The New Woman t the Well John 4: 1-42
This is a monologue envisioning the changed life of the woman of Sychar who met Jesus by Jacob’s well. It is interesting to note that this Gentile was the first person to bear witness to Jesus as the Messiah. Don’t you just know that she kept doing so the rest of her life.
Following the monologue is an application section stressing our need to also share our faith and – in view of the woman at the well - dealing with people’s excuses for not sharing. The monologue is original to me. The application section was adapted from a sermon I found on SermonCentral; sadly I forget the author of that sermon – but thank you. Feel free to use and adapt this monologue as you wish.
Themes in this monologue and application are: Forgiveness and witness.
John Salley – Bedford Presbyterian Church, Bedford, VA. 4/3/2014
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Well … you sure picked a hot and lonely place to sit down
In the middle of the day especially!
No one comes out to this well in the middle of the day …. Anymore.
Then why am I here?
Because I saw you.
And I knew you would be thirsty, probably lonely too.
You see, I was once one of those people who regularly came out to this well in the middle of the day; I know what it feels like to be thirsty and lonely.
So, these days I just keep an eye on the well especially around mid-day,
in case anyone - such as yourself - shows up …. needing water.
My house? It sits right over there, (if you shade your eyes and you can just see it) To the left there, on the edge of the town –
Years ago, I lived on the edge of town for other reasons –
but now, it’s perfect, because I can look out my window and just see the well … see if anyone, like yourself, might be sitting out here.
But you’re thirsty -- I know
and you couldn’t find a pitcher to reach down into the well --
Nothing with which to quench your thirst.
Here let me pull up some water for you.
No they never leave a pitcher here. The town fathers said they’re afraid someone might steal it – which is just plain silly. Here being so far off the highway, if anyone did steal the pitcher they’d get tired of just carrying it around.
Truth to tell, I think the people of Sychar
still want to send a message to strangers to keep on moving.
Sadly, some things never change,
you’d think they would know better by now - at least a few of them.
Besides, it gives me something to do.
So if I see someone out here
I come out, bring my pitcher,
and some water with anyone passing by….
Why? I’ll tell you in just a bit. Here, drink, and refresh yourself.
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But for the most part this town still keeps to itself, rather private like.
They think, since no one wants to know us, we don’t want to know them.
Jews at least, this being Samaria and all.
Because no proper self-respecting Jew would even dare come this way;
yes it is a shortcut – a straight shot from Jerusalem to Galilee.
But hatred and bigotry are as old Noah and still quite alive.
So most Jews will walk 40 miles out of their way
Adding two extra days to their travels
– just so as not to dirty their feet with Samaritan soil….
By the way where are you from?
Oh … You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.
I know a good bit about you just looking at you.
Like what?
I know that you are lost, lonely, thirsty,
and you are thinking its better just to stay a stranger.
We’ll leave it at that for right now; but things can change, I know.
How about I tell you a story while we rest here a bit.
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There once was another stranger who showed up here many years back,
around noon, just sitting out here all alone - about where you’re sitting.
You could tell he was a Jew from some distance – just by the way he carried himself.
A Rabbi even, and of some importance! His clothes gave that away.
So did his disciples as they scurried past me like so many scared rabbits –
headed into town looking for something kosher to eat …. Good luck with that.
You could tell they wished they were back on the Hebrew Highway
They looked like uptown kids on the wrong side of the tracks on a Saturday night.
So there he sat this Jewish Rabbi - by our town well
probably thinking he owns it, I thought.
But Jews aren’t the only ones who can claim Jacob as their ancestor
This is our well by golly and we’ll see who blinks first
Then, I’m thinking to myself – this should be interesting
a Jewish Rabbi giving way to a Samaritan woman.
And if he knew what the townspeople thought of me,
he would probably be boiling his clothes at the next inn.
So I was already headed out to the well anyway
As was my habit --- right in the heat of the day
told you I knew what it meant to want to be a stranger.
Well, I went about fetching my water, just ignoring him,
I had a pitcher and he didn’t.
So if he wanted a drink he would have to ask me.
but he would never even think of speaking to me,
so I was just going to let him sit there and suffer –
the way the townspeople had let me suffer for so many years.
No, I ‘m not that way anymore.
Fact is that’s why I watch the well for people like you –
just so I can offer you some of the same water he offered me so many years ago.
Yes he did speak to me, very politely even, he asked me for a drink.
Now I’m really wondering what his angle is, and I says so:
Jew’s don’t speak to Samaritans – women especially –
and you don’t look the type to come slumming. Are you?
And I gave him the look and the wink – just for good measure.
It didn’t even phase him.
HE says back to me
If you knew the Gift of God and who I am,
you would be asking me for living water.
So I got all smart with him about our common ancestor Jacob
and that we all had rights to this water –
I just knew he thought he owned the well!
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But he said I had misunderstood him.
He said that the water he offered came from no well,
That it was living water, and if I drank of it, I would never be thirsty again.
So that’s who he was – a patent medicine selling rabbi.
Wow, things must really be bad in Jerusalem
for him to be out here working Samaritan roads.
But I played along with him – wasn’t yet sure of his angle –
I said I would like a taste of his water.
Who knows? I certainly would be glad not to have to come to this well ever again.
Then I could just sit at home all day – wouldn’t have to see anyone.
That’s when he turned my world upside down.
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This strange Jewish Rabbi, of a man I had never met,
As if he had known me all along,
started lovingly telling me all of my whole life,
telling me things that I wished no one ever knew –
and certainly he shouldn’t have known …..
But he spoke without any condemnation,
just as if he truly understood how much I had also suffered,
understood how lonely I was….
… as if he loved me.
My guilt and my shame, -- and FEAR -- were welling up in my throat.
I was strangling, I was panicking –
I had to think of something quick.
This was not some ordinary Rabbi,
this was a real live prophet like Elija, or Moses even.
And I was going to be his noon-day lecture.
But I still had a card up my sleeve, I didn’t last this long, in this world,
without knowing how to deflect a man’s attention…
So I brought up religion,
a topic guaranteed to make any Jewish Rabbi froth at the mouth.
I says to him: Mr. Prophet, glad to meet you, because I have always wanted to ask a genuine prophet such as yourself …
Just where is the right place to worship God?
Only in Jerusalem as you Jews say?
Or right here by our holy mountains (Ebal & Gerizim c.f Deuteronomy 27)
where Moses himself ordered the children of Israel
to build an alter and make sacrifice.
Moses didn’t go to Jerusalem
But this loving stranger would have none of that.
He said that it mattered not where we worshipped God, but how we worshiped.
And what God really wanted from my worship
was not some ritualistic sacrifice done in some certain place
But God wanted me in my heart to Love Him – with all my heart
And God wanted me to live my life in line with that love.
– he called it “worshipping in spirit and in truth.”
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I had to get away, right now!
his loving eyes, his gentle knowing words
were crushing all my hard built barriers …
I told him that I had to go …
but when Messiah comes, he will tell us of all the things.
And then he said …
And then he said …
I am he.
I am the Messiah
The one you’ve longed for all your life.
And I am here now at this well
to tell you that you, even you,
that God loves you
and wants forgive you
and wants to adopt you, the shady lady of Sychar
back into his eternal family.
O yes. I did have a past.
Immediately, I felt something else now boiling up in my heart;
a love and peace that I had long ago ever given up feeling - ever again.
Could it be?
Yes this was the living water that he had offered me.
And Yes I wanted it!
I wanted to bathe in it.
To wash away all my sins and all my hurts.
So I drank deeply of the living forgiving water
that he offered me that day.
My deepest thirsts that I had long grown accustomed to: loneliness, guilt, fear, …were quenched.
I was forgiven!
God had sent his Messiah to my well
to look for me to tell me
this small town “fallen woman,”
that I was loved and forgiven.
And I knew it to be true.
Joyously I wept.
(Water really was springing up from within me …
But I’m not sure that’s what he meant)
I just wanted to stay out here by this well,
and sit with him for the rest of my life.
----------- chuckle - as if remembering the scene ---
But, Just then, his bumbling disciples show back up.
And I could see their thoughts plainly enough in their faces –
These were looks I had grown quite familiar with.
-- Time for me to leave --.
So I got up quickly,
left my water pitcher right there,
No, I didn’t forget it…
Thought maybe his disciples would want a drink,
And right now I was willing to love everybody
– whether or not they were willing to love me-
and anyway I didn’t need it any more – at least for the moment.
I was no longer thirsty and it would have just slowed me down.
I just had to tell someone!!
this living water was boiling up in my heart –
I felt like I might explode if I didn’t share my joy with someone.
But who would talk to me?
the most unwelcome woman in the town?
Well, I would just talk to all of them.
I’d tell the whole mean town of Sychar,
Whether or not they had forgiven me,
I had forgiven them – they needed this living water too.
So I ran right into the middle of the town.
And, as loud as I could, I shouted.
“Come meet a man who just told me everything I had ever done.”
That got their attention all right.
There was a story they would all have loved to have heard from the start.
But they took the bait ….
So we all stream back out to the well,
Most of the town of Sychar, and me,
hoping he hadn’t left.
And there he was,
still sitting there like he had been expecting us all along
And there were his disciples looking just as confused as ever.
He called us “God’s harvest.”
He said that we Samaritans, even me,
had always been a part of God’s field and God’s care.
And that he had now come here to add us to God’s harvest.
Well that strange and wonderful man, our Messiah,
Sat there and talked with us for the rest of the day … late into the evening
then he stayed with us for two-days more.
He stayed at my house.
And many of the townspeople joined me in believing in him
– even my man, who is now truly my husband (praise the Lord) he believed
Then our Messiah left.
HE said that he must go on to finish his ministry.
Wait until this guy gets to Jerusalem --- I thought.
There will be some dust flying that day.
And sadly I was right,
According to reports, Jerusalem killed him,
but he rose again just as he promised.
And he has returned to God, our Father,
where he has assured me a home there someday.
The Messiah stayed in my home two-days
and one day I will stay in his home forever.
But until that time, now we worship together and study his words.
A group of believers gather in my house,
I am no longer the town outcast.
my husband and I were baptized, and married;
and we share this good news with everyone who will listen
And I keep a daily watch on the well.
No, I don’t think the messiah is coming back to this well.
But he could if he wanted to, he came once before,
and he said he was coming again
Why not here?
But anyway, I knew you would come here someday,
or someone like you.
Someone I could offer the same thirst quenching drink
That the Messiah offered me that day.
Love, forgiveness …. Living water,
Bubbling up from within your heart
As a born again child of God,
No longer a stranger.
How about it, are you thirsty
for something more than warm well-water.
Come stay the evening at my house,
with my husband and me.
Let’s talk some more of the Messiah.
------------------ Conclusion of monologue & start of application -----------
That was a wonderful story wasn’t it?
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing it.
The woman at the well, as we know her, was the first Gentile to bear witness to Jesus. And don’t you know – she probably did keep telling that story the rest of her born again life.
But let’s get serious for a moment and leave here today with something worth taking home.
You just heard the story of a woman who gladly bore witness to Jesus.
HE had changed her life and she wanted to share her joy with everyone.
So let me ask you, has Jesus changed your life?
When was the last time you bore witness?
When was the last time you shared with a friend, or family member, or a lonely stranger the story of your faith?
What it has meant for you to call yourself Christian?
Did you hear that? I just heard 100 defensive walls being raised.
100 Filters being moved into place.
That sure was a good story preacher,
but don’t ask me to bear witness … I can’t.
I’m too old,
I’m too shy, just a nobody
And I don’t know any non-Christians.
OR - I have lived too sinfully for anyone to want to listen to me ….
Hmmm - What do you think the woman of Sychar say to these excuses?
Who do you think God wants most to share his good news?
Professional preachers? Or “nobodies” just like you.
Notice who God used here at Jacob’s well.
The person God uses is one who is willing to share how God has touched their life. God doesn’t necessarily use the knowledgeable person, or the talented person, or even the pious person, but will always use the willing person.
One survey reported the top five reasons people give for not reaching out to others:
1. I don’t know enough."
Note the contrast between this woman and the disciples. The disciples had also been touched by Jesus. Additionally, they had been privileged to spend countless hours and days enjoying intimate fellowship with the Master. Yet, this woman, who had only spent a few moments with Christ, went into the same town the disciples had just visited only moments before, and shared her story, while they had kept quiet. God doesn’t necessarily use the knowledgeable ones, but He always uses the willing ones.
So the only real question is: are you willing?
2. I’m not an evangelist.
After surveying 10,000 people, the Institute for American Church Growth concluded that 79 percent of the people began attending church after receiving an invitation from a friend or relative. Only 6% were attracted by the pastor, 5% by the Sunday school and 0.5% by an evangelistic crusade.
You are indeed the best Christian, the best evangelist, that somebody knows.
3. I don’t want to appear to be ’pushy.’"
In one survey of non-church attenders, it was revealed that 65% said they would respond favorably to an invitation from a friend. 15% said they would respond favorably to an invitation from a stranger!
4. I don’t know any non-Christians."
You know more than you think.
The number of unchurched people is growing every year. According to most surveys less than 13% of Americans are in Church on any given Sunday; less than 21% of Americans attend Church with any regularity (once in 8 weeks), and as the ages get younger the attendance level keeps dropping.
The lost are all around us, even as they were all around the disciples. That’s the point that Jesus made when he said “look around, the fields are just waiting for harvesters.” as He gestured toward the crowd that was walking towards them because of the woman’s invitation!
5. My walk with God isn’t all it should be."
Like the woman at the well? The Bible tells us that if we will seek to share our faith with others, our walk with God is strengthened. In Philemon 6 (NIV), Paul wrote, "I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ"
You don’t have to be a spiritual giant in order to share your faith. You just have to be willing.
Think of the passion this woman had – learning that her sins were forgiven – learning that she now had something eternal to share with others. Something not based on her goodness, but on the goodness of God.
Think of the passion that Jesus had to see this woman come to faith in Him. It was so great that when his disciples returned, He was no longer interested in eating. The significance of the spiritual outweighed the significance of the physical. This passion was then passed on to the woman who left her water jar to tell her fellow town residents about the Messiah; before they lost the opportunity to know Jesus for themselves.
Likewise, I believe the Lord wants to give us His passion for a lost world.
How about you, are you willing to share in Jesus’ passion?
Will you also bear witness to Jesus?
