With Jesus in the City of Sychar
The history of Christianity is very largely ‘His story’ – of what Jesus has done in the world through the most unlikely people. In this study we come to a most unlikely person in a most unlikely city. It is a city that has fascinated me for years since I first went there.
The disciples were unlikely people: fishermen and farmers, “ignorant and unlearned men” (Acts 4:13) given the task of changing the world.
The early Christians were unlikely people to build a new world, as Paul said: “From a human point of view few of you were wise or powerful or of a high social standing. God purposefully chose what the world considers nonsense in order to shame the wise, and he chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the powerful. He chose what the world looks down upon and despises and thinks is nothing in order to destroy what the world thinks important.” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31)
Paul himself was most unlikely to become the greatest proclaimer of the Christian faith, but God chose this unlikely man while he was a persecutor of the Christian faith and an enemy of the Cross, to become its greatest proclaimer.
Augustine was a most unlikely leader of the church a profane and immoral philosopher, but who was converted to become St Augustine, the most influential theologian after St Paul.
Martin Luther was a devout Roman Catholic monk, a most unlikely founder of the Protestant Church and proclaimer of salvation by faith through God’s grace, but God chose the unlikely man.
John Wesley was a failure of a missionary and a fearful man, yet he became the courageous and untiring founder of the great evangelistic and social reforming people called Methodists.
William Carey was just an unlearned shoe cobbler, yet God chose him to found the great missionary movement to India.
Unlikely people, all of them, but God chose them to become, under Jesus Christ, people who changed history and who saved cities. The history of Christianity is very largely what Jesus Christ can do through unlikely people, whom He changes into being His people and servants to the city. He enables people to live successfully in our cities.
The first evangelist was a woman who had been living an adulterous life, and the first area to accept the Christian faith was in unexpected Samaria. Here was the first city in the world to confess faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour of the world, and she was its first evangelist.
The Urban Ministry of Jesus is of great significance to us, because we are learning principles of how we can learn to live successfully in our city and better minister to the city by seeing how Jesus ministered to the cities He visited. In every city, we have seen at least one principle that has helped us in understanding our mission to the metropolis and in how we can successfully live as urban people.
The Bethlehem Principle told us we are the incarnation of God among the people of the city, coming alongside them, Word made flesh, especially beside the poor and the suffering.
The Nazareth Principle indicated how we must be identified with the common people, the working people, and be indistinguishable except for the quality of our Christian life.
The Capernaum Principle illustrated our strategy of penetrating the community with home churches meeting for study and fellowship, congregations meeting for the sacraments and worship, and central celebrations with people from all congregations and cell groups.
The Caesarea Philippi Principle faces the competing voices for the allegiance declaring Jesus alone is the Christ the Son of the Living God in such a way that expects personal response to Him.
The Jericho Principle challenges us to find hurting people, alienated from society because of social, racial, or physical rejection and show them acceptance and life changing care in Jesus’ name.
The Gadara Principle illumines how the city church has a special call to approach the sick and the mentally disturbed, to confront them, to counsel and heal and restore them to society.
Jesus now elucidates another aspect of urban ministry when He ministered to a woman at the well of Sychar giving to us the Sychar Principle. He can change the lives of unlikely people, including women, and turn them into a prime witness for God’s Kingdom, taking the Gospel into different cultures and unusual places.
The city of Sychar was nestled against the southeastern slope of Mount Ebal (John 4:3-42). Below lay the ruins of Shechem, steeped in Jewish history, built by a major crossroad, with a fertile plain about, and the well the patriarch Jacob had dug nearly two millennia before. Across the valley to the south lay Mount Gerizim, where the citizens of Sychar worshiped God.
The people of this area are called Samaritans. They and their religious beliefs are a parallel but separate religion to Judaism. Samaritans claim their worship is the true religion of the ancient Israelites prior to the Babylonian Exile, preserved by those who remained in the Land of Israel. This is as opposed to Judaism, which they assert is a related but altered religion brought back by the exiled Jews. The two related ethnic groups and religions hated each other for being ‘degenerate’.
The Samaritans claim descent from a group of Israelite inhabitants who have connections to ancient Samaria from the beginning of the Babylonian Exile up to today.
Although historically they were a large community, up to more than a million in late Roman times, they gradually reduced to several tens of thousands a few centuries ago, and then mysteriously declined. I will explain why later, and it has little to do with unsuccessful wars or forced conversion to Islam.
Most Samaritans today speak Modern Hebrew but their most recently spoken mother tongue is Arabic, which is still used in the West Bank city of Nablus. But in worship Samaritan Hebrew, Samaritan Aramaic, and Samaritan Arabic are used, all of which are written in the Samaritan alphabet, a variant of the Old Hebrew alphabet.
Genetic investigations of the Samaritan community have been carried out since the 1960s. Detailed pedigrees of the last 13 generations show that the Samaritans comprise four lineages not counting the High priestly line of Cohens.
A 2004 article on the genetic ancestry of the Samaritans, comparing Samaritans to several Jewish populations, concluded there was common ancestry of Samaritan and Jewish patrilineages from the time of the Assyrian conquest of the kingdom of Israel 734 BCE to 712 BCE.
It is speculated that when the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of Israel, resulting in the exile of many Israelites, a number that remained in the Land of Israel “married Assyrian and female exiles relocated from other conquered lands, which was a typical Assyrian policy to obliterate national identities.” This defiling of their racial purity was anathema to the returning Jews. Today’s Samaritans show no DNA connection with Iraqi Jews who descended from the exiled Jews.
A few centuries ago the Samaritans numbered several hundred thousand, but persecution, assimilation and a genetic disease have reduced their numbers drastically. A 1919 illustrated National Geographic report on the community stated that their numbers were then fewer than 150. With such a small population, divided into only four families (Cohen, Tsedakah, Danfi and Marhib; a fifth family died out in the last century) and a general refusal to accept converts, there has been a history of genetic disease within the group due to the small gene pool.
To counter this, the Samaritan community has recently agreed that men from the community may marry non-Samaritan (primarily, Israeli Jewish) women, provided that the women agree to follow Samaritan religious practices. There is a six month trial period prior to officially joining the Samaritan community to see whether this is a commitment that the woman would like to take. This often poses a problem for the women, who are typically less than eager to adopt the strict interpretation of Levitical laws regarding menstruation, by which they must live in a separate dwelling during their periods and after childbirth.
Nevertheless, there have been a few instances of intermarriage. In addition, all marriages within the Samaritan community are first approved by a geneticist at Tel Ha Shomer Hospital, in order to prevent the spread of genetic disease. Every child-birth is met with ecstatic jubilation, especially if the child is a boy.
As of November 2007, there were 712 Samaritans left. Until the 1980s, most of the Samaritans resided in the Samaritan town of Shechem/Nablus below Mount Gerizim. They relocated to the mountain itself near the Israeli settlement neighborhood of Har Brakha as a result of violence during the First Intifada (1987-1990). Those Samaritans living in Israel enjoy Israeli citizenship. Samaritans in the Palestinian Authority-ruled territories are a minority in the midst of a Muslim majority, although the Samaritans are a recognized minority along with Christians and Jews.
The head of the community is the Samaritan High Priest, who is selected by age from the priestly family, and resides on Mount Gerizim. The current High Priest is Elazar ben Tsedaka ben Yitzhaq. They read only the Books of Moses in the Old Testament, refuse to worship in Jerusalem, and celebrate the Passover by killing Passover lambs each year.
At Sychar Jacob built the well that still bears his name. Today the well is in the crypt of an unfinished Greek Orthodox Church. When Jesus and His disciples arrived at Jacob’s well in the midst of the little plain just east of the two mountains, they had probably followed the main road from Jerusalem, thirty-five miles to the south. The historian Josephus remarked, “It was absolutely necessary for those who would go quickly to pass through [Samaria], for by road you may go in three days from Jerusalem to Galilee”.
Mt Gerizim is regarded by the Samaritans as the true place to worship God, and possesses an altar of a temple from the time of Jesus. Here Abraham came to sacrifice his son Isaac, and here Jacob dreamed of a ladder going to heaven. Relationships between the Jews and the Samaritans were hostile in the time of Jesus, and my Israeli-registered rental car was stoned by young kids when we came into Nablus.
A Samaritan village refused to give hospitality to Jesus and his disciples because Jesus was going on towards Jerusalem (Luke 9:51 56). James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven upon them, thus expressing a typical Jewish response. And of 10 lepers healed, the only one who returned to give thanks was a Samaritan, as was the only one who helped the injured man in the parable set on the Jericho Road.
It was at Sychar in Samaria that Jesus asked a woman who was coming to the well, for a drink of water. This woman was rejected by most men and spurned by the women of her city, which is why she was drawing water in the midday heat, rather than early in the morning when all the other women would be at the well.
In speaking to that woman, and in what was said and believed and happened after, you have an example of the Sychar Principle of how God can choose the most unlikely to bless a city. Note these aspects:
1. Jesus Accepted An Unlikely Person
He was friendly even towards an unlikely woman. Jesus broke through social prejudice, for men despised speaking to a woman in public but Jesus broke the social and sexual taboos. He broke through racial prejudice, as the woman acknowledged (v7 9), for the two races hated each other. He broke through religious prejudice, as Jews despised the Samaritan’s adulterating the Jewish faith.
Jesus accepts us regardless of our social standing, sex, race, religious prejudice, and without thought of what we have done, or are like or what we believe.
Jesus related with the woman at a normal level of relationships treating her as a person of intelligence and worth, an action opposed by many still today. We are expected to treat unlikely people as people of worth and intelligence instead of surrounding ourselves with social, racial, sexual and religious barricades. This is where some Australians who are violently anti-Muslim are far from the example of Jesus.
Jesus moved to the point of her deepest need. He accepted her as she was. He will not allow us to pretend we are what we are not, nor let us stay in our little bunkers. (v10 12). She deliberately misunderstood Him talking about the depth of the well, and then deliberately misled Him talking about her ancestor Jacob, but Jesus persists in speaking with her (v 13 14).
Jesus pierced her defences and exposed her sin (v16 18). Uncomfortable, she tried to change the subject (v19 20). She was saying, “Let’s not talk about me and my sin, let’s talk about something religious like the true place to worship.” Jesus answered her saying we can worship God anywhere provided we truly worship (v21 24). In one final move, she tried to postpone the issue (v25 26). Jesus would not be put off and He revealed Himself to her.
She believed in Him a most unlikely convert! The woman overflowed from conversion to witness and immediately ran back in her town, leaving her water pot behind, and calling people (v28 30). The words of Jesus were ringing in her ears, “I that speak unto you am He.” For her, the whole scene was overwhelming — a man who knew all about her past, and all about worship, and now this crowd of Jewish men!
She must get away. She must run to her village with the news that she had found Taheb, the Messiah for whom her people had waited for fourteen centuries. The best witnesses are not always the best brought up. Jesus had touched her sins and forgiven her. She felt a new person and now wanted to tell everybody about Jesus and what he could do for them.
As a result many in her city believed (v39 42). Down the road, men were coming, apparently all the men of Sychar. They were walking quickly and purposefully, obviously headed to the well. What did they expect to find? What would Taheb look like? What would He tell them? It was only a short walk from Sychar. In fifteen minutes they were at the well!
Eventually they all walked back up the road to Sychar, the disciples, with Jesus in their midst, and the villagers. An interesting group, Samaritans and Jews, talking cordially! We can only imagine the subjects of their conversations.
Later, the woman would return to her well for her water jug. Perhaps she would have to fill it several more times for the visitors. And now the wives of those men would join her!
The Jews from Galilee would stay the next three nights in the little town on the slope of Mount Ebal, where they had bought their fruit. And as they slept, perhaps for the first time in a Samaritan village, would they dream of their forefather Abraham who had met God between these mountains, and his grandson Jacob who had bought land here and had dug that well?
The best witnesses are new converts. That is part of the Sychar Principle. Their conversion is real and enthusiastic. The best witnesses are often people of other cultures because they reach cross culturally into different racial and social groups. This woman was the means of reaching an ethnic community for Christ.
Consequently many Samaritans became believers. Jesus told the disciples to witness in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and Philip went and baptised many believers there. Peter and John went and laid hands on many who received the Holy Spirit in Samaria.
It all started with an unlikely woman. She witnessed to a growing group of believers. The woman became the avenue of evangelising a city. That was the result of the Sychar Principle.
2. Jesus Still Seeks Unlikely People To Be His Witnesses
The early church grew because ordinary people witnessed even in unlikely places. The early Methodist converts became key witnesses, and shared their faith among their poor working class neighbours, and encouraged women to teach and care.
How we have to learn these lessons of the Sychar Principle: that we must evangelise even unlikely people; that new converts make the best witnesses; that new converts must take the message back into their cultures; and that women can be the most prolific evangelists.
In the great, growing churches of South America, Korea and Africa, all four aspects of the Sychar Principle are practised: the most unlikely people are evangelised; new converts witness to their faith; cross cultural witnessing is essential to save a city; and women are used as evangelists and pastors.
Yet the Australian churches in general: expect people to become church goers before they are converted; trust only long term members to publicly witness; prefer to remain an Anglo-Saxon church; and deny women a significant part in evangelism!
We are doing everything wrong when it comes to winning a city for Christ! In my fifty years of ministry I have learnt these lessons. So in all of those years my church leaders and I have placed great emphasis upon evangelising unlikely people, expected converts to witness, encouraged cross cultural ministry, and expected women to take pastoral care as elders, home group leaders and Bible study leaders.
Who then are most significant people in such churches? Older members who share their faith and convert unlikely people; new converts who share their faith with their family and friends; converts of different cultural, racial and social groups; and women who care for neighbours and friends.
The Sychar Principle is of profound significance to the urban mission of the church: Christians have a responsibility to witness to their neighbours and friends and also to the most unlikely persons. New converts make the best witnesses and must be trusted to share their faith. Evangelism is a convert telling a non believer, that Jesus is the source of life and to take that message into every cultural, racial and social group. Women have a role and significance in the church of Jesus Christ and are expected to share their faith with the rest of the city.
The history of Christianity is largely the story of what Jesus Christ accomplishes through some of the most unlikely people who come to Him, open their hearts, confess their sin and acknowledge Him as the Saviour of the world and who then are prepared to tell everyone in their own group and culture that He is Lord.
Rev the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes AC MLC
