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The Gospel according to John 4:5-29, 39-42 

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A few miles from here, there are strip joints called, "Pleasers’," and "The Gold Rush." In the metro area, there are many places where, every day, women dance naked for money.

The nudity isn’t really what concerns me; what concerns me is that in those places, the women are treated as erotic commodities. They become not people, not children of God, but objects.

When I was in the Vocational Testing Program (which I went through before I could go to seminary), we were given the assignment of finding a sub-culture that made us uncomfortable, and told to go there to learn about ourselves and the people there. I went to strip joints. My friends at work used to tease me about doing my "homework," but I want to tell you, it was not fun. I didn’t go with a wad of dollar bills to stick in garter belts, or with a group of rowdy friends, or to drink my troubles away. I went to see, as best I could, how Jesus would see that place.

I hope some of you are shocked. My life’s not all that interesting, and I’m not going to be able to do a whole lot better than that! Some folks may be shocked that I went, but some folks may be shocked that I would even consider that Jesus would be in such a place. That would break all the rules. We could upset a lot of religious people by telling them that Jesus was going to Pleasers’.

Well, I think Jesus would be. He hung around with pimps and whores and tax collectors and such, and he seemed to prefer them to the people who proclaimed their own purity. And I think his encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well so long ago tells us something important about how Jesus sees strippers today.

You see, Jesus broke all the rules when he talked to the Samaritan woman, and speaking to her as he did was every bit as shocking in his day as if he were seen in Pleasers’ today. It was shocking enough that Jesus was even in Samaria. Jews usually took the long way around that region. Samaria had once been occupied by Jews, the Northern Kingdom of Israel, but they were conquered seven centuries before Jesus was born, and most of the Jews were deported and new folks moved in. The rest of the Jews thought that this really ruined the neighborhood, so by Jesus’ time Samaria and Judea were bitter enemies. Jews called Samaritans "dogs," and Jewish law prohibited having any dealings with them. Rabbis taught that all Samaritan women were deemed "menstruants from the cradle," and therefore perpetually impure. When Jews and Samaritans saw each other, each would spit.

And now we find Jesus in that land his people find disgusting. Alone and thirsty, he encounters a lone woman in the noonday heat at the well. Not only is she a Samaritan woman (always ritually impure), but she’s obviously a social outcast or she would not have been drawing water alone and in the heat of the day.

Even if she were not a Samaritan, it would be scandalous for a lone male to speak to a lone woman, much less take anything from her hand. But she is a Samaritan, and a woman, and every rule, every taboo, every custom, every moral teaching, every desire to avoid scandal screams out, "Don’t talk to her. Don’t take the cup from her hand." Of course, he does. She is amazed. He talks to her about her life and about God’s love, which is like water that you drink so you will never be thirsty again.

She turns out to be a fascinating woman. She questions him again and again about all this confusing "spiritual water" talk. And some of the questions are pretty loaded, like, "Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well?" You can almost hear Jesus thinking, "Well, . . . ."

Eventually Jesus says he knows who she is, who she really is. "You have had five husbands, and the one you are with now is not your husband." He is saying to her, "I, who offer you the water of God’s love, know your whole story, not just the edited part you want me to see."

She is stung, so she pulls out a theological hand grenade, sure to end the conversation, or at least divert it away from her: "Our ancestors say to worship on this mountain," she says, "but you Jews say to worship in Jerusalem." Samaritans and Jews shared many beliefs, but their most bitter point of difference was whether God should be worshipped in Jerusalem, as the Jews believed, or Mount Gerizim (this very mountain), as the Samaritans believed. She has intentionally plucked the nerve of hatred.

But Jesus (being Jesus) doesn’t rise to the bait, and finally she asks about something Jews and Samaritans share—waiting for the Messiah. Jesus tells her he is the Messiah.

Just then the disciples return, and (of course) are horrified ("You can’t leave Jesus alone for one minute"). The woman, who came in the heat to draw water, leaves her water jar and runs home.

And then the most amazing thing happens. She, a Samaritan woman, and an outcast Samaritan woman at that, becomes an evangelist, a bearer of the Good News. She says, "He told me everything about my life. He can’t be the Messiah, can he?"

So this outcast woman, this woman the hated Samaritans probably call a "slut," comes running into town babbling something about talking to a Jew (a Jew, a Jew, a hated Jew. What was she doing talking to a Jew? What was a Jew doing talking to her? What is going on?) she comes running into town babbling something about talking to a Jew who knew her whole story and offered her God’s love.

No one should have listened. Not one person should have paid any attention. But when Jesus broke all the rules and invited scandal by talking to the woman, he seems somehow to have freed the Samaritans to break the rules and listen to this loose woman talk about the Good News she got from a hated Jew. In a time when the most respectable women were not allowed to testify in court because their word meant nothing, many in that Samaritan city believed in Jesus the Jew because of this fallen woman’s testimony.

Wow! What an amazing encounter! So I think we see something about how Jesus would see people in the strip joint. There would be no "Samaritans" there. He wouldn’t see just alcoholics and rowdy men and bouncers and strippers. He would see people, children of God.

He would see the strippers the way they are seen in Marilyn Futterman’s book, Dancing Naked in the Material World. In it, Marilyn allows strippers to tell their stories, to have names. The forward to Marilyn’s book says this:

The cover of this book should carry a warning label similar to those printed on cigarette packs: People about to encounter what is contained on these pages should be made aware that their assumptions may be at risk. Those who frequent topless clubs should be warned that the rituals and relationships behind the windowless facades of these strip joints will never quite seem the same after a trip through this book.

What emerges from the stories that follow are not objects of fantasy, but women, human beings, children of God, who are afraid, lonely, worried about the future, hopeful against the odds, in despair, educated and uneducated, trying to parent with little or no help, fighting feelings of guilt, fighting low self-esteem, desperately seeking affirmation, concerned about aging, crying when they feel rejected, concerned about security.

They’re a lot like us—real people, not labels. And I’m quite sure that, whether they hear it or not, Jesus says to them, "I know your whole story. All of it. Even the parts you want to hide. And I want to offer you, the real you, the water of God’s love."

You don’t have to be a stripper or a fallen woman to have a label put on you. We all use labels to avoid seeing other people as real human beings and learning their stories. Labels like "homeless," "welfare mother," "mentally ill," "poor," "divorced," "liberal," "conservative," "addict," "arrogant," "cheap," "loose," "nerd," "racist," "Christian Right."

And most of us all wear other labels proudly to avoid telling the parts of our stories we’re ashamed of. Labels like, "successful," "smart," "a good parent," "an achiever," " a go-getter," " a self-starter," "beautiful," "always well dressed," "cool," "always has something kind to say." Those labels can be as dehumanizing as any.

If what you’re interested in is real relationship, labels won’t do. This morning the Risen Christ says to the Samaritan woman, and to the strippers, and to you and to me, "I know your story. Your whole story. And I want to offer you the cool, soothing water of God’s love."

If you can believe it, if you can believe it even (like the Samaritan woman) just enough to ask the question, "He cannot be the Messiah, can he?," then be like Jesus was and she was: when I dismiss you today, go forth in the name of Christ, and be reckless in how you spread the word. Go forth in the name of Christ, and break the rules.