John 4:4-26
And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.
A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
Text transcribed by AI.
And the Christ crucified for us. Amen. Geography Matters. I don't know if you studied geography in high school and did as poorly as I did. But I'm here to tell you that geography matters. It matters for us from Concordia University of Chicago who have traveled about 3500 miles, just to be with you here at first Lutheran Church. Geography mattered to me. It was about 30 years ago, when I was a young seminarian. And I had a I heard a rumor that I was going to be traveling to California, to vicar, that is to be a student, Pastor, an interim pastor. So I heard this rumor that I was going to be going to California and that was really good news for because I was from Minnesota. Yeah, sure. You betcha. The Land of the frozen chosen. So geography was really important to me, I thought this is going to be great. And so I remember the evening at the vicarage placement service when they announced my placement. Jeffrey Lin injure, mispronouncing My name as they always have. And then they said, first Lutheran, El Cajon. Welcome, John, I thought this is great. Where is that? And so I got a map out and the district president came and he instructed me on how to say alcohol. And then he told me that alcohol is near San Diego, and I was thinking beach ministry, this is gonna be so great. If you don't know what to do with a youth, just go to the beach, it'll be fine. And so that bit of geography, alcohol on California, San Diego area, changed my life. Because I came here and I spent a year as a pastoral intern, met the most incredible people did the most incredible work in partnership with these people. And we did drama. And we went on youth trips, and we went camping and backpacking. And we did the Word of God together. And it changed my not my life. And this is the first time I've been back here preaching in nearly 30 years. So thank you for this invitation. So you got the point that geography matters. And geography, especially is important in the Bible. Never miss a chance to look at a biblical map. When you're reading the Bible. Geography mattered to our Lord Jesus. In John chapter four of the Gospel reading for today, Jesus had been ministering in the Judean countryside. And the scriptures say that when Jesus departed, in order to return to go back up to his home area at the area of Galilee, the scriptures are specific, and they say, it was necessary for him to pass through Samaria. It was necessary, the Scriptures say. Now, you have to understand that the most direct road between Judea and the south where Jesus is ministering, and Galilee in the north, ran through this place called Samaria, that was the most direct route. But that is not why the scriptures say that it was necessary for Jesus to go there. Because we see from the reading from John for today, that it was his mission for a particular woman, and indeed, for the whole Gentile world that brought him there. Samaritans and Jews, you might know a little bit of this history. Jews did not like that direct route, right through Samaria, if they were in Judea, they liked rather to go across the Jordan River, go all the way up, around and then up into Galilee because they didn't want to come anywhere near the Samaritan region. It was great hatred between Jews and Samaritan, it rivals a lot of the conflicts that we have in our own world a little bit of a history, Samaria was originally a Jewish area. And in the Babylonian captivity, the Babylonians came, and they took many Jews out of the holy land. But they also then imported other foreign nations back into the Holy Land, especially the area of Samaria. And there was a lot of interbreeding that happened between Jews and these foreign nations. And in fact, what happened at one point is that the Samaritans even had sold Jews into slavery. So if you're Jewish, and you hear the word Samaritan, you're thinking halfbreed heretic You're thinking, lowlife, you are thinking these are the people that have betrayed us. And so it is no wonder that the purest of Jews, the best rabbis would never go directly through Samaria, they would go all the way around to get back into Galilee. In fact, so important was this, that Jews would not even touch objects that Samaritans had touched. So now, you know, a little geography and a little history. How remarkable is it then, my friends, that it was necessary for Jesus to go there. Jesus, a great rabbi, and miracle worker, he enters into this unclean territory. And he speaks with this woman at the well. And he has contact with her. And he asks her for water. It was necessary for him. She is a halfbreed, traitor, Samaritan, and heretic. And she is a woman, and she is a sinful woman. And we might even guess that she is the harlot of the town, how many husbands does she have? Really. And yet here we find the Holy Son of God, who by speaking, created the entire universe, speaking again to this lowliest of sinners. And as we see him speaking to her, we see her him re creating her. And I tell you that there was no less power at work on that day, at that Samaritan, well, then when in the very beginning, the word of God forged heaven on earth, time and space, all that is seen, and unseen. There is so much we could talk about with this passage of Jesus and the woman at the well it is, in fact, one of the most detailed conversations we have recorded of our Lord in the entire New Testament. But we don't have to go any further than we already have this morning. Just the geography in order to understand the richness of the Gospel for us. And that is that Jesus. Jesus diverts into the lives of the lowliest of sinners. And he speaks to them. And he turns their lives upside down and he transforms them, and he recreates them, and it gives them abundantly more than they could seek desire or deserve. Jesus intervenes into the lives of the lowliest of sinners. As he did so many times in his ministry, the Lord speaks of earthly things, in order that their eyes of faith would be lifted up to heavenly things. Remember that the disciples are called fishers of men. And Nicodemus we heard about last week, he's, he's told to be born again. And then this woman here Jesus is talking about water, but he's not talking about earthly water. He's talking about for her the water that is so far beyond what she knows her expects, that her whole life, from that moment on would seem like old, stale, well, in comparison to the flowing, living springfed abundance of the Messiah who is speaking to her. geography matters. It matters this morning, too. For all of us, who have come here, to first Lutheran, to hear of this Messiah. This lesson from John for is, it's more than just a historical narrative about Jewish and Samaritan conflict. It's more than just a model of effective evangelists who Jesus is here. It's not even just a powerful story about a woman's encounter with Christ. In these words of Scripture today, Jesus Himself the Word of God, detours into our lost, lonely, longing, lifeless lives and he recreates them today.
Through This account from John for the word eternal intervenes into our lives and brings living water. Can you hear Him speaking today? Can you hear his words, recreating you this morning? Whatever sins you have committed, give them to me and they will drag them to the cross. However lonely are untouchable seems your life. I will sit with you and speak with you and restore you. Whatever you think your past has proven you to be. I am the one who makes all things new. Whatever sad divisions you have created in your world, your home or your hearts, I will heal them. Whatever pile of rock and dirt which you've been worshipping, I will gather you to Myself in spirit and in truth. Whatever old well you've been drinking from I will pour onto you and into you a living water that will well up for all eternity. The same Jesus, who detoured into a Samaritan woman's life detours today through her story into our lives. This is the one for whom it was necessary to travel not 3500 miles. But across all of eternity to be born in a barn in Bethlehem. This is the one who we worship, who set his face to Jerusalem knowing how much it would cost him. This is the one we worship who passed through death on Easter Sunday and ascended to the Father and now lives and reigns to all eternity. And my friends, he will return again one day to call us back to Himself to remake and restore all things in that place of eternal living water forever. Geography Matters, where you go, who you meet, where the journey of life takes you. It's sometimes difficult to see that and believe it, especially when you're young like I was when I came here 30 years ago,
to know what to believe. And to remember that there is one who not only travels with you, but who has traveled to you has come across the centuries and all of eternity and intervened on your behalf with life and forgiveness and salvation. This morning, he enters into our lives again through His Word and through his sacrament bringing springs of eternal life. Here, no other voice. Seek after no other water, worship at no other mountain. Whatever it takes, how much it costs, wherever He leads. Come soon, Lord Jesus. Amen.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai