Rumblings Below the Surface
John 4:3-26
February 23, 2025
This is the third in a series of messages travelling through the gospel of John. I encourage you to read along at home and ask for God to speak to you through the stories and thoughts presented. We’re now up to chapter four.
On the surface, everything looks just fine. We’re often unaware of what is going on below the surface. All of this rumbling.
In our story today, the Samaritan woman is unnamed. I will name her to help with the telling of the story. Let’s call her Tamar.
Tamar walks slowly with her water jar. The heat of the sun is draining. Sweat is pouring down her face.
Tamar passes a lady standing in front of a house.
“How’s it going, Tamar?”
“Everything’s fine, thank you.”
Tamar keeps on walking. Tamar mumbles to herself, “Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
A question pops into her head, “Is it really fine?”
Tamar remembers though everything seems fine on the surface, there’s all this rumbling going on, that comes out at night, in the form of nightmares like this one:
She’s standing on the steps of a temple. Between her and the temple stands a man. He looks like a Jewish man with a full beard. He’s pointing his finger at her and yelling:
“You scum. What are you doing here? You don’t belong here. You’re a woman. Go back home where you belong.”
She doesn’t move. He squints his eyes and points his finger directly in her face. “You look like one of those Samaritans. I said, get out of here, you scum. Get out of here.”
Then the nightmare is done.
On the surface of our lives everything looks just fine. But there is rumbling going on below the surface. One aspect of that rumbling is the wounds of cultural sin.
Cultural sin often comes in the form of one group of people placing themselves above another group of people. One group is more privileged than another. One group is more superior and another group is more scum. Both are wounded by these top-down, hierarchical arrangements.
For Tamar the wounds of cultural sin can be seen in the differences between men and women. She lived in a patriarchal society where men had more privilege and power. Women were often treated like scum.
The wounds of cultural sin were also seen in the relationship between Jews and Samaritans. The Jews considered themselves the true followers of God. They considered Samaritans as second-class citizens in God’s kingdom. Most Jews avoided contact with Samaritans.
Where do we find the wounds of cultural sin in our day? Where do we find one group is in a more privileged position than another? In what ways do we sometimes feel like scum? In what ways do we make others feel that way? Both those on the top and those on the bottom carry wounds from this cultural sin.
On the surface everything looks just fine. We say, “There’s no cultural sin left in our society. This is America. Everyone’s equal.” But there is rumbling going on below the surface.
I once read a book written by Mel White. Mel grew up in a conservative, Bible believing home. He worked as a ghost writer, author, and television producer for big name Christian leaders like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Billy Graham. He married young and had two children.
The surprising part of the story is that Mel struggled for thirty years to overcome being gay which he believed to be a terrible sin. It drove Mel to electro-shock treatments, severe depression and almost suicide. Eventually at age 50, he finally came out of the closet.
The story of Mel’s life made me think about our daughter Sarah and what she’s faced in her life. The cultural sin…
But in talking with Sarah, all she wants to talk about is the racism she sees around her. A few years ago she took a class on racism and white privilege. She says that we have a hard time seeing the privileges we have as whites in our country. Once again, it’s cultural sin rumbling below the surface.
Into the midst of the wounds of our cultural sin, walks Jesus.
Here’s the gospel of John starting with the third verse of chapter four:
Jesus left Judea and started for Galilee again. This time he had to go through Samaria, and on his way he came to the town of Sychar. It was near the field that Jacob had long ago given to his son Joseph. The well that Jacob had dug was still there, and Jesus sat down beside it because he was tired from traveling. It was noon, and after Jesus’ disciples had gone into town to buy some food, a Samaritan woman came to draw water from the well.
Jesus asked her, “Would you please give me a drink of water?”
“You are a Jew,” she replied, “and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink of water when Jews and Samaritans won’t have anything to do with each other?”
Jesus answered, “You don’t know what God wants to give you, and you don’t know who is asking you for a drink. If you did, you would ask me for the water that gives life.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. Where are you going to get this life-giving water? Our ancestor Jacob dug this well for us, and his family and animals got water from it. Are you greater than Jacob?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again. But no one who drinks the water I give will ever be thirsty again. The water I give will become in that person a flowing fountain that gives eternal life.”
There’s something rumbling below the surface. Yes, there are the wounds of cultural sin. But there’s also the promise of living water.
Notice that Jesus comes alongside Tamar instead of from on high. Jesus breaks down the top-down hierarchy of men-women and Samaritan-Jew. He comes to her as a friend to listen, to honor, to respect and even to ask for help. I can envision God coming to us today in exactly the same way.
“The woman replied, ‘Sir, please give me a drink of that water. Then I won’t get thirsty and have to come to this well again.’
Jesus told her, ‘Go and bring your husband.’
The woman answered, ‘I don’t have a husband.’
‘That’s right,’ Jesus replied, you’re telling the truth. You don’t have a husband. You have already been married five times, and the man you are now living with isn’t your husband.’”
Another one of Tamar’s nightmares flashes through her head.
The nightmare is so vivid. She pictures a dark cloud. From that cloud she hears a loud, angry voice screaming, “You slut. You dirty slut. Shame on you. You deserve to go to hell.”
On the surface of our lives everything looks just fine. But there is rumbling going on below the surface. One aspect of that rumbling is the guilt of ethical sin.
Ethical sins are the ways we fall short of God’s desires for us. For example, we find ourselves involved in some addiction. We choose paths and shortcuts that are not God’s dreams for us. Ethical sins can also be viewed as anything less than perfectly fulfilling the greatest commandment of love. Or we commit sins of omission; not doing what God calls us to do.
Then there’s that ethical sin that doesn’t seem like a sin: the sin of self-righteousness. This is a sin that all of us who attempt to be good Christians and good people need to be especially aware of.
On the surface of our lives everything looks just fine. We say, “We’re good people. We go to church and try to follow the Ten Commandments.”
But there’s rumbling going on below the surface. It comes up as guilt from things we’ve done wrong or things we haven’t done right.
Into the midst of the guilt of our ethical sins, walks Jesus.
Jesus shines a light into the darkness of Tamar’s cave. He names her sin. But it doesn’t feel like the type of shaming she felt in her nightmare. He was not condemning her to hell or calling her a slut. He simply shined his light on the truth. He simply pointed to what lay below the surface of her life. And he did it from the stance of a caring friend.
Jesus is shining his light into the darkness of our caves. Jesus is naming our sin. I invite you to listen to the specific sins Jesus is naming. Take time during the coming week to talk to Jesus about those sins. It might be helpful to write them down. Write down the sins that are specific to your life both now and in the past.
One of the Twelve Steps for people with addictions is: taking a fearless inventory of our lives. I find it helpful from time to time to take that type of fearless inventory…naming the places we fall short…naming the sins of our life.
Thankfully, Jesus shines the light in a way that doesn’t feel like shaming. Jesus simply shines his light on the truth of our lives. He simply points to what lays below the surface of our lives. And Jesus does it from stance of a caring friend.
Sometimes we think of God as a shaming parent. Or a prosecuting attorney intent on finding us guilty. Or a policeman sitting alongside the road prepared to stop us for speeding.
Instead, Jesus sits besides us. We can be honest with someone who cares for us that much. We can confess what we have done wrong. We can confess what we have avoided doing for God and others.
Tamar has another flashback to a nightmare. She is standing on top of a mountain looking upward. There is no sky, no clouds, no sun, not even blue – just pure whiteness. It is empty.
On the surface of our lives everything looks just fine. But there is rumbling going on below the surface. One aspect of that rumbling is the emptiness of spiritual separation. We feel far from God’s presence. We look up, but there is no one there. Our skies are empty. We feel emptiness inside as well…or thirsty.
Into the midst of the emptiness of our spiritual separation, walks Jesus.
Tamar returns to the scene of sitting with Jesus. She continues the conversation after Jesus has shined the light on the truth of her life.
The woman said, “I know that the Messiah will come. He is the one we call Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
“I am that one” Jesus told her, “and I am speaking to you now.”
Jesus says, “I am the one.” Jesus is the one who bridges the separation between God and us. Jesus is the one who fills our emptiness. Earlier Jesus told Tamar, “I am the life-giving water. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing forth fountains of endless life.”
We bring the wounds of our cultural sin and Jesus comes as Friend.
We bring the guilt of our ethical sin and Jesus comes as Light.
We bring the emptiness of our spiritual separation and Jesus comes as a Bridge to God and Water flowing from within us.
Tamar leaves her water jar and runs back into town. She says, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done. Could he be the Messiah?”
Tamar has lived her life keeping down the rumblings below the surface: her wounds from the cultural sin of prejudice against women and Samaritans; her guilt from the ethical sin of adultery; and her emptiness from the spiritual separation she felt from God.
Jesus has brought all of that above the surface. Tamar says, “Jesus knows me inside and out.” Nothing is hidden any longer.
Evidently this is bringing some transformation to Tamar’s life for she can’t stop talking about Jesus. The Scripture says that everyone in town goes out to see Jesus. The result is that many Samaritans from that village commit themselves to Jesus because of her witness…because she said, “He knows me inside and out.”
On the surface of our life everything looks just fine. But there are rumblings that continue to go on underneath. Jesus knows all about them. Jesus knows us inside and out.
We bring the wounds of our cultural sin and Jesus comes as Friend.
We bring the guilt of our ethical sin and Jesus comes as Light.
We bring the emptiness of our spiritual separation and Jesus comes as a Bridge to God and Water flowing from within us.
Our lives experience a transformation that begs to be shared with others.
