Soul Thirst (3/5/18 The Book of John #20)

ATTN: When I was 14 years old, my family moved to the states from Korea. Needless to say it was quite an adjustment for me, especially as a teenager who was trying to find himself, it brought about a lot of self-doubt.  Different language, different culture, different skin-color. Really, all I ever wanted was to fit in. I wanted to know that I belonged here. So, naturally I abhorred anything about me that stuck out because that reminded me that I might not belong here. So, I hated the way I looked. Flat nose, slanty eyes, yellow skin. I played baseball in high school and right before the game, we’d put our hands together for a team chant, but when we did, my hand would be the only yellow hand in the midst of whole lot of pinkish white hands. I hated my slanty eyes so much that I would purposely try to make my eyes look big by going like this – one girl commented, why do you always look angry? I wasn’t trying to look angry. I was merely trying to make my eyes look big like everyone else’s. When watching a sitcom on TV, whenever I’d hear the laugh track, I’d just laugh along with it even though I didn’t understand the joke because of English. And I watched alone! I wanted to convince myself that I belonged.

     I didn’t have the word to describe what I was experiencing back then. But now I do. The word is thirsty. I was  thirsty for belonging. I was thirsty for acceptance. I was thirsty for significance.

IDENTYFY:

Has your soul ever been thirsty? It is quite possible that you do not know that your soul had been thirsty. The woman that we read about today didn’t know her soul was thirsty until Jesus pointed it out to her. She went from a man to man, a failed relationship to failed relationship, maybe just maybe, this one is the right one and I will finally feel fulfilled and happy and it not turning out that way, moving on to another man, only to find out that he’s not that different either. For you, it may not be a man or a woman. It may be your work that you are trying to find your satisfaction in. Many people try to find it in financial security. “I don’t want to be rich. I just want to be debt-free!” That’s a thirst. How secure is secure? Young people often try to find it in social media, approval, acceptance, and a sense of belonging. But have we realized all these point to one thing? And that is a spiritual hunger or thirst we have. It’s a spiritual thirst we try to meet with physical means, which will never work, like putting a square peg in a round hole.

TRANS: Today, we see Jesus, drawing this out from a woman who didn’t know the source of her thirst and kept on drinking from the wrong fountain. How does Jesus quench her thirst? (meet her deepest need?) 1. By choosing and planning a meeting with her. 2. By breaking social norms to pursue her. 3. By pointing out her failed attempts. And 4. By giving her Himself as the living water. [Not going to be able to finish. Two part]

Background: Samaria was a region that was located in between Judea and Galilee. Judea was in the south and Galilee up north. Samaria was in the middle. And the backdrop is that Jesus was trying to go from Judea to Galilee. So, think: Jesus is in Tacoma. He wants to go to Seattle. And to do so, the quickest way is through Federal Way on I-5. So, the fastest way to get from Judea to Galilee was to go right through Samaria, but most Jews did not do this. Rather than going through Samaria, which would be the shortest route, they would go East of Samaria and bypass the region. Why? Because Jews and Samaritans hated each other. They have a political history with each other that put them at odds. In 720 B.C. Assyrians conquered Israel, exiled the elites of the nation out of Israel and instead imported a bunch of foreigners to live in the town called Samaria. Now over time, the Jews living in that area intermarried with foreigners and produced a mixed blood offsprings.. Now, to pure-blooded Jews, this was a reminder of their defeat and shame. And so, even though it was not the fault of the Samaritans, after all, they didn’t choose to be born mixed, but because of what they represented to the Jews, they were hated. Later on, the Samaritans set up their own place of worship on Mount Gerezim to compete with the temple in Jerusalem. These Samaritans were hated so much by the Jews that Samaritans were considered lower than tax collectors, and even slaves. They were the lowest of the low. As a matter of fact, if they wanted to cuss someone out, they would call them Samaritans! And that would be a terrible insult.

 

1. 1-6: So, Jesus enters this hostile region of Samaria where not many Jews are found, if any. Why would He do so when most Jews preferred to go around and avoid Samaria altogether? In v. 4, John says Jesus “had to” pass through Samaria. What is it that made it a “had to” for Jesus to pass through Samaria? I believe the “had to” in this case is not referring to the lack of other options, but the divine appointment He had with the woman.  
2.     Jesus had a divine appointment with this woman that looked like a coincidence on the surface.

Some clues as to why I believe this was a divine appointment. 1) He didn’t have to go through Samaria due to lack of other options. As I have stated before, most Jews would prefer to go around Samaria to the east, bypassing it altogether. Now, perhaps it was a matter of time. Maybe Jesus had to go through Samaria in that he was in a hurry to get to Galilee and going through Samaria was the only way to get there on time. But that doesn’t work either because in v. 40, John tells us that Jesus stayed in Samaria for two more days. So, He wasn’t in a hurry to get to Galilee. Also, 2) He sent out the disciples away to get lunch. They didn’t all have to go. But He wanted to be alone with this woman. 3) he was sitting by the well at 12 noon when it would be the hottest. He wouldn’t be doing this unless He was waiting for somebody to come to that spot. 4) and he knew all about this woman, her past sins and her current struggles. This is Jesus leaving the 99 sheep and going after the one sheep that is astray. This is Jesus going after the prodigal daughter that is living licentiously. This is what He meant to do when He said in John 10:16, “And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” This Samaritan woman was a sheep of other pen – a gentile and despised woman.

Now, did the woman have any idea about this divine appointment? As far as she’s concerned, it’s pure coincidence that this Jewish man is sitting by the well in the middle of the day. She doesn’t know who He is and why He’s there. She recognizes that he’s a Jew which is strange because you don’t see them here very often. All she knows that He’s sitting there by the well, probably thirsty and trying to get some water. But she sees that He has no bucket or anything to draw the water. So, tough luck, she probably thought. “I have the bucket but he sure isn’t going to ask me since Jews didn’t talk to Samaritans, and I’m certainly not going to ask him if he wants to borrow my bucket…”  So, she was just going to do her thing and go back home and that will be that. Maybe even a sense of pleasure that this Jewish man would be staring right at her bucket but can’t ask because He’s a Jewish prig who’s too proud to ask a Samaritan woman. Well, His loss!

 

1. 7-9 But a shock! He talks to her! “Give me a drink.” She can’t believe it! She says, “How is that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” She didn’t expect this. But He did. He planned it all out. The most precious thing that Jesus had was time. Throughout His entire ministry which lasted three years – the most precious three years that universe had ever known – He was on a time table. He knew exactly what He had to accomplish in those short three years. Not only did He have to go to the cross to die for the world, but He also had to create the seed form in His disciples to last several thousand years. He didn’t have a single minute to waste. So, throughout the gospels, you see Jesus crisscrossing the terrains of Israel to accomplish the mission that His Father had given Him to do. And yet, He waits in the middle of the day for this worthless woman to come out so that He can talk to her! To us who are given to efficiency and effectiveness, this was a big waste. This is NOT time well spent. Jesus should be focusing on converting the learned, influencers of the day so that He can have the maximum effect. At least that’s what I’ve been taught in seminary. If you want to make the most difference for the kingdom of God, go to a big city, draw a large crowd, and influence the influencers so that your gift is maximized! But Jesus just sits there in the middle of god-forsaken town, in the middle of the day, for this nobody (the bible doesn’t even tell us her name) to come out. And Jesus spends two more days with these people who do not know their right from left. I love Jesus!!!!!!!!!

APP: I love Him because that’s way He pursued me. I am not, and you are not an after-thought. You are not forgotten no matter how insignificant and forgotten you feel. You may have thought that you came here on accident. Maybe you just followed your friend to see if there are any cute guys here. Maybe you heard that we serve a good lunch after service and you came for that. You had no intention of seeking for God, but you may be here and listening about God through a divine appointment. He may have been planning for you to come all along!

ILL: A classic illustration: A door to heaven that says, “Whosoever will may come.” and upon entering heaven and looking back at the door you just entered, that same door says on the backside, “Chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.”

 

2. Jesus breaks the social norm in order to pursue after his lost sheep

By now, this is stating the obvious. But I do believe Jesus was trying to make a point and John the gospel writer was very keen on this – that he made sure that the readers knew that this was a samaritan woman and that she was ill-repute woman at that – in other words, on the social ladder, she was at the very bottom. According to one commentary: A Rabbinic law of AD 66 stated that Samaritan women were considered as continually menstruating and thus unclean. Therefore, a Jew who drank from a Samaritan woman’s vessel would become ceremonially unclean…The normal prejudices of the day prohibited public conversation between men and women, between Jews and Samaritans, and especially between strangers. A Jewish Rabbi would rather go thirsty than violate these proprieties.”

Now, I don’t want you to think that the Bible warrants this kind of treatment of women. Some people use that as an argument against Christianity. But wherever Christianity has gone in in this world, women have been liberated, honored as equals, recognized as fulfilling a specific role in society just like men are. However, the Jewish attitude toward women was less than ideal. The Hebrews over the years had adopted some of the attitudes of paganism. Many a Jewish man started the day with a prayer to God, expressing thanks that he was neither a Gentile, a slave, or a woman!

According to another Bible scholar, A Hebrew man did not talk with women in the street—not even with his mother, sister, daughter or wife! According to the most liberal view of the day, a Hebrew husband could divorce his wife if she was found “familiarly talking with men”

So, when we read of Jesus, a Jewish Rabbi, seen talking with a Samaritan woman, this is breaking the social norm on multiple levels. It would be like a skinhead white supremacist being seen talking intimately with a black woman at starbucks in the deep south. His friends will be asking, what are you doing with that woman? As a matter of fact, the disciples did think that of Jesus. In v. 27, “They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you seek?’ or ‘Why are you talking with her.’”  They wanted to, I’m sure!

But Jesus did this kind of thing all the time. He broke so many of the social norms of the day. He touches a leper. He goes to a tax collector’s house. He lets a woman wash his feet with her hair. He talks to a Samaritan woman. And He makes a Samaritan man a hero of a story He told while making the Jewish priest and Levi the goat. No wonder some Jews hated him! However, it’s easy to see all these acts of Jesus and think of ourselves from the perspective of Jesus – for example, since Jesus broke social norms and interacted with a nobody, we should also seek out who our society considers “nobodies” and interact with them! That is the wrong conclusion to draw from this story. We should identify, not with Jesus but with the woman! We are the woman in the story and not Jesus!

You and I are gentiles, are we not? And we live in a land that is full of idol worship, and immorality and abuses are worse than sodom and gomorrah. The worst thing we read about happening in Sodom and Gomorrah is a towns’ people going after some men to have a sexual relationship with them forcibly. If people of Sandy Hook and Marjory Stoneman High School saw it, they would say, “That’s it? We got something far worse going on in the U.S….” Jesus broke social norms and came to us and saved us – we are not even of the Jewish race, not the chosen people. And many, if not all of us, have a checkered past that would rival this woman’s, if not worse.

Yet the the Son of God broke all social norms, came to where we were and pursued us and cleansed and gave us eternal life. ILL: In our bible study two days ago, Darin kept asking the rhetorical question, “why did God choose me? Why didn’t God choose someone else?” that’s the right question to ask. And the answer is really in God – It’s absolutely up to God to choose and His sovereignty. There is no other reason external to Himself. God shouldn’t have to choose anyone. If God chose no one, He would’ve been just. But the wonder of wonders is that He did. And He broke all kinds of social norms and overcame multiple levels of discomfort to come and save us. So, in thanksgiving and humility, we go and tell others so that God’s choosing would continue through our participation for others.

The definition of evangelism I like best is: one beggar telling another beggar where to get food.

CONC: We have less than one month left till Easter. I think the reason why people oppose evangelism is because they think we have this “holier than thou” attitude. But when you hear the stories of Jesus and the people He encountered, we learn that we identify more with the sinners than Jesus. Christians are beggars who found bread in Jesus. Actually, we didn’t even do that. It was the bread that came to us and found us. And it came by way of another beggar who told us about bread. Could you, as a beggar, go to another beggar and tell them where to find bread? Jesus is that bread of life. He is the springs of living water who can truly quench our deepest thirst. And then go to Him often, to drink from him for your thirst and eat from Him, the bread of life, for hunger…