Jesus, the Woman at the Well, and the Culture Wars: Offering “Living Water” Without Compromise

Scripture Reading: 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.”

SERMON • GOSPEL OF JOHN

Living Water for All: Grace Without Conditions

A Sermon on John 4 — The Woman at the Well

Text: John 4:1–26  •  Third Sunday in Lent

Grace, mercy and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

A Word That Works Two Ways

In the Gospel of John, Jesus really likes puns. He uses them more than once, and it is the misunderstanding of a word — a word that can be translated in two different ways — that drives some of the most important conversations in the Gospel.

In John chapter three, when Jesus is talking with Nicodemus, he says, "You must be born again." But that phrase could just as easily be translated, "born from above." Nicodemus hears the words and says, "That means I have to climb back into my mother's womb." Of course, Jesus is talking about being baptized with water and the Spirit, born into Christ's kingdom. That is the same kind of double-meaning at work here in John 4, with the phrase "living water."

"Living water" could simply mean a river. Living water was water that moved. If you walked over to the Jordan River and watched it flowing past, you would say, "Ah — that is living water," as compared to the still water sitting in a lake or a cistern. But we know that Jesus isn't talking about a river, or regular water at all. He is not even offering — as the woman initially thinks — some magical water that would fill her cup every day and keep her from ever having to come to the well again.

Jesus is offering the woman at the well water that leads to eternal life. The water we know comes to us in our baptism by the grace of Jesus Christ, welling up in us as a spring of eternal life, so that no matter what happens, we will rise on the last day. Christ has given us the power and joy of the resurrection, here and now, by his grace.

A Woman No One Was Supposed to Talk To

It is not a surprise that the woman did not quite understand what Jesus was offering. That is really not the way she would have expected anyone to talk to her — especially this stranger sitting at the well. In fact, she is surprised he is talking to her at all.

The Gospel of John goes into some detail about the divisions that existed between Jesus and this woman. First, it tells us she was a woman, and a Samaritan. Both of these were challenging barriers to cross for a Jew of Jesus's day. John lays it out plainly: "Jews have no dealings with Samaritans."

There is a long history behind that statement, and perhaps the best way to explain it is this: the Jews were in the middle of something we might recognize today as a culture war. When the Jewish people came back from exile, the lesson they had learned was, we have to keep the law of God perfectly, or else this will happen again. Then they kept getting conquered by people who didn't want them to follow God's law — first the Greeks, then the Romans. Whenever people with power and money tell you that the best way to live is not the way the Bible says, you end up with a culture war. One group says we must hold harder to the religious tradition. Another says the way of the conquerors is stronger and we should follow them.

Part of that conflict involved rejecting the Samaritans. Their history was problematic, as far as the southern kingdom was concerned. They had broken off in the north and established worship in places that were not the temple of God. There were wars over it. And when Assyria attacked the northern kingdom of Israel, they intermingled the Israelites there with Gentiles. The people of the southern kingdom believed the northerners had compromised themselves through intermarriage as well.

So the Samaritans were, simply, people you hated. And that is what happens in a culture war: you stop seeing individuals as people created in the image of God — people God cares about — and you see them as representatives of a class. When you meet someone like that, you are required to hate them.

Jesus Does Not Do That

But that is not what Jesus does, is it? He goes to her. He asks her to give him a drink of water. And he offers her the great gift he came to give: living water. He tells her that if she knew who he was, she would ask him for it — water that gives eternal life.

He then reveals things about her life that she had kept hidden. She was a Samaritan. But she was also an outcast in her own community because of the life she had lived.

What is remarkable, though, is this: when Jesus offers her living water, he does not say, "Clean up your act, and then I will give it to you." He does not say, "Sort your life out, and then you can receive the gift of life." He does not say, "Become just like us, and then you can start learning about me."

He simply says: Come. Receive living water. Come and hear about salvation.

And that is exactly what happens. As the woman learns that he is a prophet and the Christ, she runs to the rest of the town: "Come and see this man! He told me everything I ever did." She experiences Christ, she is intrigued, she brings others — and at no point in the story does she have to change first. Christ offers her living water, and the only response asked of her is: Will you believe?

This Is How He Comes to Us Too

This goes against the way everyone would have seen it in Jesus's day. The Pharisees — the warriors in that culture war — saw people as props to be used in the battle for the soul of the nation. They didn't see them as human beings who needed to learn, grow, and receive the promise of God. Jesus offered her a pure act of grace: eternal life through him.

And it is actually the same way he comes to all of us. I was baptized before I cleaned up my act — because I was a squirming little baby, a sinner. I hadn't yet learned not to be as selfish as young children are, because when you are small, everything is yours, and you demand attention, and you do not understand when you must wait. This is how God works. When he offers the gift of eternal life, he grants it by grace, through faith, on account of Christ — before we change, before we grow in faith and understanding of God's will, before we do anything to live our lives better.

It begins with a gift. It begins with grace. And then that grace leads to growth in obedience — growth in understanding who God is and faithfulness for the future.

Living in the Midst of a Culture War

This raises a question for Christians today, who live in the middle of a land that is still fighting culture wars. How do we navigate difficult and divisive issues? The culture war around us wants us to see other people as props in the debate as well. How do we cross boundaries? How do we reach out with the love of Jesus to people who are not Christians — without affirming sin? How can we offer the world the living water we have received while also calling people to new life in Christ, to be transformed over time, just as we have been?

It is genuinely challenging. No matter how welcoming a congregation is, no matter how loving, there will always be sins that we find acceptable and sins that we find unacceptable. That is how human beings are.

We do not have a God who says, "Clean up your act, and then hear my Word." We do not have a God who says, "Reform yourself, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and then you may receive the gift of life." We have a God who comes to all and says: Believe in me. Receive my gift. And you will live forever.

Which means unbelievers need a chance to hear about Jesus — to experience his grace, to learn who he is, just as we have. And then comes the growth. Jesus offers all people living water. People need a chance to dip their toe in before they drink.

A Hard Example: Caring for People Without Becoming Culture Warriors

Today I want us to think through one of the most difficult hot-button issues of our time: the question of gender identity and transgenderism. This is a big one. And every time I encounter it in public debate, what I notice is that the people involved are being treated as props in a culture war, rather than as human beings. All sides are fighting over ideas without genuinely caring about the humans caught in the middle.

We in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, a confessionally conservative church body, need to figure out how not to be culture warriors — but to be like Christ, and offer living water.

There are many people who have been told that changing their name or pronouns, or transitioning, would solve all their problems — that the pain they were experiencing would leave and a new life of happiness would begin. Many of them find out that it didn't work. I believe we will see a number of people who have taken that step turn and look for something more: the something that all people who do not know Jesus are missing — the living water of eternal life, the gift of Christ, the grace we have received.

There must be an option for Christian churches that is somewhere between hanging a pride flag out front and slamming the door in people's faces. An option that is like what Jesus does: offering the gift of living water without demand, yet without affirming sin.

How Our Sacramental Practice Can Help

I think our sacramental tradition actually gives us a clear way to do exactly that. The distinction between the hearer and the communicant allows us to welcome people into our midst without affirming sin. People who come to listen, explore our doctrine, experience Christ, and learn from him can do so before committing to join our congregation and our fellowship.

This is how the church has always drawn people into the faith. It allows people an in-between space — to dip their toe into the water and check out Jesus, hear his Word, grow and be worked on by the power of the Holy Spirit — before taking the next step to commit, to learn more, and to join our community.

But here is the key: if we only do this for the hot-button issues, we would actually become the very thing people accuse us of being. If we treat the "culture war" topics differently from everything else, all the labels would be correct. We have to do it for all who come to us, because it is not the hot-button issues that we care about — it is the sin that inhabits all of us, the thing that leads us to death without Christ.

Every human who walks into our congregation carries that. You. Me. Everyone. This is why we treat everyone the same way, whether the sin is obvious or not. Because Jesus offers all people living water — whether they are caught up in the issues that make headlines or not. He calls all to drink of this living water and have eternal life.

Our sacramental tradition gives us a way to be welcoming, open, and loving — while also giving people room to grow before they commit.

In Jesus's name. Amen.