He Knows Me Inside and Out

Gathering the Outcasts

As we continue in our Gathering the Outcasts Series, we remember the promises God made to outcasts – specifically those whose race and/or gender identity were outside of what the Israelites accepted through the Prophet Isaiah. We also remember the scripture from Acts where those promises began to materialize as Phillip baptized an Ethiopian Eunuch.

Today, we read from the Gospel of John. We’ll listen together as Jesus engages with a woman who has been outcast from her community because of her choices and lifestyle. We’ll hear him offer her living water and consider the love and life Jesus offers her – and all her community.

He Knows Me Inside and Out

Jesus realized that the Pharisees were keeping count of the baptisms that he and John performed (although his disciples, not Jesus, did the actual baptizing). They had posted the score that Jesus was ahead, turning him and John into rivals in the eyes of the people. So Jesus left the Judean countryside and went back to Galilee.

To get there, he had to pass through Samaria. He came into Sychar, a Samaritan village that bordered the field Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was still there. Jesus, worn out by the trip, sat down at the well. It was noon.

A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said, “Would you give me a drink of water?” (His disciples had gone to the village to buy food for lunch.)

The Samaritan woman, taken aback, asked, “How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (Jews in those days wouldn’t be caught dead talking to Samaritans.)

Jesus answered, “If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water.”

The woman said, “Sir, you don’t even have a bucket to draw with, and this well is deep. So how are you going to get this ‘living water’? Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well and drank from it, he and his sons and livestock, and passed it down to us?”

Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.”

The woman said, “Sir, give me this water so I won’t ever get thirsty, won’t ever have to come back to this well again!”

He said, “Go call your husband and then come back.”

“I have no husband,” she said.

“That’s nicely put: ‘I have no husband.’ You’ve had five husbands, and the man you’re living with now isn’t even your husband. You spoke the truth there, sure enough.”

“Oh, so you’re a prophet! Well, tell me this: Our ancestors worshiped God at this mountain, but you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place for worship, right?”

“Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you Samaritans will worship the Father neither here at this mountain nor there in Jerusalem. You worship guessing in the dark; we Jews worship in the clear light of day. God’s way of salvation is made available through the Jews. But the time is coming—it has, in fact, come—when what you’re called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter.

“It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of Truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.”

The woman said, “I don’t know about that. I do know that the Messiah is coming. When he arrives, we’ll get the whole story.”

“I am he,” said Jesus. “You don’t have to wait any longer or look any further.”

Just then his disciples came back. They were shocked. They couldn’t believe he was talking with that kind of woman. No one said what they were all thinking, but their faces showed it.

The woman took the hint and left. In her confusion she left her water pot. Back in the village she told the people, “Come see a man who knew all about the things I did, who knows me inside and out. Do you think this could be the Messiah?” And they went out to see for themselves.

…

Many of the Samaritans from that village committed themselves to him because of the woman’s witness: “He knew all about the things I did. He knows me inside and out!” They asked him to stay on, so Jesus stayed two days. A lot more people entrusted their lives to him when they heard what he had to say. They said to the woman, “We’re no longer taking this on your say-so. We’ve heard it for ourselves and know it for sure. He’s the Savior of the world!”

John 4:1-30, 39-42 (MSG)

Commentary

Skimming over the baptism scorekeeping, which is admittedly weird and sensationalist of the Pharisees, we follow Jesus as he leaves a place that has reduced his ministry to a numbers game and passes through Samaria, a region occupied by people of both Jewish and Gentile descent who are not permitted to worship in the temple in Jerusalem and so have built their own temple and practice Judaism their own way (There is deep animosity between the Jewish people and the Samaritans, which comes up in many scriptures, as it does in this one).

As Jesus is passing through, he happens upon Jacob’s well at noon and stops to rest. Typically, at noon, a well would be deserted. The work of walking out, fetching water using a rope and bucket, then hauling the water back to the village was hard and time-consuming. People would have opted out of performing that task in the heat of the day, preferring to get their water from the well during first light or, if necessary, dusk. And yet, as Jesus is resting there in the heat of the day, a Samaritan woman comes to the well.

We learn about why she’s come to the well in the middle of the day later in the passage; she’s been married five times, and the man she’s living with now is the 6th in her string of failed relationships. We don’t know what led her to bounce between men, whether she’s been widowed, subject to abuse, betrayed by her partners, or is an adulterer herself, but we do know enough to understand that a woman who has been married five times and is living with a sixth man would not be well received, trusted, or accepted in most public spaces. She has been outcast from a group of outcasts, rejected by people whom the Jewish people had rejected.

This explains why she comes to the well in the middle of the day, when no one else is there. This way, she can gather her water in peace, free from distrustful or pitying glances and whispered insults. Yet today, when she arrives Jesus is there, and the two exchange words.

Jesus asks for water, and the woman is surprised he even spoke to her due to their racial differences. Their conversation is almost combative. She doesn’t give him the water he requests, but does offer him plenty of sass – about his request, about his lack of bucket, about the discrepancy between the Jewish and Samaritan faith.

Jesus, calm and – in my prophetic imagination – sympathetic to her defensive use of sass to avoid connection, tells her that he knows her life story. He shares with her about her own failed relationships, her current living situation, exposes the painful, trembling wound she holds inside herself, brings up the thing that her community so hates her for, and he doesn’t judge it one bit. He reveals that he sees the longing for connection and love within her, and in place of the condemnation she likely expected, he tells her to bring it all to God.

He offers her living water, to quench even the driest places of her soul, tells her to worship God in total pursuit of Truth, bringing all the truth of who she is to glorify the One True God. He encourages her to be simply and honestly herself before God and to worship as her true self, no pretense, no walls, no politesse as barrier. Jesus encourages her to bring the fullness of who she is. There is no talk of repentance, only of the living water God provides and the pursuit of Truth through authentic worship.

The woman is so moved by what Jesus says, how he knew her and offered her love and hope, that she goes and tells everyone in her village about the exchange. This outcast leaves her bucket behind in her haste to share with those who had cast her out the love, hope, and encouragement she has received.

And when the villagers come and meet Jesus, hear him speak and experience his love and light, they believe as well, proclaiming “He is the Savior of the World!”

Salvation coming to the outcasts of Judaism, because the Gospel came to the outcast of the outcasts.

Questions

Jesus’ and John’s ministries had been reduced to a numbers’ game by the Pharisees of Judea, so Jesus leaves to return to Galilee. Why is this reduction so wrong? Can the impact of ministry be quantified in that way? How might churches today be too focused on numbers and not focused enough on the impact of their ministry and mission?

Jesus stops at a well at noon (a place only an outcast would come) and speaks with the woman who arrives there. He offers no judgment, no call for repentance, but shares only that he knows her, sees her, and encourages her to bring her whole self to God in worship and in pursuit of Truth. How does this compare with the church’s usual approach to outcasts today? Are we modeling Jesus’ love in our conversations with those we don’t understand? How can we embody this encouraging love of Jesus more fully?

Jesus works through this outcast woman, giving her the Gospel message to deliver to the community which had ostracized her. In what ways is Jesus working through the outcasts around us? How can we honor, celebrate, and welcome them into the Church and the Kingdom of God?

Jesus knows all about the woman at the well, even the most painful, shameful piece of her story. He brings it to the light and waters it with honesty, compassion, and encouragement. What piece of yourself are you guarding? What makes you feel judged or unworthy?What painful, shameful piece of your story is Jesus pulling into the light? Will you let yourself be vulnerable and honest with God, letting that piece come into the light, so you can worship God with your fullest, truest self?

A Blessing for Your Week

Child of God,

May you know that you are more than the judgments people give you
That your ministry is more than numbers on a wall
That your personhood is more than your mistakes or failures.
May your heart break open and let the light of Christ shine in,
illuminating the dark hidden places,
That your worship may be in fullness and in truth.
May God give you eyes to see others
That you might offer encouraging love to the outcast and alone,
That you might hear the Gospel Truth from all the places God speaks.
And may you know in truth,
That God knows all the darkest, driest parts of you,
Offers them living water, and loves you, just as you are.

Amen.