to the Town of Drunkards

Pastor Lindsay read from John 4:4-5: "Now he Jesus had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar. Near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph."

Samaria wasn't actually the destination for Jesus and his disciples. A little earlier in the chapter they are trying to go to Galilee. Going through Samaria was the shortest route, and on a map it makes sense. But most Jews took a route around Samaria, because the Samaritans and the Jews shared a really deep-seated rift that was centuries long, and they decided it wasn't worth it.

Giving "a peek into Lindsay's brain," she remembered a song from growing up called We're Going on a Bear Hunt, with its refrain: we can't go over it, we can't go under it, we've got to go through it. She imagined the disciples having their own Hebrew version of the song, looking at Jesus and saying, "You got to go through it," and just keep walking.

John adds an extra detail: the name of the town. Pastor Lindsay said the town's name means the town of drunkards. "What kind of town do you have to be to be actually called the town of drunkards?"

She grew up in a little town called Bellflower, on the edge of Orange County and LA in California. She thinks it was built to be a utopian little 1950s suburb, with everything in blocks and squares and cute little homes. But right next to it was Compton, the same town as the album Straight Out of Compton.

Unless you owned a bulletproof car and had security, it was a place her family went around. That was frustrating for the kids in the back seat, because going to the airport or the beach, going through Compton was the easiest route, and they all knew it from the maps they kept in the back seat.

Compton was known for its crime, its gangs, and its drugs. "It's just not the first place that you would put on Zillow to find a family home." The few times they did drive through, the streets were dirty, the lawns were just weeds, and window bars were usually just part of the decor. She even remembered going to look at the different designs of bars you could get, "which was good times." That, she said, is a picture of the town Jesus and the disciples were going through.

Noon at the Well and the Offer of Living Water

John continues: "Jacob's well was there and Jesus tired as he was from the journey sat down by the well, and it was about noon." Pastor Lindsay pictured John adding a little jab: "Jesus, you picked the shortest route and you're still tired." She called it a little jab, like, "Come on, Jesus. Like, give us a little bit more." John is setting the entire scene, and the idea is that Jesus is about to meet the worst woman in the worst town in the worst country.

Jesus is about to meet the worst woman in the worst town in the worst country.

In verse 7, "When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, 'Will you give me a drink?' His disciples had gone into the town to buy food."

Pastor Lindsay described the well as kind of like the Target of the town. It's where all the women came to get their "coffees," and where all the gossip happened. In a town named the town of drunkards, there was probably a whole lot of gossip. But this woman came at noon. Pastor Lindsay wondered if Jesus, taking a minute to himself because he was tired, and the woman, who was trying to avoid people, both got to the well and quietly thought, "Dang it, who's going to talk first?"

The woman said, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? For Jews do not associate with Samaritans." Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that ask you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

She pressed him: "Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself as also his sons and his livestock?" As Pastor Lindsay put it, "She's trying real hard to put this together, guys."

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him or give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." And the woman said, "Sir, give me this water so that I don't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water, please, in Jesus name."

Rejected, Watched, and Living on the Outside

Then Jesus told her, "Go call your husband and come back." "I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."

Pastor Lindsay said she can begin to imagine how trapped this woman must have felt, and how ignored she must have been. In the first century, women could not divorce their husbands, which means that five times a man had rejected her. If we have read this story before, we may have imagined she was someone choosing this life. In reality, Pastor Lindsay said, she is a woman who has experienced tremendous rejection.

Then she told her own story. When she was about 13, her dad moved the family from Bellflower to San Diego. "It was a little bit of an upgrade, but it was because Compton started to kind of leak into Bellflower." In that season she lost friends and didn't know how to figure out what was going on.

She has had type 1 diabetes since she was 3 years old, and food had controlled a lot of her life. As life felt out of control, she decided to control the one thing that was controlling her, which was food. That put her on a trajectory of about a 15-year battle with eating disorders.

Part of what she had to work through was the shame of being different. There was shame associated with the whispers, and a lot of those whispers were in church. There was shame associated with the eyes she could see assessing her body as it disappeared, and with conversations she knew were happening about her without her.

Years later she experienced the same kind of thing again, this time about her son Elijah, her second child, who was born with Down syndrome. With that diagnosis she learned in the most amazing way to see disability and parenting in a completely different light, and it has been a beautiful thing. Her family found an amazing community and was surrounded by family and friends.

What she didn't anticipate was how people outside would perceive them: the looks when his behavior didn't fit the norm, the discomfort when people didn't know how to interact with them, the judgment about their parenting, and straight up pity, "that was a big one." Some people, in an effort to help, just kept their distance. It brought back that familiar feeling of being watched, being misunderstood, and being on the outside. And she believes the woman at the well knew something about that too.

Leaving the Water Jar

This woman, labeled and living on the outside of society, said in verse 25, "I know that Messiah called Christ is coming and when he comes, he will explain everything to us." And Jesus declared, "I, the one speaking to you, am he." When the disciples returned, they were surprised to find him talking to a woman, but no one asked, "What do you want or why are you talking with her?"

Then verse 28: "Then leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 'Come see a man who told me everything that I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?' So they came out of the town and made their way toward him."

I think that water jar, church, represents all that she carried to the well.

Rejection, pain, isolation, shame, labels, and hopelessness because of all of those things. Being stuck in her situation and in repeated patterns, even the pattern of getting up and waiting until noon every single day. Pastor Lindsay said that nowadays we would probably say she had a little bit of PTSD and some trauma. And the one labeled the worst woman from the worst city in the worst country is the one Jesus made space for.

For this woman, the day started out like any other. She brought her jar to the well, a jar that was only going to get heavier the more she filled it. But on this day, Jesus was there.

And the woman who came alone left inviting an entire town to meet him.

Her past hadn't changed. She still had her story and her history. But Jesus knew her entire story, and he still made room for her.

Pastor Lindsay said that maybe you are here carrying your own water jar. Maybe it's rejection, shame, or disappointment, or the disappointment of others. Maybe it's the opinions of others, or perfectionism, or ego, or the need to control. "That was mine." These are things that get really heavy over time as we live a little bit of life. "And I'm here to tell you today that Jesus is waiting at the well for you."

She loves that when the woman left her jar, Jesus didn't call after her and say, "Hey, you forgot something." He let her go. So what if today you left your jar at the well? What if the things you have carried no longer get to define you? He offers the same living water he offered her, and he is offering you the chance to leave your jar at the well. Her closing question: what are you carrying?

Pastor Lindsay prayed:

Pastor Brady then led communion, asking everyone to hold up the bread as a symbol of what they were leaving behind, praying that "you find us broken, but you don't leave us broken." Thinking about how unkind she was to herself, how much she must have beat herself up every day reliving her bad decisions, he asked, "Would you be kind to yourself today?" As the church took the cup, he said, "some of you need to take a gallon of grace."

Over the bread, Pastor Brady prayed:

Over the cup, he prayed:

Pastor Joseph closed the service with a blessing:

Questions for the Week

1. As you keep reading John, who does Jesus notice, and who does he make space and time for?
2. Pastor Lindsay's closing question: What are you carrying?
3. Where have you felt watched, misunderstood, or on the outside, and what does it mean to you that Jesus knew the woman's entire story and still made room for her?
4. What would it look like for you to leave your jar at the well this week?

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