Dedicate a small amount of time every day this week to reading John 4:1-42. After reading this story, sit in silence allow your imagination to draw you into the story. Stand off to the side and observe the conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well. Stand in the woman’s place and have the conversation with Jesus. Receive his words. Put yourself in the place of the disciples who come back to find them talking. What would it be like to be one of the townspeople who see the woman coming back into town? You hear her message and want to go meet this potential “Messiah.” Each time you read the story just sit with your imagination and see where it takes you. God gave you an imagination so use it and allow it to guide you into prayer. You aren’t looking for new insights into the story. You are allowing your imagination to take you into the story to hear what God needs to tell you.
There are a lot of takeaways from this story that need to be highlighted and I’m working to narrow it down to just a few major points for Sunday for what we as a congregation need to hear. Here are some quick points for your own devotional reflection:
The woman is an outcast in her own society. She is a woman and a Samaritan. Jesus crosses multiple barriers to share the Gospel with her. Who do you struggle the most with approaching because of who they are, what they have done, where they come from, etc?
There are debates, and even fights, between the Jews and the Samaritans over the proper location for worshipping God. Jesus says a time is coming when God, who is spirit, will be worshipped in Spirit and truth. When have you seen Christians (or yourself) fight over proper location, proper name on the sign, proper “truth/doctrine,” etc.? What does it mean to worship God in the Spirit?
The Samaritan woman is the first evangelist to the Samaritans. This is a point that is often missed but must be highlighted. We often make “evangelism” into a series of conversations that lead people through scripture to bring them to a question of conversion. “Evangelists” feel the need to unpack the mysteries of the text for people to understand. Here we have a woman, who is an outcast in her own society, who takes on the task of being the first evangelist to her people. What is her message? What is her approach to sharing the Gospel?
In verse 35, Jesus quotes a proverb that basically means there is a time of waiting between sowing and reaping. Jesus tells them “Open your eyes and look to the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” He calls them into action to go and reap what someone else has sown. He points them to a hated people they have been told their whole life that they were less than dogs. This woman has planted a seed as an evangelist, and they want to know more. We are surrounded by people who are seeking something deeper on a spiritual level, but they are looking everywhere but the church. Why do we keep waiting for the harvest to come to us? Where do you see the harvest and what does it look like for the church to head out into the fields?
There are ten other questions we can wrestle with from this passage but I’m going to leave it with these. The place I keep coming back to with this passage is that the first evangelist to the Samaritans was an outcast woman with no “evangelism” training. I’ve dedicated my adult life to being trained. We’ve set up the church in a way that we assume the “trained professionals” are going to do the work. The simple message I keep coming back to is this: The woman at the well had a very real encounter with Jesus that revealed her deepest hurts and brought hope and healing. She then felt compelled to tell people about what Jesus was doing in her life. You’ve been given the ability to meet with Jesus and allow him to work in your life. Are you? Do you have something to share with others as an evangelist of the work Jesus is doing in your life?