What’s in Your Water Jar? – John 4:5-42
So, Jesus is at a well talking to a socially outcast Samaritan woman who recognizes that this amazing man might just be the Messiah. So, she says, “I know that Messiah is coming and when he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” This is when Jesus tells her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
This outcast woman has just had an encounter with the Divine and He was a non-judgmental, non-threatening, non-arrogant Divine! She was dumbfounded! But not for long. She had news to share! Jesus knew all her secrets, and in spite of everything, He still recognized her, spoke to her, and found her valuable. So, she shared that Good News. If there had been Facebook in her day, she would have been posting her little heart out!
The gist of it is, she ran to tell all the people she’d been estranged from for who knows how long what had happened. This lonesome woman confronted the men, all comfortable in the square, and the women who didn’t want her as part of their inner circle, and she sounded the call. “Come and see!”
She didn’t demand that they take her word for it. She invited them to see for themselves. She witnessed out of her experience, her questions, and her belief. And they heard the truth in her voice as she spoke.
It was her authenticity that convinced them. She wasn’t just reciting scripture or spouting platitudes. She was telling them what happened to her. She was telling them how she’d been changed just by encountering Jesus.
How often do we come across as witnesses who think they ‘know it all’, rather than as people sharing the truth of how we’ve been changed by our own encounter with Jesus Christ? How often do we act like we have all the answers, and the questions of the folks we’re witnessing to don’t matter? Do we make it seem as if because they have those questions or they don’t believe like we do, then their beliefs are wrong? And how often do we let those three-time outcast people like the woman at the well leave without sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ?
We like to invite the poor and the hungry to receive our charity, but I don’t know if we empower them to witness Jesus’ divine mercy. We care from a distance. We give money to refugees or pray for unborn children, but how often do we sit down with the homeless and invite them to church? Have we invited the hungry to our table and shared our bread with them and allowed them to share their lives with us?
Jesus shared himself with the woman at the well. She left the well with a water jar full of Living Water and tale so powerful that it led to the conversion of her entire neighborhood. So, I ask you. What’s in your water jar?
