John 4:5–28

⁵So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. ⁷A woman from 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.) ⁹The 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.) ¹⁰Jesus 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." ¹¹The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹²Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock." ¹³Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but 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." ¹⁵The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water." ¹⁶Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." ¹⁷The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; ¹⁸for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true." ¹⁹The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. ²⁰Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship." ²¹Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²²You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³But 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. ²⁴God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." ²⁵The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things." ²⁶Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am he." ²⁷Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you seek?" or, "Why are you talking with her?" ²⁸So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people,

The woman at the well did not know who was speaking to her. She did not know the gift he had to give her. She only saw a tired man sitting beside the well asking for water.

So often we are just like her. We do not know who is speaking to us or the gift he gives us. We only see a worn, old man sitting standing in a pulpit. When he speaks we only hear a man of flesh and despise his words. When he offers us the gift, we think it is too poor or humble to be of any worth so we scorn it. How often we despise both the gift and the person giving it to us!

How often Jesus speaks to us, every Sunday in fact, but we do not recognize his voice. All we hear is the voice of a man and so we close our ears. All we see is a man of flesh, so we close our eyes. We do not recognize Jesus. It's as if a man dying of hunger would not accept food from an earthenware bowl, because it was not on a silver platter. God speaks his word to us, but instead of running to hear, we stay away, close our ears, shut our eyes because he is not speaking with great eloquence, loud thunders, trumpets blaring, or lightening flashing. That's how we want to hear God, not in the still, quiet voice of a broken down old man, or in the gentle teaching of our parents.

How often we then also despise the gift that God offers us in his word spoken by men. Food served on a paper plate seems uninteresting and boring compared to food on fine china. Aesop told of a rooster who once found a pearl of great value beneath the straw, and said, "I would rather have a single barely corn than a peck of pearls." We despise the pearl of great price from God because we would rather have temporal pleasures of the flesh.

How often we see Jesus and, like the woman at the well, we don't recognize him. "I was thirsty and you did not give me drink. I was hungry and you did not feed me. I was naked and you did not give me clothing." Sound familiar? These are the words of Jesus. How often we have seen Jesus. How often he has begged us for food or drink or clothing of shelter and we have not recognized him. We have turned him away. All we see is a poor, homeless, unemployed, miserable man in torn and tattered clothing and we don't want to be bothered.

Asking the woman for a drink of water, Jesus was really saying to the woman: "I would be happier to reverse the order and give you a drink. I am asking for a drink to quench my physical thirst in order that I might have occasion to give you a drink. If you only realized what a gift is now to be found on earth, you would ask me for it, and I would give you a drink that would taste better than this water. It is of utmost importance to recognize this gift and to know him who gives it. But neither the gift nor the giver is known."

Luther writes: "we...who claim to be saints, pay no heed and do not fully appreciate the value of this treasure offered to us through the Gospel. My dear friends, how few there are among us who esteem this as a genuine treasure, as an eternal gem, as everlasting life! ... most say flippantly, 'What do I care about it?' You will find a hundred thousand people who regard silver mined from the earth as a real treasure. They will not shrink from laboring night and day to acquire such a perishable treasure. Would that we could train our hearts to believe that the preacher's words are God's word, and that the man addressing us is not an angel or a hundred thousand angels but the divine Majesty himself that is preaching there." But to many of us, the fleeting, temporal treasures to be gotten through work and school are far more valuable than God's gifts of grace and eternal life. Many come to churches to find out how to live successful and rich lives in this world. How to better their position or status. They come looking for practical advice on family or financial matters, rather than flock to receive the gifts of forgiveness, salvation and eternal life.

To be sure, all we hear with our ears is the voice of the preacher or of a brother or father. All we behold with our eyes is only a man before us. Just as the woman beheld only a weary traveler, thirsting for water. But if we view the picture correctly, the voice and words of father or pastor are not his own words and doctrine, but those of our Lord and God. It is not a prince, a king, or an archangel whom we hear; it is God himself who declares that he is able and desires to dispense the water of eternal life.

However, we fail to recognize the gift and the Giver. We generally think, "If I had an opportunity to hear God speak in person, I would run my feet bloody to get there." "If I knew of a place in the world where God speaks and anyone can hear God there, I would run there with all haste." But when you get there, what will you see? A poor pastor baptizing and preaching and you will say, "I have been duped! I see only a pastor." We should all like to have God speak to us in his majesty. Well that happened! God did speak in his majesty on Mt. Zion! But the people could not withstand Him. They ran away in terror; they could not approach the Mountain. They cried out to Moses and said, "You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die."

Christ says, "You do not know the gift." We recognize neither the word nor the person of Christ, but we take offense at his humble and weak humanity. When God wants to speak and deal with us, he does not avail himself of an angels, but of parents, of the pastor, or of my neighbor. This puzzles and blinds us so that we fail to recognize God, who is conversing with us through the person or the pastor or the father or the neighbor. That is why Jesus says, "If only you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' then you would run after me and ask me for the living water."

That would be true worship. That would be to worship in spirit and in truth. For the true worship of Jesus is to seek from him the living water of eternal life. True worship is to hunger and thirst for righteousness. True worship is to run after him to hear his words which are the words that give eternal life. True worship is to give him drink when he is thirsty and food when he is hungry for "whatsoever you do to one of the least of these my brethren you do unto me."

And where do we hear his word of eternal life? Where do we receive the living water? Where do we receive the true food from heaven? In word and sacrament. In the preaching of an old, broken down pastor, or the teaching of a sinful father made of clay. In the font of baptism the water of life is poured out on us. Just as Moses struck the side of the rock in the wilderness and water gushed out, St. Paul tells us that the rock was Christ. Christ who was struck on his side, pierced with the sword so that water and blood gushed out. That is the living water we receive in baptism and the blood of the lamb that washes away our sins in Holy Communion. So it is here, in this humble place from a human mouth and hands that God speaks to us and we receive the living water and purifying blood of life everlasting.

True worship is to seek after these things. And that living water wells up inside you like a spring of life that pours out onto those around you whom you help and serve in their needs. Through your words that proclaim the Gospel and deeds of mercy for your neighbor in need, that living water is poured out on others.

Jesus real concern for the woman was not that she give him drink, but that he could give her drink from the living water which is Jesus himself. Now, having drunk from the well of Jesus, our true concern is not that others quench our thirst, but to give them the living water which we have to offer through our confession of faith and the sacraments and by our deeds of mercy and compassion, which is our true worship.

Amen.