Our lesson this morning is set in Samaria , a place where the prejudices the Jews had against Samaritans was legendary.  The Samaritans were a group of Jews from the province of Samaria who had intermarried with foreigners.  “True Jews” considered Samaritans as social outcasts, untouchable, racially inferior, people who practiced a false religion.

Both groups claimed to be true descendants of the nation of Israel . Samaritans from the northern kingdom of Israel while True Jews descended from the southern kingdom of Judah . True Jews believed that Jerusalem was the only true place of worship, while Samaritans believed that the true place of worship at Mt. Gerizim .  In 128 B.C., the True Jews destroyed the Samaritan temple at Mt. Gerizim .

Now, based on this bias, it was the firm belief of any True Jew that close physical contact with a Samaritan, (like drinking water from a common bucket or eating a meal together), would make the True Jew ceremonially unclean. Which meant that they would be unable to participate in temple worship for a prescribed period of time.

The hostility between the two groups was so great that Jewish travelers usually chose not to travel through the area where the Samaritans lived. They wouldn’t even talk to one another. The Pharisee, in his daily prayers would say, “I thank God that I am not a woman, a Gentile or a Samaritan,” and would pray that the Samaritans not be included in the resurrection.

So, with that background to the story, we come to Jesus and his disciples who have traveled some distance and are now tired and thirsty. While His disciples go into town to buy food, He sits down by a well known as Jacob’s well.  As a Samaritan woman comes to the well to draw water, Jesus says, “Will you give me a drink?”

Here we go again. Not only are there strict rules about Jews and Samaritans talking to one another, there are also rules about men and women conversing.  

The Samaritan woman is surprised, and somewhat rude. She says to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”

In spite of the cultural restriction, regardless of how rudely Jesus was addressed by the woman, Jesus reached out to her. That’s the second thing we need to see. When she somewhat curtly turns aside his request for water, he turns a seemingly chance encounter into an evangelistic opportunity.

He says, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” When you peal that statement back, this is a significant statement. Jesus is offering the gift of grace to a Samaritan woman.  

Jesus targeted his ministry at Jews. In Matthew 15:24, he says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel .” Christ’s single-minded devotion to his own people was a result of God’s faithfulness to his promise to the Jews.  Yet here he is offering the gift of “living water” to a Samaritan and a woman. He explains to her that if she was to drink this living water, she’d never be thirsty again.  But then things get even more remarkable.

She responds to his offer: “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”  And Jesus says, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

Uh-oh! Houston , we have a problem, for she has no husband.  And when she admits this to him, Jesus says, “You’re right.  The fact is, you’ve had five husbands, and the man you are with now is not your husband.  And she responds, saying “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet.”

He was a prophet, all right, but different from any prophet she would ever encounter. Here he is, breaking all the cultural taboos: He was reaching out to a woman, a Samaritan woman, a Samaritan woman who had been married five times and who was now living with a man who was not her husband.  And he offers her grace.

This is startling even to this day--not what it says about Jesus, but what it says about us. How do we, as a faith community, miss the Gospel so completely?  Why are we so judgmental toward others? How did we get to the place we so often find ourselves in where we shut out those we don’t approve of, time and time again, when Jesus did exactly the opposite?  What’s wrong with us that we can’t (or won’t) love those for whom he died?

Not only are we blinded by our prejudices toward people like the Samaritan woman with her unseemly lifestyle, we’re also blinded to the fact that we are the Samaritan woman. We, too, fall short of the grace of God, but that hand reached out to us from heaven, and picks us up.

Our lesson this morning is the lesson of a changed life. Look at how the lesson ends. The disciples return and are surprised to find Him talking with a woman.  But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman goes back to town and says, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” And the Gospel writer reports that the people of the town made their way toward Jesus.

John ends the lesson with these words: Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more believed. They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; we’ve heard for ourselves, and know that this man is the Savior of the world.”

What a witness. A Samaritan woman with a questionable lifestyle becomes a recipient of God’s grace and then becomes the conduit of grace through which others are guided to the Master. 

Bruce Larsen, in his book Ask Me to Dance, includes the story of a member of his congregation who had come from another country. Pastor Larsen said of this person, “Her faith sparkled and the living water of the spirit flowed out of her soul to all around her.” He invited her to go with him to a seminar on the topic of evangelism.

The leaders had prepared tables filled with all sorts of pamphlets and strategies and demographic studies, all aimed at reaching the un‑churched in their area. At some point during the program the leaders turned to this woman and asked her to share some of the reasons that made the church so important and so vital in her home country.

At first she was a bit intimidated by the crowds, but then she had this to say, “Well, we never gave pamphlets to people because we never had any. We just showed people by our life and example what it is like to be a Christian, and when they can see for themselves, then they want to be a Christian, too."  1  

That’s the bottom line, isn’t it? “We just showed people by our life and example what it is like to be a Christian, and when they can see for themselves, then they want to be a Christian, too.” After her encounter with the Master, the Samaritan woman passed the test for being an effective Christian witness. The question is, in light of Christ’s great love for all people, can we?