jesus embarrasses his apostles by talking to a strange woman

BTW, this is my 500th article on here.

Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” (John 4:27)

Jesus was always embarrassing his apostles. If he wasn’t at a party having a good time (John 2), he was whipping people out of the temple (also John 2). He refused at times to talk to the religious leaders, yet he would talk to people no one else liked.

In John 4, Jesus and the apostles are going from Judea in southern Israel back to Galilee in northern Israel. To do so without a lot of hassle, they had to go through Samaria. Most Jews, at least those who considered themselves holy anyway, would either go through Perea to the east across the Jordan or on a boat to the west in the Mediterranean Sea.

Samaria was considered to be the dregs of the Jews left after the Exile in Babylon. They had stayed in the land and intermarried with Canaanites and formed, at least what was to the strict Jewish mind, a mongrel race. The Jews wanted nothing to do with them and would go great lengths out of their way to get away from them.

Jesus, on the other hand, being for the most part a sensible person, saw two things. One was that it was a long ways around and he was ready to get back home. The other was that Jesus never turned from anyone, no matter what other people thought of them.

Witness Matthew, a tax collector, who Jesus took into his inner circle of apostles. Everybody who was normal hated tax collectors, except for Jesus. In fact one of the charges leveled against him was that he was a glutton and a wine-bibber, one who welcomes sinners and eats with them (Luke 15:2). Not a very reputable person.

So Jesus goes through Samaria. They get to Sychar, near Jacob’s well, and Jesus sits down for a while. The apostles are forced by necessity to go into town, a place they do not want to be, to get some food.

As Jesus is sitting at the well, a woman comes up. She is a fringe person, a five time divorcee who is currently living with a man, a woman who is morally unacceptable to most, and is used to being shunned at the well. No doubt that is why she was here in mid-day instead of the morning when most came.

Jesus talks to her though. “May I have something to drink?” he asks her, like it was the most normal thing in the world. She is surprised that he, a Jewish man would talk to her, a Samaritan woman. Male/female conversations among the strictly orthodox were not common and most Jews would eat dirt before talking to a Samaritan.

She is understandably surprised. And more so when he tells her he has living water. Living water that will keep a person from being thirsty. She figures that if she had that, she wouldn’t even have to come to the well.

He asks her to bring her husband. She bats her eyes softly and says I have no husband. Jesus says, you said that right. You have had five and are living with someone you are not married to now.

After this, she figures out that he is a rabbi, so she asks him one of these “great theological” questions people ask preachers to get their attention off them and their problems: where do we worship? Here or in Jerusalem.

Jesus says to her that worship is not in a place, it is in one’s heart.

Then he says something to this woman that he says to few people. She says they are looking for the Messiah, and he says I am he.

She runs back and gets her whole town and brings them and they become believers.

In the meantime, Jesus’ apostles come back and there he is talking to a woman. They are so embarrassed but say nothing. They know it will do no good to say anything.

They offer him something to eat, but his flow is going. He is not hungry. He also says that other things fill him, that he has other food. They look around for someone else who has fed him, but Jesus says, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

But Jesus says to them, as the townspeople approach, there is the real job, to harvest them.

Jesus talked to anyone. He brought anyone to the Lord, no matter who they were or their station in society. And it did not matter one whit to him what the people who had already accepted him or considered themselves to be mature thought about it.