Churches With Heart

Moody First United Methodist Church

John 4:5-15

So he 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.”

Today I want to focus on water. You may have picked up on that having seen the title of today’s sermon. “Water Ain’t Water.”

Did You Know the following facts about Texas water?

Presidio, in West Texas, had only 1.6 inches of rainfall in 1956.

Clarksville, in Northeast Texas, had 109 inches of rainfall in 1873.

The most rainfall recorded in a single day was 29 inches in Albany.

The largest nonstop rainstorm was in 1979. It lasted three days and dropped 45 inches of rain on Alvin on the Upper Gulf Coast. (Texas Water Foundation Web site, www.texaswater.org)

An interesting fact for Diana & I is that we owned a house 15 miles from Alvin in a sub-division of League City just about a month before that rain. The home that we had just sold was about 2 miles from Clear Creek and sat across the street from the highest point in Galveston county. After the rain waters subsided, we returned to League City to visit our friends in the neighborhood. About 50 % of the homes in our sub-division had been nearly under water. All the homes except for the ones on our street had water in them. Clear Creek had come out of its banks, and homes stood in the water for days. Deep stagnate water surrounded their homes. That water was not living water!

Jesus walks into Sychar. His disciples have gone looking for food, and Jesus decided to go to a well for he was thirsty. It was noon, not the time folks chose to go for water, but a lonely Samaritan woman approached the well. Jesus asked for a drink. The woman nearly fainted were she stood. A Jew speaking to a Samaritan and a woman at that! Jews just didn’t do that sort of thing. Not to a woman. Not to a Samaritan.

She responds, “What on earth are you doing speaking to me - asking me for a drink.”

Jesus says, “Well, you obviously don’t know who I am. If you did, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you LIVING WATER.”

“Are you greater that Jacob who gave us this well?” “Jacob is the only one who ever got water from this well without a bucket, and you don’t have a bucket.” “So. Do you think you are greater than Jacob?” …. Little did she know.

“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. Why the water I give will be an everlasting spring within them.”

“Sir, give me this water, so that I might never be thirsty.”

Did you know that airplanes flying east fly at a different altitude than airplanes flying west? And airplanes flying north are at a different altitude than those flying south? That’s the way this conversation seems to be going. Jesus and the woman are not at the same level. It reminds us of the story of Nicodemus that we looked at last week. They are both talking about water, but water ain’t water.

John has done it again. Jesus refers to “living water.” The woman gets the wrong idea, but it’s not all her fault. You see, living water could mean “fresh, running water (spring water as opposed to cistern water). Living water could also refer to life giving water. The woman hears “running water.”(1)

When Jesus mentions “living water,” he was not using terms that would be misunderstood. For centuries the Jews had spoken of thirst of the soul for God and the living water that quenches that thirst. The thought of “living water” was not a new one.(2) But the woman was at a different altitude. She went for the idea of fresh, clean, running water that tastes so good and satisfies the physical thirst of humans and animals. She thought of that water that is necessary for earthly existence. She was on a different plain.

Water was a common Old Testament metaphor for the satisfaction of spiritual needs. The Psalmist wrote, “He leads me beside still waters” (Ps. 23:2). “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.” (Ps. 42:1) (The Faith We Sing, 2025) But the Samaritan woman just didn’t get it.

Water was used frequently as a symbol of the satisfaction of our highest needs. God through Jeremiah reminds us that God is “the fountain of living water. (Jer. 2:13)(3) In John 7:37-39 Jesus’ gift of living water is associated with the gift of the Holy Spirit.(4) Living water-it’s a spiritual thing, it’s a spiritual gift.

Several years ago an UPI release told the story of a mid-western hospital that had existed for thirty-five years, and to their amazement they found that the fire fighting equipment had never been connected. Never! The hoses had never been connected to the main water line. They had everything they needed except the most important and vital ingredients to fight fire, and that was water.(5) The connections just wasn’t there.

The Samaritan woman was offered “living water” and didn’t understand the significance of the gift. We, too, have been offered living water. Is the connection there?

Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest writes, “We limit the Holy One of Israel… We impoverish [God's] ministry the moment we forget [God] is Almighty; the impoverishment is in us, not [God].” “The reason some of us are such poor specimens of Christianity is because we have no Almighty Christ.”(6) Is the power of the living water truly ours?

1. The New Interpreters’ Bible, Vol. 9, 566.

6. Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, Feb. 27, p 58.