The Woman at the Well

Samaria was not the destination for Jesus and His disciples. Earlier in the chapter they were trying to go to Galilee, and Samaria is where they had to go through. On the map it was the shortest route, but most Jews took a route around Samaria. The Samaritans and the Jews shared a deep-seated rift that was centuries long, and most decided it was not worth it.

A peek into Lindsay's brain: growing up there was a song called We're Going on a Bear Hunt, with the refrain "We can't go over it. We can't go under it. We've got to go through it." She can just imagine the disciples having their own Hebrew version of the song, looking at Jesus, and walking on.

John adds an extra detail: the town was called Sychar, and Sychar means the town of drunkards. "What kind of town do you have to be to be actually called the town of drunkards?"

Pastor Lindsay grew up in a little town called Bellflower, on the edge of Orange County and LA in California. It was built to be a utopian little 1950s suburb, with everything in little blocks and squares, cute little homes, and a really sweet space. Right next to it was a town called Compton, the same town as the album Straight Outta Compton.

Unless you owned a bulletproof car and had security, it was a place you went around. For the kids in the back seat it was frustrating, because going through Compton was the easiest route to the airport, the beach, or anywhere else, and they all knew it from the maps they kept in the back seat. Compton was known for its crime, its gangs, and its drugs. "It's just not the first place that you would put on Zillow to find a family home." The few times they had to drive through, the streets were dirty, the lawns were weeds, and window bars were just part of the decor. She remembers looking at the different designs of bars you could get.

That is a picture of the town Jesus and the disciples were going through.

Pastor Lindsay thinks John put a little jab in here: "Jesus, you picked the shortest route and you're still tired." John sets the entire scene. You know the place and you know what it feels like. Jesus is about to meet the worst woman in the worst town in the worst country.

The well was kind of like the Target of Sychar. It is where all the women would come and get their coffees, aka their well stuff, and where all the gossip happened. In a town named the town of drunkards, there was probably a whole lot of gossip. But this woman came at noon.

Another peek into Lindsay's brain: Jesus was taking a minute to Himself because He was a little tired, and the Samaritan woman was trying to avoid people. She wonders if both of them got to the well and were quietly thinking, "Dang it, who's going to talk first?"

The Samaritan woman could not understand why a Jew would ask her for a drink. Jesus answered that if she knew the gift of God and who was asking, she would have asked Him, and He would have given her living water.

She pointed out that He had nothing to draw with and the well was deep, and asked if He was greater than their father Jacob, who gave them the well. "She's trying real hard to put this together, guys." Jesus told her that everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but the water He gives becomes a spring welling up to eternal life. Then she asked for that water, so she would not have to keep coming back to draw.

Jesus told her to go call her husband and come back. She said she had no husband, and Jesus told her she was right: she had had five husbands, and the man she had now was not her husband. Jesus had just met the worst woman in the worst town in the worst country.

Pastor Lindsay can just begin to imagine how trapped she must have felt, and how ignored she must have been. In the first century, women could not divorce their husbands, which means that five times a man had rejected her. "If you've read this story before, we've imagined that maybe this woman is someone who is choosing this life. But in reality, she is a woman who has experienced tremendous rejection."

When Pastor Lindsay was about 13, her dad moved the family from Bellflower to San Diego. It was a little bit of an upgrade, because Compton had started to leak into Bellflower. In that season she lost friends and did not quite know how to figure out what was going on.

She has been a type 1 diabetic since she was 3 years old, and food had been something that controlled a lot of her life. As life began to feel really out of control, she did the only thing that made sense to her brain: she decided to control the one thing that was controlling her, which was food. That put her on a trajectory of about a 15-year battle with eating disorders, different ones she had to navigate.

Part of what she had to work through was the shame of being different. There was shame associated with the whispers, and a lot of those whispers were in church. There was shame associated with the eyes she could see assessing her body as it disappeared. And there were conversations she knew were happening about her without her.

Years later she experienced the same kind of thing, but this time it was about her son. Their second kiddo, Elijah, was born with Down syndrome. With that diagnosis she learned, in the most amazing way, how to see disability and parenting in a completely different light. It has been a beautiful thing, and they found an amazing community and were surrounded by family and friends.

What she did not anticipate was how people outside would perceive them. As Elijah grew, she became increasingly aware of the eyes on them: the looks when his behavior did not fit the norm, the discomfort when people did not know how to interact with them, the judgment about their parenting, and straight-up pity. Some people just did not know, and in an effort to help, kept their distance.

There was that familiar feeling again of being watched, of being misunderstood, and of being on the outside. "I think the woman at the well knew something about that, too."

This woman, labeled and living on the outside of society, told Jesus she knew the Messiah was coming and would explain everything. Jesus declared that He was the one. When the disciples returned, they were surprised to find Him talking with a woman, but no one asked what He wanted or why He was talking with her.

"I think that water jar, church, represents all that she carried to the well." Rejection, pain, isolation, shame, labels, and hopelessness. Being stuck in her situation and in repeated patterns, even the pattern of getting up and waiting until noon every single day. Pastor Lindsay said that nowadays we would probably say she had a little bit of PTSD and some trauma.

The one labeled the worst woman from the worst city in the worst country is the one Jesus made space for. Her day started like any other day, with no different expectations. She brought her jar to the well, and it was only going to get heavier the more she filled it. But on this day, Jesus was there. "And the woman who came alone left inviting an entire town to meet him."

Her past had not changed. She still had her story and her history. But Jesus knew her entire story, and He still made room for her.

Maybe today you are carrying your own water jar. Maybe it is rejection, shame, or disappointment, or the disappointment of others. Maybe it is the opinions of others, or perfectionism, or ego, or the need to control. "That was mine." Or all the things that have gotten really heavy over time as we have lived a little bit of life. "I'm here to tell you today that Jesus is waiting at the well for you."

At the very end, it says she left her jar. Jesus did not call after her and say she forgot something. He let her go. What if today you left your jar at the well? What if the things you have carried no longer get to define you? He offers the same living water He offered her.

Pastor Brady asked the church to stand and thank the Lord for Pastor Lindsay sharing such a vulnerable story. He asked everyone to hold up the bread as a symbol of what they were leaving behind: "Father in heaven, I'm leaving my shame, my guilt, my embarrassment, whatever it is that you need to leave behind today." We break the bread to remember that we are all broken. There is not a perfect person in the room. We are all messy, we need redemption and healing, and from time to time we need restoration. Pastor Brady prayed: "Father in heaven, we're so grateful that you've come to make all things new. And that Lord, you find us broken, but you don't leave us broken. Lord, you found the woman at the well as a broken woman, but you didn't let her stay that way. Lord, you healed her. You gave her hope. You gave her a path. You showed her how to get to a place of wholeness. And Father, today we lift up that bread and we receive our own healing today. We receive healing in Jesus name."

Before the cup, he thought about how unkind the woman at the well must have been to herself, beating herself up every day reliving her bad decisions. He asked the church to be kind to themselves and give themselves permission to make a mistake. "The good news is Jesus has already made up his mind to forgive you." What we take in the cup is grace, and some need a gallon of grace. Pastor Brady prayed: "Father, we thank you that you spilled blood, that you shed blood for our forgiveness. And today we receive it in Jesus name."

Pastor Joseph closed with a blessing: "God, we thank you for who you are, what you have done for each and every one of us. I want to echo what Pastor Brady said. God, oceans of grace, we receive it now. We thank you. And as we head into our Mondays and the rest of this week, may we be transformed into the image of Jesus and become a preview of heaven for everyone who experiences us in Jesus name."