Home

Weekly Devotional

August 24, 2009

God’s Peace be with you all.

John 4:4-15  ⁴ But (Jesus) had to go through Samaria.  ⁵ So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.  ⁶ Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.  ⁷ A 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.)  ⁹ 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.)  ¹⁰ 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."  ¹¹ The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?  ¹² Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?"  ¹³ Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,  ¹⁴ 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."  ¹⁵ 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."

When we read this passage from John, we normally don’t think of it in the context of evangelism.  We think of it as Jesus doing something he should not be doing:  talking to a woman who is from Samaria and that is married.  This was a big no-no to the Jews, especially after romances beginning at well’s were a known thing (reference Genesis 24, 27, and Exodus 2).  So is Jesus breaking the law with what he is doing?  I think not, because I look at this text and see that Jesus is just giving us the perfect example of evangelism.

In his book Evangelism for “Normal” People, John Bowen says that during this situation, “Jesus knows exactly what to say.  It’s not a formula.  Neither is it the same as anything he said to any other person before or since.  His words are for her and her alone.”  I think that is a fresh new approach to evangelism.  Rather than telling people all about our congregation and the good things that we do (which is very anti-Lutheran by the way if we are proclaiming works and not grace!), try talking to people about your story and how that fits into the context of the congregation.  I think what you will find is that every time to tell the story, it will be different.  The reason being is that your faith journey is not over because you are a member of the congregation; instead it is constantly changing and being written.

As I mentioned in my sermon yesterday, we have some difficult decisions coming up.  Evangelism is a hot topic for us, and it will make decision making easier if we get started now.  So I encourage you to be on the lookout for a “stranger at the well” (wherever the well might be!).  Seize the moment to have a conversation that is meant for just that person, and show them the goodness of our congregation through your personal story.  After all, you are the only one who can tell that story correctly.

In our prayers this week: 

Doris and her mom, Mary Netta (now at Rosecrest, room 217), Jane, and her mom Irene, Ann, Joseph, Michael, St. John’s Lutheran Church, and all those around us who need our prayers.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Judson