By the Well -- Sermon Series

John 4:1-26

July 27, 2025

 

            In her book, Bird by Bird¸ Anne Lamott writes about writing. She writes about the process of writing, the love of writing, the stages of writing, the self-loathing and hating everything that you put on page stage of writing. Bird by Bird is a book by a writer for writers or wanna-be writers. Her goal, I think, was to help other people experience the deep, visceral joy that can come with writing – if you just allow yourself to write.

            Bird by Bird was my first introduction to Anne Lamott, and I have been a devotee ever since. I haven’t read all her books, but I’ve read a fair few, and Bird by Bird is one that I turn to repeatedly when I need a dose of inspiration and courage to face a blank page.

            One thing from this book that has stuck with me is her chapter about perfectionism. Perfectionism, and I’m paraphrasing her, kills creativity. Trying to make each sentence perfect from the very beginning will only make you frustrated and stymied and will eventually drive you away from writing anything. She counsels her readers to write a terrible first draft. Just put everything down on paper. Don’t worry about whether it’s good, or if every plot line makes sense, just get it down. The first draft is all about getting it down on paper. Then in the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and maybe more, drafts, you perfect, you refine, you leave some things in, and you throw other bits away. The key is, she gently but firmly writes, is that you write that terrible first draft to get everything you are creating in any piece of writing onto the page. Don’t worry about it being perfect. Perfecting comes later. But trying to be perfect from the very beginning, trying to make everything just so, will only stop you from writing altogether. Perfectionism kills creativity.

            Sociologist and author, Brene Brown, also talks about the dangers of perfectionism. But she doesn’t limit it to writing, she describes how perfectionism kills our spirits, our souls. Trying to make ourselves perfect, our lives perfect, trying for the appearance of perfection, something that will never happen, not only kills our creativity, it makes life that much harder. Trying to be perfect is an illusion. And it drives us to depression, to self-medicating with food, drink, and other substances, and it keeps people from really seeing themselves honestly and vulnerably as well as seeing others through that same lens. Think about it, if we are constantly trying to be perfect and condemning ourselves for failing – which we do and will because perfection isn’t going to happen on this side of the veil – doesn’t that also translate to condemning and judging others for also failing to be perfect?

            Perfectionism is debilitating. It cripples our creativity and sets unrealistic and unhealthy expectations for ourselves and others. It prevents us from allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and it too often causes us to condemn vulnerability in other people.

            But then there is Jesus, who has the gift for seeing people as they truly are, their imperfections, their flaws, their foibles, their mistakes, and their misdeeds. Jesus sees the truth in other people and loves them anyway. If they need forgiveness and they want it, he forgives them. If they need to speak their name, he asks them to share it. If they need to know that they are loved just because they are a child of God, he makes that truth clear. If a person encountering Jesus needs hope or healing, he offers it. Jesus sees people as they truly are. He sees their heart, their hurt, their hope or lack thereof, and allows them to show themselves as they are to others, to the world.

            So we come to this story from John’s gospel about a Samaritan woman meeting Jesus by the well of Jacob, and Jesus seeing her as she is. I want us, if it is possible, to try and empty our minds of all the preconceived ideas we have about this story. Try, if you are able, to forget the ways that it has been interpreted or misinterpreted in the past. Because it has. Repeatedly. Both traditional interpretation and scholarship have speculated that the woman came to the well alone at the heat of the day and by herself because she was an outcast among her people. In fact, she is an outcast among outcasts. We learn from Jesus in later verses as to why she might be an outcast, but if we look at this text with open minds, with no preconceived notions, all we know about her so far is that she is a woman, a Samaritan, and that she came to draw her water from the well at noon.

            When she gets to the well, she is not alone. Jesus is there. We, the readers, know who Jesus is, but to this woman he is a stranger. But this stranger is thirsty – after all he is clearly traveling, and he must be hot and dusty and parched. So, Jesus, this stranger, asks her to give him a drink. We can assume that the Samaritan woman did just that, but she doesn’t do it without asking a question.

            “How is that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”

            Jews and Samaritans were bitter enemies. That point was made clear in the story of holy ground that we read last week from Luke’s gospel about the Samaritan who helps a stranger on the road to Jericho. Although, Jews and the Samaritans were enemies, they shared a common ancestor in Jacob. And this well where Jesus was sitting and where the woman came to draw water was Jacob’s well. But religious, social, and cultural differences kept Jews and Samaritans apart for centuries.

            Jesus, when he spoke to this woman, when he asked her to give him water, and the fact that he was in Samaria at all, was crossing boundaries and lines that were not supposed to be crossed. He was a man alone speaking to a woman alone. He was a Jew speaking to a Samaritan. And the woman clearly understands all of this, which is why she asks the question of him.

            “How is that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”

            Jesus responds in typical Johannine fashion.

            “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 takes his words literally at first. You don’t have a bucket. How would you give me living water? Where would you get this water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob was? He gave this well to us.             But Jesus responds to her with a deeper meaning to his words. Everyone who drinks from this well will be thirsty again. But those who drink from the living water that I offer will never be thirsty. The water that I offer becomes a gushing spring of eternal life in those who drink it.

            The woman is still hearing him literally. Sir, please give me some of this water, so I don’t have to keep returning to this well; so I don’t have to keep carrying these heavy buckets back and forth. And then we come to the moment in the story when our preconceived notions about the woman kick in. Jesus tells her to go and call her husband and bring him back with her. But the woman tells him that she has no husband. And Jesus says to her,

            “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”

            And it is this one statement by Jesus, this one moment that has influenced interpretation of this story for centuries. This woman has had five husbands, and she is currently living with a man who is not her husband. That must mean that she is a fallen woman! That must mean that she is a terrible sinner and an outcast among outcasts. But does Jesus condemn her? Does he criticize? Or does he just state this as the facts of her life?

            In truth, this woman like any other woman in that time and context would have had no control over her marital status. It’s highly unlikely that she had any choice in her marriages. Husbands could divorce wives at the drop of a hat, but the reverse was not true. It’s quite possible that she was married to five brothers in secession, each one dying and passing her to the next brother – which was the law. There is nothing in the text to suggest that the man she was currently living with was there for anything other than protection. There’s a reason why widows and orphans are emphasized in scripture as needing special care. They were the most vulnerable in society. A woman needed a man, in some fashion, for protection.

            All we really know at this moment is that Jesus shows the woman that he knows her. He knows her life. He knows her story. And he lets her know that he knows without shame or criticism. Again, there is nothing in the text to suggest that he was shaming her.  As preacher and teacher, Fred Craddock, wrote,

            “All we know is that Jesus, as is his custom in John, reveals special knowledge of the individuals he encounters and alerts them that in meeting him they may encounter the transcendent.”

            Jesus did not shame this woman; he just spoke to her vulnerability. He spoke to her vulnerability, her lack of perfection, by first being vulnerable himself. He was alone and thirsty and in need. To get water, he had to ask for her help – a Jewish man asked for help from a Samaritan woman. That was vulnerable. And then without shame or criticism, Jesus lets this woman know that he sees her, really and truly sees her. He sees her past, he sees her present, and he sees who she truly is at heart. He sees her as the beloved child of God that she is. He sees her.

            Jesus sees this woman, and he tells her about living water that will quench the thirst in her soul. He tells her that worship will no longer be limited to a geographical place, and that salvation is coming through the Jewish people but ultimately all true worshippers will worship God in spirit and in truth. The woman confesses that she believes the Messiah is coming, and Jesus tells her, “I’m here.”

            Our reading today ends at this moment, but what the woman does next is remarkable and not often given the credit that she deserves. She leaves her water jar by the well, the jar of water that could only quench a physical thirst. She runs back to the city and tells everyone that they should come and see. Come and see this man who saw me. Can he be the Messiah? Which was her way of saying that he most definitely is the Messiah.

            This woman, with whom Jesus has the longest conversation recorded in John’s gospel, is also the first evangelist. She does what a true evangelist does, she tells people about her experience with God through Jesus. That’s what evangelism is, really. It’s proclaiming the good news not through intimidation or scare tactics but just telling others that you bumped into God and now everything is different because it turns out the ground you were standing on was holy, and you didn’t even know it.

            In this sermon series, we’ve considered that holy ground is where we discover our call. Holy ground is where we wrestle and struggle with God. Holy ground is ground where we show mercy or receive mercy from someone else, and holy ground is where we are seen. Holy ground is where we are seen for all that we are, good, bad, and otherwise. Holy ground is where we can let go of our need to appear perfect. Holy ground is where we are most vulnerable and loved unconditionally anyway. Holy ground is any place where we encounter God through unexpected intuition or unexpected people. Holy ground is the ground where God meets us just as we are, right we are, and calls us to see ourselves, each other, and the world through the eyes of love. And the more we can see through the eyes of love, the more we can see others – all others – as God sees, then the more we understand that every inch of ground, every foot, every meter, every acre, every topography, every place, everywhere is holy, and that makes all the difference. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.