Food as Metaphor: Jesus Seeks To Explain to His Disciples What He Is Called To Do

 April 9, 2021               John 4: 27-34

 ²⁴God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ ²⁵The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ ²⁶Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’ 

27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ ²⁸Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ²⁹‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ ³⁰They left the city and were on their way to him.

31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ ³²But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ ³³So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ ³⁴Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. ³⁵Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. ³⁶The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. ³⁷For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” ³⁸I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.’

            In a strictly modern reading of the translation of verse 27, taken out of context and out of time and place, it has comic overtones.  “They were astonished that he was speaking to a woman…”  This could be the hook to a modern comedy on the perils of shy guys and dating.  But in this time and place, it is a shocking development.  Jesus is setting himself up for massive criticism.

            Granted, there was very little ‘out of place’ that could have happened at the open location of the well, but it was the principle of the thing.  Women were property.  It was the misogyny of the times.  It was wrong and Jesus was breaking down walls.  He’d broken down enough walls with the disciples that, although they were critical of the situation, they knew enough to keep their mouths shut. 

            It was this moment, when the Jewish ministry team went from simply Jesus to Jesus and his disciples, that the woman chose to withdraw.  Temporarily.  She left the water-jar (presumably to allow Jesus or the disciples to access the well for their own thirst needs) and went back into Sychar.  Notice how she has no embarrassment over what has happened.

            “This man told me everything I have ever done!”  In other words, this man has laid out my sordid and adulterous lifestyle, that which has made me the bane of the decent community so that I have to go out at midday to draw water, which, in my present circumstances of living with a man who is not my husband could get me stoned for adultery, and he has made me feel loved and appreciated by my God.  (She did not include that last phrase but it is implied).  Could this be the Messiah?  She is playing off of Jesus’ self-identification in this role. 

            Her testimony was enough, her enthusiasm was enough, that they came to take a look at what she was talking about.

            In the meantime, it appears that the disciples think this episode is concluded.  So, being good Presbyterians, they encourage Jesus to eat something.  After all, that is why they went into Sychar in the first place.  But Jesus, being Jesus, does to them what he did to the woman.  He used the moment as metaphor for a greater truth to be taught.  Jesus claims food to eat that they do not have.  They then wonder where he got something to eat (and probably wondered why, if he had food, he sent them shopping).  Maybe they looked after the woman who’d returned to Sychar and wondered if she’d brought him something.  Like the woman, like Nicodemus, their first instinct is to look at the literal meaning of what Jesu shas to tell them.

            Jesus explains his metaphor.  His ‘food’ is his mission to do the will of the one who sent him and to complete that work.  To quote the Blues Brothers, “We’re on a mission from God.”  This is going to be a lesson for the Woman and for the disciples.  For her, it was to speak to her of the Plan of God, of the living waters.  For the disciples, it was to speak of the ‘food’ of their mission, to carry word of the living waters, of God’s plan, to the world. 

            Because there is a need.  More tomorrow.

Peace, Pastor Peter