Unpacking Sunday's Sermon: The Woman at the Well

If you look at both the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman and Jesus and Niocodemus in tandem, the challenge of today's sermon becomes more apparant. Who are we most like?

Are we the respectable well-educated religious insider who is curious about Jesus but unwilling to commit to him. Or are we the outcast religious outsider who knows much less but is willing to grab hold of him and his promises. 

It is interesting to realise that in the Gospel of John the greatest moral transgression is not not an act of infidelity or theft or violence, but the failure to trust in Jesus (see John 3:17,18). 

So are we like Nicodemus who needs to go to yet another Bible study before he makes a decision. Or maybe receive another answered prayer? Or maybe witness some sort of miracle?

Or are we finally willing to say that we have heard and seen enough, and take a leap of faith... And believe that Jesus is who he says he is, both for us and the entire world?

There is a lot that we Presbyterians can learn from woman at the well.