A woman at a well

It is the hottest part of the day and a woman is walking to the well alone. Nobody draws water at noon if they can help it. You go in the cool of the morning, with everyone else, and you talk while you work. Going at noon means you have arranged your life around not meeting people.

A Jewish man is sitting there, which is its own problem, and he asks her for a drink, which is a bigger one. What follows is one of the longest recorded conversations Jesus has with anybody in the Gospels, and he has it with a woman his culture said he should not have been speaking to at all.

Read what happens next slowly. Not for the theology — for the mechanics.

The woman left her water jar and went back to the town, telling the people, “Come, see a man who has told me everything I have ever done. Could this be the Messiah?” They left the town and made their way towards Him. — John 4:28-30 (OTB)

Count the parts

Her entire witness is two sentences long, and it has exactly two ingredients.

Something that happened to her. He told me everything I have ever done. That is not doctrine. It is not an argument. It is a report of her own experience, and it is the only thing in the sentence she could speak on with authority.

An invitation to come and look. Come, see a man. She does not settle the question for them. She raises it — could this be the Messiah? — and then hands it to them to go and answer themselves.

That is the whole thing. Story, and invitation. There is no third ingredient hiding somewhere that you have to go and find.

Where she sent them

Now look at the destination, because this is the part that is easiest to read past.

She sent them to a person. Come, see a man. Not come to the synagogue, not come to a meeting, not come and hear somebody qualified explain it. She pointed at Jesus and got out of the way.

We will come back to this at the end of the class, because it is the rule that governs every invitation you will ever make. For now, notice she did the thing that seems least strategic — she took them straight to him — and it worked immediately.

And then she stopped being necessary

The end of the story is the part that should take the pressure off you permanently.

Many of the Samaritans from that town came to believe in Him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” … They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man truly is the Saviour of the world.” — John 4:39, 42 (OTB)

Her testimony got them out of the town. It was never supposed to get them all the way. By verse 42 they have their own reason, straight from Jesus, and her story has done its whole job and retired.

That is what you are building in this class. Not an argument that wins. A story that opens a door, and then steps out of the doorway.

Recite this

Story and invitation. Nothing else is required.

Try it this week

Read John 4:28-30 and 39-42 again, slowly, twice. Then answer three questions in writing, without looking anything up:

1. What exactly did she say? Write her words out.
2. Where did she send them, and where did she not send them?
3. What had happened to the town by verse 42?

You are not looking for a clever answer. You are looking at a model you are about to copy, and it helps to have seen its shape with your own eyes before somebody describes it to you.