Today we join Christians in many places in looking at Jesus' encounter with a Samaritan woman. Today's first reading from Bible:Exodus+17:1-14 we've just heard gives us some background to the story. It highlights two matters to help us with our gospel.

First it underlines the prejudices of Jews against other nations, especially those which occupied Palestine before they invaded under Joshua. They believed it was God's plan for them to wipe out those peoples lest otherwise contaminate them and lead them astray. After their period in exile in Babylon centuries later, their antipathy to the non-Jewish residents of Palestine was increased by difficulties with those who'd moved in there whilst they were in exile, of whom the Samaritans were the descendants. So in Jesus' day Jews despised and had as few dealings with Samaritans as possible. (John 8v24 even shows "Samaritan" being used as an insult). Furthermore in Jesus' day, dealings between men & women were closely circumscribed, much as they are today in Islamic societies. How would Jesus respond to this? - our gospel reading will show us.....

Second Jews & Samaritans looked back with reverence to the first five books of the Old Testament and to the Patriarchs of Israel, a reverence we'll see reflected in today's story. The accounts of God providing water for his people during their wilderness wanderings under Moses were remembered with affection, and form a common background on which Jesus could draw in his teaching, as we'll now see. So, with that background, let's read to Bible:John+4:5-42 .

There is so much to be drawn out of this rich conversation and it's implications and results, but I am going to only underline a few things in passing and concentrate on three.

1. We see Jesus challenge the conventions of his day. Left alone by the well, Jesus does not hesitate to engage in conversation with a woman, quite against convention. He doesn't pause to think why she should have come alone in the heat of the day to the well, rather than being there in the cool with the rest of the village (probably because she was something of a social outcast given her unsavoury past). And it does not bother him that Jews do not speak to Samaritans. Jesus looked past all that seeing an individual whom God loved, to whom he should therefore reach out in concern, with whom he should interact as a person. Verse 27 suggests that this was so typical of Jesus that his disciples did not question this "abnormal" behaviour - why he once made a Samaritan the hero of a parable ("the good Samaritan"). They were surprised to find him alone talking to a woman, but they didn't even question that, & we have other examples in the gospels of Jesus interacting with women as equals.

What prejudices do we have which cause us to back off from other people, treating them as less special than others? Do race, class, sexual orientation, politics, level of Christian commitment (as we perceive it), or anything else make us hold back from interaction with others? Jesus had strong criticisms to make of this woman's theology and morality, but that did not stop him treating her with respect and showing her loving concern. How about us? A very good exercise for each of us this week would be to prayerfully think before God about each person we meet here in Church, at work, in leisure situations, at the shops, indeed wherever, and ask him to show us if we are holding back in any way from loving them as our neighbours in Christ.

We might note, incidentally, Jesus' humanity, shown in his tiredness from a journey, his need of water and food, and his dependence on others for these things. Are we willing to ask others for things or too proud to admit our needs?

2. Jesus offers an infinitely renewable source of life. Drawing on the image of water, so vital to daily life, Jesus offers to this woman the gift of eternal life through the inner resource of the Holy Spirit. John 7v39 makes this identification clear, where Jesus extends his offer to everyone. "Jesus... cried out, 'Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, "Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water."' Now he said this about the Spirit..." (John 7:37)

We are no different from the people of Moses' or Jesus' day. We still fix our sights too much on the things of this world which are temporary, instead of making God's kingdom & what he says is right our first priority. Yes, it's great to enjoy good food, holidays, travel; to have the consumer goods of our age to make life easier or more pleasurable, but these things can never satisfy ultimately, as those who have them in abundance testify. As St Augustine famously prayed, "You have created us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." I hope we all see the vital need to look beyond the material to the spiritual, but even there we must learn from this story.

How are we to experience "a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4v14) within us? We know, I hope, that we must play our part using the disciplines of reading the bible, prayer (including repentance, praise & thanksgiving, meditation as well as asking for things), fellowship with other Christians, public worship, including Holy Communion. But these can become more things we do, chores even, rather than means of grace. We need in all these things, & above all else, to be filled with the Holy Spirit if Christian disciplines are to come alive, if we are to have within us an inner resource that refreshes us and fills us with joy in every circumstance. We each need to come to or come back to this truth, myself included. What's your experience of the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus longs to pour into our lives, again & again?

Let's note in passing, today, that Jesus illustrates this truth by saying (v.24) that "God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth." Worship can become formal, a formula, a duty. God wants our worship to be enlivened by his Spirit, as well as being true to himself & ourselves. The Good News Bible helpfully translates this verse, "God is Spirit, and only by the power of his Spirit can people worship him as he really is." Do you come to worship asking God's Spirit to make it pleasing to God?

3. Sharing the Good News of Jesus should be a joy. The disciples return to find Jesus refreshed by the opportunity he has had of sharing God's message with the woman - it's as good as having a meal he says (v.32). "My food," says Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me.." (v.34) He goes on to tell the disciples that there's a harvest of people awaiting the good news, and they should play their part in gathering it in. This is illustrated in the way the people of the woman's village begin to believe in Jesus because of her testimony (v.39), but then come to their own personal faith. "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know..." (v.42) We too can tell people of what we have experienced of Jesus, of what we have heard. Perhaps that will contribute to their journey to faith. It will also be a means by which God blesses us. It will nourish our spirits as a good meal does our bodies.

When you go home today, how about getting out your bible & reading again this story. Put yourself in the woman's place and imagine your reactions to Jesus & his words. Let this story feed you and teach you more about Jesus.