“Touch the Life of One Person”

Meditation on John 4:1-42

March 1, 2015

     ^4:1Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John” ²—although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— ³he left Judea and started back to Galilee. ⁴But he had to go through Samaria. ⁵So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar or Shechem, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. ⁷A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) ⁹The 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.) ¹⁰Jesus 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.” ¹¹The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹²Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” ¹³Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but 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.” ¹⁵The 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.” ¹⁶Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” ¹⁷The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” ¹⁹The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” ²¹Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²²You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. ²⁴God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” ²⁶Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” ²⁷Just 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?” ²⁸Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ²⁹“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” ³⁰They left the city and were on their way to him. ³¹Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” ³²But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” ³³So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?”³⁴Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. ³⁵Do 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. ³⁶The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. ³⁷For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’³⁸I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” ³⁹Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” ⁴⁰So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. ⁴¹And many more believed because of his word. ⁴²They 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 Savior of the world.

***

       I was talking to Lynn Miller of the Friends of the Presbyterian Education Board last August about a girl named Adeela Younis. Adeela, a teenager now, lives in Pakistan. Her mother is a sweeper. Her father is a laborer. Her family has barely enough money to survive. Adeela would not have been able to get an education if our church had not sponsored a scholarship for her to attend the Christian Girls’ High School in Sargodha, one of many schools of the P.E.B. In Pakistan, few girls are educated. Many people do not feel it is necessary to educate girls. Some actually see the education of girls as detrimental to the moral fabric of society. Women aren’t permitted to drive and may not go out in public at all without a male family member escort. Marriages are arranged. Domestic violence against women is common. Most young women in Pakistan are not free to choose the life they long to live.

    It is hard to say if women in Jesus’ time were as oppressed as those who are oppressed in Pakistan today. But women have been oppressed in all times and places when they fail to submit to the rules of  “respectable” society. Respectable people would not have spoken to the Samaritan woman at the well in Shechem, in the land of Israel.  After all, she had had five husbands and was not married to the man she was living with! That’s why she was drawing water at noon, instead of early in the day, as was the custom of other women. She wanted to avoid those who would look down on her, ridicule or shun her. Perhaps keep her from drawing any water at all.

     But Jesus spoke to her. He knew about her past and her present situation, and still initiated an intimate exchange. He sat down by the well and asked her to give him water, rather than drawing it himself. The woman, greatly surprised, said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 

     And Jesus invited her to know Him and his salvation. He said, “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.”

     This meeting at the well would lead to a totally new life for the Samaritan woman. Our God of second chances, who looks upon the heart and not the outward appearance, our God of mercy who does not hold our past against us, would use her to do great things for Him. The Samaritan woman would bring the good news of Jesus Christ to her own people.

***

    I am not sure how our church first learned of the Presbyterian Education Board in Pakistan, where Presbyterian missionaries in the 1800s began sharing the faith and transforming young lives through education. But our Sunday school began to sponsor an educational scholarship for Adeela several years ago. Then, when the Sunday school decided to support Heifer Project, instead, I felt a burden to continue helping Adeela. Without our financial support, she could not continue her education. She would also not be nurtured in the Christian faith. Adeela’s family is Muslim, the religion of most people who live in Pakistan.

    I told the adult Sunday school class, Presbyterian Women, and Session about Adeela and her needs. They agreed to help her--first with a day scholarship two years ago, and then, when I spoke with Lynn Miller last August, with a residential scholarship of $750 when household obligations kept her from completing her studies and the PEB recommended that she come and live in the boarding house.

    Why would our church give that much money to one person, a stranger, a member of another faith, living amongst those whom many Americans would consider our enemies? Because Christ calls us to disciple “all the nations.” He gives us hearts of compassion as we consider how God has blessed us so much--so that we may be a blessing to others. We know that God loves Adeela and has a plan to use this young lady we have never met for His purposes.

     Adeela has dreams of being a science teacher. If she became a teacher in one of the Christian schools in Pakistan, she would be positioned to touch and transform the lives of numerous young people struggling in poverty and hopelessness.

    Friends, God has a plan to use us to touch the lives of countless people. We can’t possibly know what the Lord has planned or whose hearts and lives have already been touched by our ministry. But if you ask Adeela Younis’s teachers, they would say that Adeela’s life has already been transformed by our commitment to helping one person, one stranger, rise above her difficult if not desperate situation. For this one person will be empowered to work to transform her society, just like the woman at Jacob’s well, long ago.

     Our calling is to simply keep on seeking to serve the Lord and people in need, guided by the Spirit, walking in Christ’s self-giving ways.

    Let us seek to be a blessing to our neighbors near and far, without judgment, fear or condemnation.

    Let us seek to touch the life of just one person today.

Let us pray.

Lord, we thank you for the ministry of the Presbyterian Education Board, which has transformed countless lives and brought hope to those living in despair.  Protect the students, teachers, staff and volunteers as they seek to help some of the poorest people in the world. Empower them with strength, wisdom, and all the resources they need to continue their work. Stir other churches and individuals to want to become involved with the PEB, giving financial and prayerful support and traveling to the schools for hands-on ministry. Thank you for your many blessings to us, especially the blessing of our assurance of salvation through belief on Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord. Guide and empower us to be a blessing to others, to never grow weary of doing well, to share what we have been given, and to be joyful to be used for such an important work--building your Kingdom, one person at a time. In Christ we pray. Amen.