Weekly Bible Study and Worship Resources

Lent 3 (Purple)

Opening Verse
Collect Prayer
First Reading:
Second Reading:
Gospel Reading
Commentary:
Meditation:
Hymns
Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead :
Intercessions from our Sunday worship
Sermon

Introduction

We often hear people tell us of how dysfunctional family life is these days. Well it is, but of course it always has been. There has never been a time when everything in family life was perfect. How often have I spoken with families coming to terms with things which went on years ago, such as when a woman is told that her older sister is really her mother and her parents are really grandparents. And in the past it is frightening just how much abuse took place in the home and nobody was prepared to believe that it ever happened.

People have always been the same, with wounded and broken lives, some people are just better at pretending than others. It was one such poor broken woman who Jesus met at the well in our Gospel reading today. She had loads of men and broken relationships, no doubt she has the subject of gossip in the village where she lived. Perhaps Jesus had heard the gossip, anyway he knew her life was in a mess and he wasn't afraid to help.

Jesus was not critical of the woman, not self righteous or preachy, instead he offered her living water, hope of a new start and refreshment for her weary soul. We don't know what happened to the woman afterwards but she went and started spreading the word about Jesus. For once here was a man in her life who was really worth talking about.

Opening Verse of Scripture Psalm 95:6

Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.

Collect Prayer for the Day — Before we read we pray

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. CW

Eternal God, give us insight to discern your will for us, to give up what harms us, and to seek the perfection we are promised in Jesus Christ our Lord. CW

First Bible Reading Exodus 17: 1-7

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarrelled with Moses, and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?’ But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’ So Moses cried out to the LORD, ‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.’ The LORD said to Moses, ‘Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.’ Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarrelled and tested the LORD, saying, ‘Is the LORD among us or not?’ NRSV

Second Reading Romans 5:1-11

Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person – though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. NRSV

Gospel Reading John 4:5 - 42

water of life Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’ (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus 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.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’

Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said 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!’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’

Many Samaritans from that city believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’ NRSV

Post Communion Prayer

Merciful Lord, grant your people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. CW

Commentary

Jesus speaks with the Samaritan woman at a Well.

We know that the Jews from Jerusalem despised the Jews from Samaria. They told stories about how the Samaritan Jews were racially impure, that they came from inter marriage with foreigners. That some Jews did not get on well with other Jews should not surprise us, the history of the tribes of Judaism, the Northern and Southern Kingdom of Judaism, is all one of conflict and falling out. At the time of Jesus there was a continuing hatred between these two distinctly Jewish groups. The Samaritan people still survive to this day, preserving their ancient religious rites near the ancient site of Shechem, and the modern city of Nablus.

The Samaritans are Jews, who regard the Pentateuch and observe the Sabbath strictly. They claim Mount Gerazim as their holy mountain because it is mentioned in the Pentateuch. (Deut 11:29, 27:12). They regard Jerusalem as less significant because it was a later development from the time of King David who wanted to establish his kingdom there. Much of what we know about the Samaritans comes from later Jewish writings which tell us that the Samaritans were descended from interracial relations with foreigners who repopulated this part of the Northern Kingdom after the Assyrian invasion. This is probably not a fair representation, but it gives us an idea of the bitterness which characterised their relations. Other Jews held them in contempt, clearly considering themselves to be better.

It is against this background of conflict that we have the longest discourse in the whole of the Book of John, between Jesus, a Jewish Rabbi, and somebody from another Jewish groups that he was supposed to despise. The writer of the Gospel must clearly attach some importance to this episode and he wants us to know that it is important, it has a fundamental role in helping us to understand Jesus and his ministry.

We know that the woman was Samaritan and the history of these two groups was such that it was unlikely that Jesus would have anything to do with her. The fact that the Samaritan was a woman didn’t help either, this is why the woman asks, "how can you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" For a man to speak with a woman in this way was extraordinary, men just didn’t speak with women in this way. But there is more, not only was this a Samaritan, and a woman, this woman had another distinguishing feature which made her an unlikely subject for Jesus to have a meeting. We are also told that she had five husbands!

It is helpful for us to remember some of the other details of this story. We are told that the time of the day was noon. It was in the heat of the day, and the last time that most women would have wanted to do the heavy lifting and hard walk back to the village involved in getting water from the well. The other women went early in the morning or in the cool of the evening, when the work wouldn't be quite as hard, and the drudgery of hauling water would be broken by the fellowship shared by the women around the well. A woman who chose instead to go to the well at noon must have been seeking specifically to avoid that company. It is apparent that this woman was an outcast - even among Samaritans.
I would guess that she was used to whispering in the village wherever she went, having been used and discarded by so many men of the village, and in a culture in which there was little if any privacy, and gossip spread news quickly. As oppressive as the noonday sun is, it doesn't burn like the stares of the others in the village. So she goes to the well at noon, when she can be sure to be alone.
So we see Jesus meeting a woman who simply could not have been much more of an outsider. She belonged to a group which was despised and she was despised by that group!

It is interesting that we do not know the name of the woman. We have a huge discourse but no name. Perhaps that is helpful, for in so many ways the exchange of words is not just a personal encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan, the words which Jesus speaks are for all people. The woman is in a solitary place, she has little to make herself feel proud, little to help her see herself of value. Yet in her meeting with Jesus, She comes as a person outside society, and Jesus shows her that she is inside God’s love.

Jesus knows what this woman is like, there are no secrets, Jesus is able to look deep inside her heart, as he looks inside the hearts of all of us. Jesus looks and is able to see the things which everybody in the village has gossiped about. Jesus does not criticise or condemn. Where others look with the eyes of condemnation and see sin, Jesus looks with the eyes of compassion and recognises the value of this woman as a child of God. Jesus is not put off by her sin because he knows that there is more grace in God than there is sin in us. Charles Royden

Meditation

Water crops up in the Gospel of John many times. Water turned into wine, water used to wash the disciple’s feet, water in which Jesus is baptised, water on which Jesus walks. In today’s Gospel passage Jesus offers living water to all those who come to Him to drink. Indeed, Jesus’ final post-resurrection appearance is by water where He challenges His disciples to cast their empty net in the water on the other side of the boat. Some of the disciples were fisherman and understood the dangers and possibilities of water. Water was a symbol of chaos and yet also the source of sustenance and survival, a metaphor for life and death and the transformation that takes place between them. When we look at the story of the Wedding at Cana we see Jesus transforming the water into wine. A simple story, quietly told, almost low-key, reflecting the simple, inexplicable, transformation that was witnessed. That same, mysterious, power of transformation is featured in many of the following stories in John, often with increasing drama. The Woman at the Well passage from today’s readings is one of those stories where water and transformation are inextricably linked. It’s that same transforming power of God that we experience in our lives as we live out the final act of divine transformation. The transformation that is the reality of the Lent and Easter story, the transformation of the crucifixion of Jesus into His glorious resurrection and our eternal inheritance.

Hymns

Lord of Creation (Tune Slane)
Father I place into your hands
Born by the Holy Spirit's Breath (Tune Fulda)
Restore O Lord
Lord of the Church

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead

Eternal God, give us insight to discern your will for us, to give up what harms us, and to seek the perfection we are promised in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

We pray that in all our relationships you will make us effective channels of your love and forgiveness. Make us awash with your living water so that our home and places of work, our conversations and our actions, are always in touch with the renewing power of God. Amen

We stand alongside all those who are suffering, whether in body, mind or spirit, and long for your healing and comfort, your strength for perseverance and your patience in dark times; we long for your living spirit to envelop and sustain them. Amen
(Prayers of Intercession for Common Worship, Susan Sayers)

Christ give you the grace to grow in holiness, to deny yourselves, take up your cross, and follow Him; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen

Additional Material

Opening Verse of Scripture—Psalm 51:17
The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit: a broken and contrite heart He will not despise.

Commentary

Parallel Stories with a difference

There are both some strong parallels and stark contrasts between the gospel reading this week and the one we heard last week. Last week’s reading focused on the meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus, this week’s tells the story of Jesus’ encounter with the woman of Samaria. Apart from the obvious parallel that the readings are both quite long, both start with establishing the identity of Jesus, both also have an opening statement from Jesus about the new life that God offers. There is a question about how this can happen. ‘How can anyone who is born be born again?’ in the case of Nicodemus and ‘…how do you get this living water’, in the case of the woman. In both cases there is a follow up question, ‘How is that possible?’ and ‘Are you greater than our father Jacob?’. Then there is the response and explanation from Jesus about what this new life offers. In the woman’s case it looks like she understood as she asks for some of the water. For Nicodemus it’s perhaps a less obvious outcome, but we do see Nicodemus appear again in the gospel two more times, interestingly just after Jesus speaks about living water and thirst.

After the night encounter we next read of Nicodemus when Jesus has gone up to Jerusalem for the feast of Tabernacles where Jesus upsets the Pharisees by inviting anyone who is thirsty to come to Him, and Nicodemus steps into the discussion with the Pharisees and is told to go and sort things out.
The second time is when Nicodemus asks for the body of Jesus a few short verses after Jesus has declared He is thirsty just before He dies.

From this we can perhaps infer that somewhere between his first nocturnal encounter with Jesus and the rest of the story, Nicodemus came to faith in the Messiah he had encountered that night. Both Nicodemus and the woman of Samaria would appear to speak about Christ and the good news of the Kingdom in their own ways which would have lasting impact on the communities in which they lived. However there are also great differences in the stories.

When Nicodemus is establishing the identity of Christ he makes an acknowledgement that Jesus is a man of God. Nicodemus would also have been seen as a man of God and he wants to establish a strong link between them, it’s as if he is saying, ‘We’re on the same side’. In contrast the woman quickly establishes that they are different. He is a Jew, she is a Samaritan.
Nicodemus was also a man of great status. Eric Royden wrote the commentary for us last week and in his notes he pointed out that Nicodemus was a Jewish leader and teacher, a member of the Sanhedrin. He was a man and came from the right family and the right race. The woman on the other hand had was not a man, had very little status, even in her own community, and was probably an outcast of some sort as she was at the well at the sixth hour. Some believe she may have gone to proposition Jesus as He was alone and seemingly looking for a drink.
Nicodemus goes away apparently silent and we hear no more about his silent journey of faith. The woman on the other hand, cannot stop speaking about her encounter, and we read that many Samaritans in her town believed because of what she said.
One story is predominantly about the need to be born again (literally born from above) the other focuses on the result of what this will mean.

Shortly after the encounter with Nicodemus and the woman of Samaria John reports that Jesus returns to Galilee, specifically Cana, where he reminds us that it was Cana where Jesus had started the transformation business by the first and overarching sign of turning water into wine. We know that John does not just throw his gospel together and the conversations with Nicodemus and the woman of Samaria, sandwiched as they are by references to Cana must be linked together. Seen together they are about the need for a new life in Christ and the outworking of that new life which can be seen in everyone who accepts Christ. They are about invitation and acceptance, initiation and ongoing growth. Once could be seen as creating a bit of chaos out of the order of Jewish religious life, one could be seen as creating a bit of order out of a chaotic life with five husbands and the rest. Perhaps a clue comes in the exchange between Jesus and the woman when they are talking about the different centres of worship, Samaria and Jerusalem. Jesus says that salvation comes from the Jews but that God is Spirit and must be worshiped in spirit and truth by all those who truly worship Him and in that context the specific time, space location and rubric of our worship cease to be relevant. Jesus then underlines why he can make this statement because in the next verse He states for the first time in John’s gospel a phrase that will increase in significance each time we read it. When the woman is speaking about the Messiah, Jesus replies, ‘I am’. The ‘I am’ that created the works and brings about its transformation is speaking to you. I am the Messiah. The old has gone and the new is dawning. The conversation with Nicodemus and the woman both start in ancient tradition, the Jewish law and its interpretation for Nicodemus and the well of Jacob for the woman of Samaria. They end with the ancient being transformed into the new, with the old ways being challenged with both chaos and order as the impact of the ‘I am’ begins to take hold of the world. Sam Cappleman

Who are you?
By telling the woman at the well who she is, Jesus shows her who He is. By confirming her true identity, He reveals his own, and that is how it still happens. The Messiah is the one who shows us who we are by showing us who He is, even if He has to cross boundaries and break a few rules to do so. He challenges us to drop our disguises and to meet with Him where we are. And in acknowledging who He is, we have no choice but to acknowledge who we are, perhaps in a moment of full disclosure which can be as painful as it can be healing.

In the Gospel reading today we have Jesus' longest-recorded conversation in the Bible, and to cap it all it's with a Samaritan woman. On many counts it seems extraordinary that it took place at all: a man and a woman in public; a Jew and a Samaritan; a transient and a citizen; one offering living water and another caught in the ceaseless rounds of drawing water at the well. It would seem bizarre to many at the time. But true dialogue with God transcends sex, race, and tradition because His love cuts across racial and cultural prejudice. Today’s Gospel has many levels of meaning. As always in John the central character is God and God’s gift of life through the invitation to live in the holy space of the Father’s love. A love which we see affirms women and engages and loves sinners. In what was a man’s world, John describes a woman as the supreme example of someone stepping out and exercising ministry, but doing so with the fragility and hesitancy and perhaps inadequacy which happens when ordinary human beings (of both sexes) begin to engage in ministry. An image of someone who, being transformed is prepared to step out in faith, so that others may experience God’s transforming love. Sam Cappleman

Communicating with the Real Power
In the gospel reading today we have Jesus' longest-recorded conversation with in the Bible, and to cap it all it's with a Samaritan woman. On many counts it seems extraordinary that it took place at all: a man and a woman in public; a Jew and a Samaritan; a transient and a citizen; one offering living water and another caught in the ceaseless rounds of drawing water at the well. It would seem bizarre to many at the time. But true dialogue with God transcends sex, race, tradition, and place and liturgy.
Jacob's Well, where the conversation takes place, was dug by Jacob some 2000 years before Jesus met with the Samaritan woman. Jesus has returned to the source of His own history and has a conversation with the woman that breaks into three parts around her history, a conversation about herself, about her relationship with her husband, and about true worship. He offers her the opportunity to take hold of His truth in her life so that she may know the power of the Spirit of God in her life, whatever her history or background. He make plain that this truth will only become a reality when she shares it with others, otherwise it will become stagnant. It becomes real when it is experienced, not when its just discussed. The first part of the conversation is about the power of the Spirit, the second is about truth. The final part is about communication with God, through which we experience the power and truth of God in our lives.
Just as at the wedding in Cana, just as through His conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus demonstrates that true, real and inner transformation can only ever come through faith in Him. The conversation starts by the source of the old life, Jacob's Well, and ends by inviting the woman to tap into the source of the new.

Meditation

Water crops up in the Gospel of John many times. Water turned into wine, water used to wash the disciple’s feet, water in which Jesus is baptised, water on which Jesus walks. In today’s gospel passage Jesus offers living water to all those who come to Him to drink. The Woman at the Well passage from today’s readings is one of those stories where water and transformation are inextricably linked. The transformation that is the reality of the Lent and Easter story, the transformation of the crucifixion of Jesus into His glorious resurrection and our eternal inheritance. John tells us that it was about the sixth hour when the encounter takes place. John will use this phrase again in his gospel, when Jesus is handed over for crucifixion and is hanging on the cross. Again Jesus will be alone and say He is thirsty. The story of the encounter with the woman at the well is a foretaste of the drama that will be realised on the cross, a foretaste of the living water and the Holy Spirit being poured out as the Spirit which He offers the woman is given for all people.

Hymns

Praise my soul
Colours of day
For the beauty of the earth
I'm feeding on the living bread (on service sheet)
How great thou art
In Christ there is no East or West
For I’m building a people of power
Praise my soul
I come with joy to meet my Lord

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead.

Father, wherever the church is dry and parched may the water of your Spirit well up to refresh and renew, to bring life and strong new growth. Make us more aware of our thirst for you, so that we come to you ready and eager to receive your living water. Amen

Eternal God, give us insight to discern your will for us, to give up what harms us, and to seek the perfection we are promised in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

We pray that in all our relationships you will make us effective channels of your love and forgiveness. Make us awash with your living water so that our home and places of work, our conversations and our actions, are always in touch with the renewing power of God. Amen

We stand alongside all those who are suffering, whether in body, mind or spirit, and long for your healing and comfort, your strength for perseverance and your patience in dark times; we long for your living spirit to envelop and sustain them. Amen (Prayers of Intercession for Common Worship, Susan Sayers)

Christ give you the grace to grow in holiness, to deny yourselves, take up your cross, and follow Him; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen

We pray that in all our relationships you will make us effective channels of your love and forgiveness. Make us awash with your living water so that our home and places of work, our shopping and our leisure centres, our conversations and our actions, are always in touch with the renewing power of God. Amen

Sermon:

The woman at the well (Acrobat pdf format)