​Living Water & Love-Beyond-Limits  (John 4:5–42 & Matthew 5:38–48)

Today the lectionary takes us to one of the most loved stories of John’s Gospel, the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:5–42).

As we enter the story, Jesus is tired. It is midday. He sits beside Jacob’s well in Samaria. Already the story is charged.  Jews and Samaritans did not get along. They disagreed about worship.
They distrusted one another. The history between them was a long and painful one.

And then something unexpected happens. A woman comes alone, to draw water at noon, a strange time, perhaps suggesting she is isolated or excluded from her own community. And Jesus does the unthinkable. He not only speaks to her, but he asks her for a drink.  For Jews and Samaritans, this would have been a jaw-dropping moment. 

The boundaries and divisions in this encounter are large and thick: 

- Jewish vs Samaritan
-Male vs Female
-Religious insider vs Religious outsider
-Respected  Rabbi/Teacher vs Morally compromised and compliciated woman

And yet Jesus crosses these boundaries calmly and without hesitation as though what he was doing was perfectly normal and perfectly acceptable. 

In the encounter between them, He speaks of “living water” in response to her inner thirst for love and meaning. He speaks of living a life of worship “in spirit and in truth,” not bound by a building or place in response to her question about Jews and Samaritans having different places of worship. 
He reveals knowledge of her past without any sense of condemnation. He remains engaged in conversation with her even when the disciples urge him otherwise.

And in response the woman becomes a witness to her own village, bringing them out of the town to see Jesus. And by the end of the story, these Samaritan outsiders confess: “Truly, this is the Saviour of the world.”

We’ll come back to John 4. But now we turn the words from Matthew 5:38–48 where we hear Jesus saying: 

“You have heard… An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…
But I say to you… 
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
“Turn the other cheek”
“Be perfect or whole, as your heavenly Father is perfect or whole, who makes his sun shine on the righteous and the unrighteous alike, who sends his rain on the just and the unjust. 

Again, as we saw last week in Matthew 5:21-37 we hear the repeated pattern:“You have heard that it was said… but I say to you…”

Firstly: “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” This teaching was not in fact meant to be barbaric. It was merciful. It was meant to limit revenge, to limit retaliation. It prevented escalation. It prevented doing more harm to another than they had done to you. Retaliate yes, was the old teaching, but no more than was done to you. 

But Jesus says:  “Do not resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” And then:  “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

These verses have often been misunderstood. They are not instructions for passivity. They are not commands to remain in abusive situations. They are invitations into a radically different way of being human.

Matthew’s Jesus is not abolishing justice. He is transforming the logic of retaliation. The old pattern said: harm must be answered with harm. But Jesus introduces a new pattern: harm can be turned around and transformed by love, wisdom and courage.

Last week we saw that anger fractures communion long before violence erupts. Now Jesus shows what it looks like when anger no longer governs us. To turn the other cheek is not to pretend evil is good. It is to refuse to let evil dictate who you become. 

And part of Jesus concluding challenge in Matthew 5:38-48 is that it is incomplete and insufficient to love only those who love us in return… for even sinners and tax-collectors love those who love them in return.  But disciples of Jesus are called to a love that is not transactional or limited. 

And then Jesus gives the reason: “So that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

This is an important Matthean perspective. For Matthew, discipleship is not about following laws and rules but about about growing more and more  to resemble the nature of the One Jesus calls Abba. 

At the end of this section we hear these words:  “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

“Perfect” as I said last week is a poor translation of the Greek word ‘Teleio” which actually means something closer to being whole, complete, mature.

And what is the Father like? “He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” Matthew’s Jesus tells us that God’s generosity is indiscriminate.  God’s love is not reactive. Gods love is not determined by the worthiness or the recipient. And according to Jesus in Mathews Gospel, our love for others is meant to resemble God’s love for us and all humanity. 

And as we turn back to Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan women at the well we see these teachings of Jesus being lived out by Jesus in John 4.  What if the story in John 4 is not only about spiritual thirst and living water. What if it is also about boundary breaking love lived out and embodied by Jesus? 

The old pattern in the ancient world was simple: injury for injury, tribe for tribe, loyalty to insiders and suspicion towards outsiders. Even without violence, there were the invisible lines. Jews did not even share eating or drinking vessels with Samaritans. They did not linger in conversation. 

Yet Jesus does not abide by these invisible lines of hostility and enmity taught to him by the culture of his day. Instead he initiates relationship across the lines of hostility.  He asks for water from someone who represents the “other.” He allows himself to be vulnerable.

In John 4, Jesus does not wait for hostility from the woman or the Samaritan townsfolk — he pre-empts it with openness.  His is a pre-emptive strike, not of violence or aggression but of openness and friendship

And so the boundary breaking love which Jesus teaches in Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount
is quietly acted out by Jesus beside the well. 

From a Jewish perspective, Samaritans were religiously compromised, historically suspect. They were the enemies and religious heretics. Yet Jesus does not approach this woman as an enemy to defeat in theological debate.

He listens. He engages. He speaks truth - but without humiliation or condemnation. When he names her past, but not to shame her.  He sees her fully and still treats her with dignity and respect despite her past. This is love beyond transaction or reciprocity.  He is not loving someone who already belongs. He is loving someone across divide.

He is reflecting the love of the Father “who sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
In John 4, Jesus is completely aligned with the heart of the Divine.  There is no trace of tribal superiority. No defensive identity. No narrowing of compassion. When the disciples return they are bewildered that he is speaking to her. But Jesus’s wholeness allows him to remain steady. His identity is not threatened by crossing boundaries.

And that wholeness in Jesus becomes contagious. The woman leaves her water jar and becomes a bearer of living water to her community.  The village that might once have been considered “enemy territory” becomes a place of ‘harvest’.

And the story ends with the townsfolk saying of Jesus: “Surely this is the Saviour of the World.”  
Saviour of the world... Augustus Caesar had once used that title to refer to himself.  With all his military might, he was exalted as the benefactor and bringer of peace to the world. But in this passage it is not Caesar who is proclaimed as the Saviour of the World, it is Jesus. They see in Jesus something remarkable, a wisdom, a presence, an inner strength and composure, a love that has the power to heal the brokenness and divisions of this world.  And so in this simple story in John’s Gospel we see a widening of the horizon beyond tribe and human made boundaries. We see the kind of love that can save and heal the world. 

And what about us?  Who are the Samaritans in our own lives?  Who are the people we instinctively keep at arm’s length?  Whose story do we assume we already understand without truly listening to them? Who are those we consider ‘other’. 

John 4 shows us that enemy-love does not always look dramatic.  Sometimes it looks like sitting beside a well and asking for a drink of water.

For God so Loved the Cosmos- John 3:1-17 & Matthew 5:21–37

On this 2nd Sunday of Lent, the lectionary gives us words from John’s Gospel: the mysterious nighttime conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus.

We read well-know words: “Unless one is born from above/anew, one cannot see the kingdom of God.”  And then those words so often quoted: “For God so loved the world…”

But we’ll come back to these words from John’s Gospel.

In addition to the Lectionary readings over Lent that come from John’s Gospel, I would also during this Lenten season like to reflect intentionally on the Sermon on the Mount from Gospel of Matthew. And at first glance, John and Matthew feel very different. John speaks of new birth, Spirit, eternal life, cosmic love. Matthew gives us teachings on anger, lust, divorce, and taking oaths.

But what if they are describing the same transformation from two different angles? John tells us where transformation begins. Matthew shows us what transformation looks like. To be “born from above” or “being born again” is not a religious slogan. It is the awakening of the inner life. And in Matthew 5, Jesus shows us what that awakened life looks like in practice.

Importantly, when we open Matthew’s Gospel, we are not simply reading a biography of Jesus. We are entering a school of discipleship. Matthew’s Gospel functions almost like the earliest catechism of the Church, a manual for forming people in the way of Christ. And this becomes unmistakably clear at the very end of the Gospel, when the risen Jesus says:

“Go therefore and make disciples… teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”  That final sentence tells us why Matthew wrote. This Gospel is not merely to inform us about Jesus. It is to form us by Jesus. And at the heart of this formation stands the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew structures his Gospel around five great teaching blocks, five great discourses (see below), echoing the five books of Moses. And Matthew is deliberately telling us something through that structure. Just as Moses gave Torah to Israel, Jesus now gives teaching, a new Torah to a renewed people.

So when we come to Matthew 5:21–37, we are not just picking up a handful of moral sayings about anger and divorce and oaths. We are stepping into Matthew’s curriculum for discipleship.

But whereas Moses says, “Thus says the Lord,” In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus says, “But I say to you.” This is breathtaking. Jesus talks with greater authority than Moses. Matthew’s Jesus is not rejecting Judaism. He is portraying Jesus as revealing the deepest intention of Torah. And what is that deepest intention? Not mere rule-keeping, but transformation of the heart.

In today’s passage we hear six times: “You have heard that it was said… but I say to you…” And as he does so, murder becomes anger, adultery becomes lust, divorce becomes covenant faithfulness and oaths become simple truthfulness.

At first glance it sounds as though Jesus is making the law harsher. But that is not what is happening. This is not intensification. It is interiorisation. Jesus moves righteousness from external compliance to inner transformation.

Murder destroys life, but anger and contempt destroy relationships long before blood is shed. Adultery breaks a relationship. But a gaze that turns another person into an object fractures love at its root. Oaths were designed to guarantee truthfulness. But Jesus calls for a life so integrated that no oath is necessary. Let your “yes” be yes and let you “no” be no.

The movement is always the same: From behaviour, to the heart, to relational wholeness. This is why in John’s Gospel Jesus speaks of a transformation of the heart, a rebirth of our inner life. Because anger, lust and dishonesty cannot ultimately be managed merely by external restraint. Something in us must be made new. Nicodemus knew the Law. But knowing the Law is not the same as being inwardly renewed. And so in Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount assumes rebirth. It assumes a heart being reshaped.

|As we saw 2 weeks ago, just before this passage in Matthew, Jesus says: “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”  That sounds intimidating, until we understand what Matthew means by righteousness. Righteousness here is not legal precision. It is alignment with the heart of God.

And that alignment culminates later in this chapter: “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” “Perfect” does not mean flawless. It means being made whole, mature, integrated. It is the perfection of a love that shines on good and bad alike.

Matthew’s Jesus is not primarily a miracle worker in this Gospel. He is the teacher of divine wisdom and the revealer of the Father’s character. And he is forming people who reflect the heart of God.

But notice how in Matthew, community is the place of salvation. Notice how relational this passage is: Be reconciled before you bring your gift to the altar. Settle matters quickly. Let your speech be truthful.

For Matthew, salvation is not merely private forgiveness. It is the formation of a reconciled community. In Matthew, worship without reconciliation is incomplete. Discipleship is the formation of a reconciled and a reconciling community. And later on in chapter 18, Matthew will expand this vision: how to deal with conflict, how to forgive, how to live together.  The church is meant to embody a new kind of humanity.

But this vision of a reconciled community is not just limited to individuals or even the church. John’s Gospel speaks of God’s Love for the world. In fact the Greek word is ‘kosmos’. For God so loved the world… for God so loved the Kosmos. God’s saving renewing love according to John’s Gospel includes not just individual human souls but the whole world. A cosmic love that embraces the entire Kosmos. Those who experience a rebirth from within begin to share in the Kosmic love of God. Transformed individuals begins to transform the world because their hearts are aflame with a Love for the whole Ksomos.

And this renewal begins as an inward reality. The “Kingdom of Heaven” in Matthew’s Gospel begins in the heart.. and what does that kingdom look like according to Matthew’s Jesus?

Not simmering resentment. Not objectifying desire. Not manipulative speech. The kingdom is not first a political revolution. It is transformed heart, a transformed, consciousness that leads to healed relationships and then radiates outward. It is what happens when the law moves from tablets of stone to the depths of the heart.

So what does this reveal about Matthew’s perspective on the Jesus story?

It tells us that for Matthew:

• Jesus is the definitive interpreter of Torah.
• Discipleship means obedience to his teaching.
• Obedience means interior transformation.
• Interior transformation creates reconciled community.
• And reconciled community embodies the Kingdom.

The Jesus story according to Matthew is not merely about the cancellation of guilt. It is about the creation of a new humanity.

And so the question for us is not, “Have I avoided murder?” but “What is happening in my heart toward my brother or sister?” Not, “Have I technically kept the rule?”
but “Is my life becoming whole, is my life radiating Divine Love?”

The Sermon on the Mount is not optional spirituality. It is the shape of Christian maturity. It is the slow, patient work of allowing Christ to transform not just our actions, but our perception, our desires, our speech, and our relationships. And in that transformation, the Kingdom comes.

In closing we return to Nicodemus.

He comes to Jesus at night, curious, cautious, not yet seeing clearly. And Jesus speaks to him of birth from above. Inner renewal of the heart.

Perhaps that is what Lent is for. Not moral tightening. Not religious anxiety. But allowing God to bring forth new life at the root of our being.

And why? Because “God so loved the kosmos.” Not just me. Not just you. Not even just this whole tangled, wounded, yet beautiful world, but the whole create order.

The Sermon on the Mount shows us the shape of that love lived out: anger relinquished, contempt healed, desire purified, speech made simple and true

And when that happens, even imperfectly, the kosmos begins to look, in some small way, as God intends it to be. Amen.