Learning to Speak Up: The Samaritan Woman at the Well

Hello, hello, hello, everybody out there. I’m your host, Wanda Thibodeaux, and I’m gonna give you a big thank you right now for tuning in to Faithful on the Clock, the podcast where the sun shines to get your faith and work aligned. If any of you out there have struggled to talk about your faith with others, or if you just have trouble speaking up and sharing your thoughts and feelings with other people, this episode hopefully will change the way you think about your ability and right to communicate. I’m gonna use the story of the Samaritan woman at the well to show you it’s OK to go where you’ve been afraid to go. Let’s get started.

All right, listeners. I’d like you to turn with me to John 4 if you can. If you don’t have a Bible handy, don’t worry. I’ll be clear about what I’m referencing. But in John 4, we find that Jesus’ disciples have been baptizing people. Verse 1 tells us they’re doing more baptizing than even John the Baptist. And even though it’s the disciples who are doing the baptizing and not Jesus, all the activity attracts the attention of the Pharisees. And Jesus, He knows that the time is not right to get into a confrontation with them, right? He knows the mission God gave Him to preach repentance and the love of God is the priority. So, Jesus decides He’s gonna leave Judea where He’d been and go back to Galilee. And verse 4 tells us that on His way back, Jesus had to go through Samaria. And I want to take a minute to emphasize that verse. Just stick it in your back pocket for a minute, OK? But Jesus eventually comes to Jacob’s Well, and you know, He’s tired. He’s been traveling. Verse 6 tells us it’s about noon, so it’s hot out. And so He stops at the well to rest. And you know, it’s the middle of the day, so his disciples had gone into the town to get food, you know, to get lunch. But as He’s sitting there, a Samaritan woman comes to the well. And she’s by herself. And there’s been a lot of different pastors explain this, but the fact she comes alone when it’s hot is unusual because most of the time, the women of the time, they’d come to get water in the morning when it was cool. And that was kind of a high point of the day for them in a way because even though they were there to do a job, it gave them a chance to talk to each other. I don’t know, any of you out there notice that women like to do that? But this Samaritan woman, she’s alone and at the well in the heat of the day because she’s considered to be of ill repute. She’s had five husbands and is living with a man she’s not married to, which in that day, you just didn’t do that. And so, this woman is coming to the well in the middle of the day because nobody wants to associate with her. She knows that if she comes in the morning, the other women aren’t gonna leave her alone, and she doesn’t want to experience the pain of everything they’d say to her. And I want you to focus for a minute on that, on the fact that this woman, she didn’t have anybody to talk to. She wasn’t in a position where anybody would listen to her. So, when she comes to the well and sees Jesus there, I don’t know, she might have kind of put her guard up. She probably got worried that this guy she was seeing was gonna catch on right away why she was there in the middle of the day, and she was probably worried that He’d see her like everybody else and just rip into her for living the way she did.

But when she gets to the well, Jesus asks her for a drink of water. And the woman, she’s a little taken aback. She can tell by Jesus’ speech that He’s from Galilee, right? The way He talks would have given His origin away. And she knows from that that He’s probably Jewish. So, she questions how in the world He can ask her for water, because Jews and Samaritans don’t get along. Like, at all. And Jesus tells her that if she just knew Who was asking for a drink, she would have asked Him for living water. And He tries to explain to her that when He’s talking about living water, He’s talking about His ability to provide eternal life. When He says no one will thirst, He’s saying those who believe in God will be satisfied forever. And she doesn’t really understand what He means. And so, she says to him, let me have this water so I don’t have to keep coming back to this well. And a lot of people gloss right over that verse. But it is so, so poignant to me. Because even though she doesn’t really understand what Jesus is saying, I think her pain in that moment still slips out. She’s attracted to the idea of not having to come to the well not just because it’s physical work, but because every day having to go to that well is this horrible reminder that she’s not clean in the eyes of other people. Not good enough. That she doesn’t even have the right anymore to engage with other people.

And so, then, Jesus tells her to call her husband and come back. And she has to tell him, you know, she doesn’t have a husband. And Jesus acknowledges she’s telling the truth. But in verse 18, he’s clear that he knows all about her previous five husbands and the fact she’s living with another guy. Now, the Samaritan woman’s response to me is interesting. Because if it were me and somebody told me something they really shouldn’t have been able to know, my first instinct would be to be like, “Who have you been talking to?” You know, “Who told you about me?” But this woman, there was something about the encounter or her experience that prompted her to recognize that Jesus knew about her for a different reason. And she recognizes he must be a prophet. And so that prompts her to comment to Jesus about how the Samaritans and Jews have different views about where people have to worship God. And then Jesus says to her in verses 21-24, “Believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” Now, what does that mean? Jesus is trying to explain to this woman that, in essence, God’s not all that worried about where you worship. He’s not all caught up in whether you do this ritual or that one. What He cares about is whether you come to Him with the right heart, whether you worship with true love and reverence. God is everywhere and He wants you to come to Him with the right spirit wherever you are. And I want you to look at this in the context of what happens in the Temple in Jerusalem after Jesus dies. There was a curtain in the temple that separated the first room from the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant was. And the Holy of Holies, regular people couldn’t go in there by themselves and live. Only the high priest could go in there to make a sacrifice for the sins of the people, and the high priest was only allowed to do that once a year. So, there was this very literal, physical separation between the people and God. But when Jesus died, God tore that curtain in half from top to bottom, because through Jesus the people now had a pathway to come directly to the Father. They didn’t have to be separated or worry about which room they were in or any of that. They could just come to God. So, going back to the Samaritan woman, that’s what Jesus is foreshadowing when He tells her there will come a day when people don’t worship on this mountain or in Jerusalem. As long as your heart is for God, you can worship Him anywhere.

Now, I want you to think for a moment what it would have been like for this Samaritan woman to hear that. Because remember, this woman, she’s living in a time when there was a lot of conflict and confusion about what people needed to do to please God. So, there’s a promise for her just in that, to hear that in time, those conflicts are gonna end. But more importantly, she knew what it was like to be excluded. And because of her history, she wouldn’t have been welcome in the outer forecourt of the temple where women were allowed to go. So, when Jesus tells her that God is spirit, that God is just gonna look at whether you’re hungry for Him and his peace, that He’s gonna care for people like her who have been crushed in spirit, that’s everything.

So, what happens after that? Jesus’ disciples meet up with Him at the well. And verse 27 shows us that, even though they were surprised to see Jesus talking with the Samaritan woman, nobody questioned Him about it. And what I want you to see in that moment is that because Jesus was with her, she was shielded from the things they could have said. Because Jesus was with her, they didn’t challenge her or point out her faults. You know, they’d probably learned that Jesus broke rules and had a reason for it, even if they didn’t understand it. And I want you to understand that you have the same protection, OK? And I’m not saying that people are never gonna say anything bad to you, OK? But what I am saying is that if they do, Jesus is still standing with you, and His understanding of who you are and where your heart is will be a defense for you so that God does not judge you in the same way they do.

But here’s the heart of the story to me. In verses 28-30, the Samaritan woman does something extraordinary. This woman, who had been living in sin and who could not normally raise her voice even to other women, she drops everything. She leaves her water jar behind. What was important when she started her trip doesn’t matter anymore. And she rushes back to the town, and she tells people that this man she met told her everything she’d ever done and that He might be the Messiah everyone had been waiting for. And suddenly, she’s not hiding her history anymore. Suddenly, she’s admitting she’s got a history, and she’s saying it’s because Jesus knew about her past that He could be the Savior God promised. And this same woman who couldn’t even talk to friends at the well in the morning suddenly is telling everybody about Jesus. And here’s the really miraculous thing. Because this woman comes into the town and starts telling everybody about her encounter with Jesus, other people start making their way to Him. They start to believe in Him. And in verse 40, we see that when they came to Him, they then urged Jesus to stay with them, and He stayed and preached to them for two days. And because of what they heard directly from Him, even more people believed. Verse 42, says, “They said to the woman, ‘We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.’”

So, remember when I said to put verse 4 in your pocket? Let’s go back to that now. Jesus could have taken a different route back to Galilee. But He didn’t. He intentionally went to Jacob’s well. Why? Because, the verse tells us, He had to. He had to be there so that He would have that conversation with the Samaritan woman, because it was God’s intention that through her, more people — the Samaritans, the people who, remember, absolutely hated the Jews — would be saved. It was not an accident that Jesus came to her out of everybody. It was an appointment God had set between them. And what I want you to see is that, when the Samaritan woman finally understood that God was accessible to someone like her, when she realized that Jesus was promising her something she probably had given up hope of having, when she understood that the future was gonna be very different than what she was living, she wasn’t silent anymore. Instead of staying separated from people the way she had been, instead of being ashamed, she ran into the town. She ran toward people, because she had something too important not to say. And because of her, because of this sinful woman who’d been cut off from other people, people came to believe and were saved.

Now, I do not know your history. I do not know why you might have been told to come to the well only in the heat of the day. And I don’t know what has made you afraid to speak up. But I do know that, especially when it comes to the message of God, you have every right to leave your jar behind. All of that old stuff, it’s not important anymore. And if God calls you to run into the crowd, you cannot let what you have been carrying day after day hold you back. Because just like He did with the Samaritan woman, Jesus can make you a bridge between Him and other people. In fact, I think that’s kind of part of His calling card. Like, if you think about the very beginning of Jesus’ life, He had angels tell the good news to shepherds, who were incredibly outcast and considered to be the lowest of low people. And the shepherds were the first ones who got to tell others about Jesus. And maybe God makes you a bridge between God and other people with direct testimony, the way it was with the Samaritan woman. But maybe it’s in using your unique gifts in a way that’s going to testify for Him over time. Maybe He needs you to go into the crowd so that He can use you to bring specific good things to the world. Maybe He needs you to show people what it means to live as somebody who’s been redeemed, so you can be the example other people need to believe they can change and be saved, too. Your voice absolutely matters.

So, with an encouragement to go toward people and speak up in whatever way God calls you, I’ll invite you to pray with me.

God, I thank you this morning that no matter what we’ve done, you’re willing to sit and talk with us. And I thank you that we don’t have to be silent, that we can connect with other people and learn more about Who You are. Whatever jars we’ve we’ve been hauling, just help us remember how light your burden is, and help us take the weight off other people until you bring us home. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.

All right, everybody. I hope you’ll take this message and have courage to put yourself out there a little more, whether it’s within your office, your community, or your family. You can’t go wrong if you’re speaking truth, people. Next episode, we’re gonna use the story of the miraculous catch of fish to examine how we go after goals and trust our expertise. Join me for that in two weeks, and until then, be blessed.