Jesus should not have spoken to that woman. That woman is a Samaritan. That woman is an adulteress. That woman is, to borrow information from another shameful moment in the life of this young, upstart teacher, that woman is nothing better than a dog, fit for nothing but to lick the crumbs from under the table, nothing but to sip the last dregs of water from the bowl once everyone else’s thirst has been quenched.

Jesus should not have spoken to that woman. She is from Samaria. And we will have nothing to do with them. Samaritans are unclean. Certainly ritualistically. And their personal hygiene leaves a lot to be desired.

Jesus should not have spoken to that woman. She is a woman. The well is a public place. We do not talk with women in public places.

Jesus should not have spoken to that woman. It goes against the grain. It goes against tradition. It goes against custom. It goes against the law.

But he did. And he did so at noon; in the middle of the day; in full light.

And this is John’s gospel. Whenever we read John’s gospel, we must remain alert for the recurring theme of darkness and light. For Christ is the light of the world and those who come to him, come to the light; and those who cannot bring themselves to leave the past behind and follow him, remain in the dark.

We are in chapter 4 of John’s gospel. We’re just 20 short verses away from the gospel reading we had last week. Just 20 short verses from those two statements I talked about last week:

No-one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit            and

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

We are 20 short verses away from those two phrases but the differences are fascinating:

·    last week we were in Jerusalem the heartland of the Jewish faith – today we are in Samaria symbol of all that stands in opposition to the Jewish faith

·    last week the conversation was between Jesus and a named Jewish man, Nicodemus is a Pharisee and a leader of the Jews – today the conversation is between Jesus and an unnamed Samaritan woman, she is nothing

·    yet … last week we were enfolded in the darkness of night – today we are in the blaze of the sun’s midday light.

Now I don’t want to make sweeping generalizations about this and I’m no biblical scholar so I may be reading too much into this – but I do find the contrast fascinating: the powerful man comes to Jesus by night; the powerless woman comes to Jesus in the midday sun.

And Jesus said (this is the part of the passage we didn’t get last Sunday):

And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.

So if I’m right and we can read quite a lot into the light and darkness theme of John’s gospel, we have to look at what happens in the light and look at it from this perspective: that “what is true comes into the light so that it can be clearly seen”.

Does that mean that everything that is not hidden, that everything that happens openly and in the full view of others, can be said to have been “done in God”? No. We can’t look at the events in the Sudan or in Guantanamo Bay, and say that because we know they are happening, that they are being “done in God”

But exploring the theme of light and darkness does demand that we bring more than a literal, legalistic understanding to our reading of scripture. Jesus of Nazareth is about more than following rules; about more than legal formulas and structures.

We follow a man who wants to show us what it is to have life, and life in all its fullness. We follow a man who wants to share his home and his heart with each one of us. We follow a man who transforms us, not by a set of laws, but because he accepts us as we are, and invites us to live in the light.

So when we’re trying to work out whether or not a certain thing that is done in the light is “done in God” we need to ask ourselves:

·    is it life‑giving, helping us to live our lives within the fullness of Christ’s life

·    is it bringing us home to the one in whom we live and move and have our being

·    is it transforming us into the glory of God

There aren’t formulaic answers to these questions and I don’t offer these particular questions as the ultimate set of questions which will sort out all our problems. All I’m trying to say is that the scriptures are much more subtle than we sometimes give them credit. And that Jesus of Nazareth continues to surprise and outrage us by the decisions he makes about who is welcome.

There he is; talking with the outcast. There he is; talking with the lowly. There he is; talking with the rejected. There he is; talking with the homeless. There he is; talking with those who feel they have no hope and no worth … saying
Come and drink from my life giving cup and know yourselves as worthy and loved and wanted and included and raised up and brought home.