Sermon: The Samaritan Woman at the Well
Pittsburgh New Church
February 2, 2020
Rev. Calvin Odhner
Text: John 4
“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” TCR 579
Introduction
Good morning and welcome to the Pittsburgh New Church! We have been studying the beginning of the Lord’s ministry. He’s been baptized by John the Baptist, gone through a forty day fast followed by temptations in the wilderness and has performed the miracle at Cana—changing water into wine. Now he is on the move again, to Samaria.
Sermon
We read:
4 He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. 4 But He needed to go through Samaria.
When the Lord’s on the move you can be sure, because the Word is Divine, this describes something happening in our spiritual life! At the time of the Lord’s pilgrimage on earth the land of Canaan was divided into three regions—Judea, Samaria, and Galilea. These three regions stand for the three degrees of our mind. Moving from Judea (the higher part of our mind where good is implanted) to the lower part of our mind (the natural part), truth must go through the rational part of our mind—called Samaria.
Let’s talk about Samaria for a minute, this was the thriving capital where the 10 tribes of Israel made their homes. It is here the Assyrians swept down from the north and captured those pesky Jews, carrying them off to Assyria. To replace these Jews the king of Samaria peopled Canaan with Assyrians from his own land—what better way to make sure there would be no resistance in the future! The Assyrians brought with them their idol worship.
At one point these Assyrians were being eaten by wild lions. The king of Assyria thought that it must be because they are not worshiping the God of the land—Jehovah. So, he sent a Jewish priest back to Samaria from Assyria to teach them how to worship Jehovah along with their idols. These new “Samaritans” still represented the “rational mind” but now, because they opposed Israel, they represented a perverted rational that was opposed to the spiritual. They worshiped Jehovah and they worshiped their own gods—a sort of Jewish/gentile. Does that sound familiar? Somebody who sort of worships the Lord and sort of worships their own gods? Yep! It’s us! It’s our rational mind. We know the Lord, we know what He wants us to do, but this pesky love of self also has needs and wants to be worshiped! Every piece of this history describes us to the last letter!
5 So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
It may seem like this traveling around by the Lord from place to place was random, until we learn that this exact plot of ground is the one Jacob gave to Joseph two thousand years earlier. Everything in the Word connects with everything else. In fact, Joseph’s bones are buried on this site! Jacob represents the natural mind and Joseph represents the spiritual. The transfer of the plot of ground from Jacob to Joseph represents natural good becoming spiritual. This is what is about to happen with the Samaritan woman at the well.
Despite our need to worship foreign gods, the Lord has implanted good in us that seeks the truth—just as these Samaritans have! His coming to this Samaritan city spiritually means that His influx of divine truth into the parts of us that have an affinity for good is where He seeks to give us a deeper perception of the truth. This teaches us how little we know of the work the Lord is doing behind the scenes, it’s staggering! When the Lord’s on the move in your mind, He’s coming to awaken every good thing in you! He is connecting in every way imaginable that He can connect with you! Remember what He told us:
16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.
(John 15:16)
It’s our job to just begin the reading of the Word and the applying of little bits and pieces where we can in our life just crack the door open to allow the Lord to work in your external life. This is where He brings the “living water!”
6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” 8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
The well represents the literal sense of the Word. The woman of Samaria represents our state—one of having interest in the Word and coming to draw truth from it as we are doing today. But also knowing we have our idols waiting, doing push-ups outside and waiting for us to walk out those church doors! The Lord’s thirst is His desire to save everyone!
9 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
Just imagine being so resentful to a race of people you weren’t allowed to even ask them for a drink of water! This is the predicament the Jews got themselves into and it had been getting worse for 700 years. It’s the predicament we can all get ourselves into with longstanding resentments! We cannot dissolve these on our own! We need the power of the Lord which we receive in humility when we draw from His well. This is why the Lord had to come again, we read
that but for the Lord's coming no one could be saved, is to be understood as meaning that no one could be regenerated but for the Lord's coming. (TCR 579)
Without the Lord “coming into our mind,” we are as trapped as the Jews of old. This hatred for their Samaritan brothers represents the separation of faith and charity. When what we know to be true stays in our mind and doesn’t come out into the world in our daily life. But here by the well, we witness the pattern of respect and tenderness demonstrated by the Lord that we need to have for our neighbor. The Lord shows the woman this is why He came, to break down the barriers between people.
The truths that we learn from the Word are first just knowledge, they have no life. Only when you walk out of here today and connect the truth you have learned with love and affection for the Lord, making Him the source of all life and acting on that truth with all your heart does it become “living water.” This is the “gift of God,” that the saving truth in the inner man implanted by the Lord craves and begs for the truths received from the Word in the outer man so that when the inner truth is lived it becomes that living stream carrying life and health wherever it goes! Your challenge this week is to spend five whole minutes with the Lord at the well—ask Him what Living Truth is needed in your life. Ask Him what truth He wants you to bring into your life.
“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”