Enticing Gift

Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." She said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?" (John 4:10-12)

What are the main things in this part of their dialog?

It started out with a request for physical water to satisfy physical thirst on the part of Jesus from a woman who could have given it to Him without resistance or even comment.

Because she chose to bring up the issue of the expected prejudices that would normally exist between them, especially from His side, Jesus suddenly begins to talk on a completely different level, a much more spiritual-oriented level that causes her to think deeper and raises questions in her mind.

This woman knew nothing about Jesus except that He looked like a Jew, He was a man and He was obviously tired and thirsty.

Now He begins talking about God which very likely brought up another whole set of prejudices she would expect from both sides. In fact, since she initiated the discussion about prejudice to start with, this allowed Jesus to take the discussion right through that open door that she had made and begin to talk about the real issues behind those prejudices and challenge the false assumptions that she had about them. For the real point of contention that lay at the root of the deep hatred the Jews had for the Samaritans was their beliefs about each side's relationship with God and their perceptions about how God viewed them or valued them.

For Jesus to launch His discussion about God by talking about a gift is significant I believe. This strikes at the root of most of our false ideas about God. Humans tend to view God as one who is demanding something from us much more than offering us kindness or bringing us a gift. Even if our religious teachings use all sorts of words and phrases to the effect of God as a gift-giver, our hearts still have pictures of God that view Him much differently than our words often portray.

Secondly, Jesus brings up the issue of His own identity. He challenges her assumptions about Him, not allowing them to just stand without opportunity to show her the real truth about Himself. But instead of protesting or defending His true identity, He guides the conversation by the use of baits for her curiosity. He refers to things that are important to her to draw her into thinking more into the open about things that are real and that will cause her to begin thinking about things that are unresolved much deeper in her heart. Jesus wants to take her to the deepest places of the soul where she has the most intense need for real healing and satisfaction.

I wonder if the idea of a gift was a natural trigger word that would connect with her particula personality. Maybe she was the kind of person who especially enjoyed gifts, who liked to give gifts to others and who communicated through the use of gifts more than the average person. If so, then Jesus' use of a reference to a gift, especially coming from God, would really grab her attention and maybe even cause her face to light up with anticipation and curiosity.

Closely connected with the idea of gifts is the identity of the gift-giver. The meaning of gifts is closely linked to the identity of whoever it is who offers them. Secret gifts can create an enormous amount of interest in people's imagination wondering who it is who is trying to impress them and draw out their attentions. The use of gifts has always been a means by which people try to soften others up, to change their opinions about them, to prepare their heart to be more open to viewing the gift-giver in a more positive light.

The more I consider this aspect of the story the more intriguing it is and full of potential insights. I want to think more about this idea of a gift and why Jesus wanted to connect it with God and with Himself. In fact, that is exactly what He was doing in this sentence. He starts out by talking about a gift, an offer of kindness designed to induce a much deeper level of friendship, and then immediately puts Himself into the picture as possibly one and the same with the gift-giver Himself. It also resonates with the recent conversation recorded here that Jesus had with Nicodemus.

From my perspective of this conversation after the fact, I can read much more into these words than the woman would have initially. I look at this and ask, Could Jesus be inferring that the gift of God and His own identity may be one and the same? Is He Himself the gift He is talking about, at least in part?

But I don't think that was part of her thinking at that point in time, though it may have started to sink in later on. I believe that at this point Jesus was primarily trying to connect in her mind a strong link between His own identity and the identity of the originator of the gift which He plainly said was God. In addition He also refers to living water which also could be viewed as the gift which God had to offer her. But in fact, when it is all said and done it becomes evident that Jesus Himself is in fact the living water that God was offering to her. But at this point Jesus is not trying to explain all of that. He is simply eliciting her curiosity and drawing out her heart in connection with the deeper longings within her that He wants to address and satisfy.

It may seem silly to state the obvious, but I often find it helpful, for me anyway, to do that in my pursuit of turning over every stone to hunt for exciting treasures in the Word of God. Jesus did not use some other analogy here because He always tried to fit His communications to what was of interest to the person He was talking to. So in starting a conversation with this woman Jesus chooses to use thirst and water and gifts to elicit the most interest in her heart. If He were to talk about fish or farming or other illustrations that He used other times it would not have had near the effect that water and gifts had in her mind.

Then I wonder how many times we tend to try to offer up analogies to people to generate interest in spiritual things that simply don't resonate at all with where they are in their own life. Sometimes in frustration we even try to force them to feel a need for our analogies or our brand of “evangelistic” methods to make them feel a desire for what we want to tell them. We talk about sheep and shepherds when most of us have never been around sheep. We rehearse Jesus' stories about farming when some people don't even hardly know where food comes from. But Jesus did not use that approach. He personalized His conversations with people to connect with them using the things that they were most familiar with in their own life.

Sometimes I wonder about our reluctance to use any parables except what Jesus used to illustrate the nature of the real kingdom of heaven. We are afraid that God might be offended if we try to come up with new illustrations that involve modern situations and technology that are a large part of our daily thinking. Yet I believe that if Jesus were here in person today He would do exactly that.

But wait! He said that He is here in the person of each one who gives themselves to Him to be used as a channel for Him to reach others. So maybe He just might still be adapting His words and references to meet people where their real interest can be peaked the most. Maybe if we listen to the Spirit like Jesus listened to it we too would speak words and intriguing thoughts that would be relevant to others and attract them to want to know God at a much deeper level.

I want to explore even more this idea of a gift. But I will have wait to do that when I have more time.