Kletskassas, Mattering, and the Woman at the Well

John 4:4-42

Jesus left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.”  The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” 

The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 

The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

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?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

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In 2019, Jumbo’s, a Netherlands supermarket chain, introduced Kletskassas, slow checkout lanes that encourage conversations and human connection. The goal is the opposite of what you normally want at a check line, but for good reason. They are a part of the Netherlands public health campaign to lessen loneliness and help people feel like they matter, one long conversation.  

This week, I heard and read in many places how we are in a crisis of mattering. In her new book by the same name, journalist Jennifer Breheny Wallace describes mattering as feeling valued by others

And having the opportunity to add value back to the world around us. She argues it is an even deeper need than other core needs such as purpose or belonging. One might belong to a workplace, a family, or a church and still not feel like they matter to the people there.

Wallace believes that young people are struggling with mattering more than anyone—that this need is going unmet for them. After hundreds of interviews, she heard over and over how young people felt they only mattered when their GPA was high, the number on the scale was low, when they had a certain number of likes or views on social media, or they were a top athlete. 

But by no means is the crisis of mattering limited to young people. Nearly anyone who has gone through a major transition has struggled with the question: Do I matter?

You worked for 35 or 40 years and suddenly, one day, it all stops. You cared for a child or children in your home every day, and then they moved out. You made nearly every decision in life with a spouse but then left to make those decisions alone. We are familiar with this feeling of mattering.

And with the rise of AI and the threat of it replacing more jobs and roles, the question of mattering will only become more poignant and prevalent. Jesus—and thereby the church—have something to say about this crisis, and we see it in the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. Mattering is at the heart of this story.

But in order for us to really see that, we have to remember last week—when Jesus was approached by Nicodemus. Near the end of their conversation, Jesus tells him that God loves the whole world. 

This encounter with the woman at the well reveals just how encompassing God’s love really is.

Jesus is leaving Jerusalem and heading back to Galilee when we’re told he had to go through Samaria. As you can see, Samaria is immediately north of Judea and the fastest way to get to Galilee. But most Jews did everything they could to avoid traveling through that land, lest they come into contact with a Samaritan. Usually they would cross over the Jordan River and then go up. So this necessity of Jesus is not geographical, but theological. 

Samaritans were already despised outsiders—idolaters even—seen as a lowly, unclean enemy. 

Women were lower in social status than men, especially women who were not married. Jesus arrives at a well at noon and here comes someone the world didn’t think mattered at all: An unmarried Samaritan woman coming to quench her thirst just like Jesus.

She could not be more at odds with Nicodemus: a male, Jewish religious leader (who came at night, mind you). If anyone mattered, it was him. His words held value. He had status. The woman, who isn’t even given a name, does not. 

Yet Jesus engages both of them.

In fact, the conversation Jesus has with the woman is the longest conversation he has with anyone. 

Ironically, a long conversation was precisely what the woman was trying to avoid. That’s one reason she went to the well at noon—the hottest part of the day, if I had to guess.

To be clear, we don’t know exactly why she’s there at noon. There could be all kinds of reasons. One of them is NOT because she’s an ostracized tramp, hated by the other women of Sychar. Yes she had five husbands, but it’s not likely because of some scandalous reputation.

It is much more likely that this woman was passed from husband to husband through a mixture of divorce and death. And she keeps getting married because she has had no children—or at least no sons—to take care of her. So she ends up in what was called a levirate marriage, where a man is obligated to take care of his brother’s widow if the brother dies childless.

Not only is she a widow, but a barren one at that. The main thing that gave women value—what made women matter in the time of Jesus—she couldn’t do. I think she went to the well at noon because not only did she think others believed she didn’t matter, but she believed that about herself, too. And when you feel like that, when you believe that about yourself, you withdraw. You disengage.

But here is this man who breaks all the rules, who crosses all the boundaries, and asks for a drink. 

A conversation unfolds where Jesus tries to help the woman understand who he is and what he can offer her, but it doesn’t click until he tells her everything about her. 

In other words, he names the reason the world thinks she doesn’t matter—and the reason she believes she doesn’t matter. But instead of brushing her off, instead of rushing away, he leans in. He talks to her more. He even debates theology with her, and finally reveals himself as the Messiah, the very one she has been waiting for.

The woman rushes back to Sychar and tells the whole town what has happened. It’s amazing—this woman who avoided people suddenly can’t help but engage and share about the encounter she’s had with Jesus. If mattering means feeling valued and adding value back to the world, Jesus has given her exactly that.

This mattering crisis is indeed a crisis, but it’s nothing new. We have always failed to name who matters and why. 

• The world has long said women don’t matter—or that only their bodies matter, and only if they produce offspring. 

• In this country we have said, and continue to say in different ways, that Black and brown people don’t matter—or at least not as much as those who look like me.

• In this capitalist society, we say that only those who contribute matter—and those who profit most matter most.

• And over the last few years, we have said that anyone who isn’t from this country, or doesn’t look like they are, doesn’t matter.

And what does this war say about who matters and who doesn’t? What about the elementary girls bombed in Iran—did they matter? Were they a part of this world that God so loved?

This encounter with the woman at the well tells us that God loves everyone in this whole wide world—and that’s why they matter. Nothing more and nothing less. It does not matter what a person does or looks like, where they are from or what language they speak, what gender they are, or who they love. 

For God so loved the whole world.

If you have ever felt like you don’t matter, I pray I am not the first to tell you that you do. To the queer kid in high school, the twice-divorced woman, the retired elderly man, the noisy child running in the halls—you matter. 

And it has nothing to do with what you have done. In the kingdom of God you do not earn value, it’s freely given to you! We call it grace.  And grace tells us You matter because Jesus shows us that every single person matters. You matter because God loves you.

We as a church can do something about this mattering crisis, and it’s to tell people they matter. 

It sounds so simple, but it’s the message people need to hear. If the church does nothing else but have long conversations with people who think they don’t matter and then tell them that they are loved, kinda of like those checkout lanes in the Netherlands, we will be doing God’s work.  

In this story, Jesus shows us something we cannot forget:

The woman at the well mattered.

Your neighbor matters.

You matter.

Because God so loved the world. Amen.

Look and Live

John 3:1-17

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews, who came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God because no one can do the signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said, “How can one be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”

Jesus answered him, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Do not be astonished that I’ve said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?”

Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Very truly I tell you, we speak about what we know and we testify to what we have seen and yet, you do not receive our testimony. If we speak to you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe when we tell you about heavenly things?

“No one has ascended to heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up a serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

“For 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. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

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I heard about the shoes long before stepping foot into the Holocaust Exhibition yesterday in Cincinnati with the group of Cross of Gracers who made the trip there. Not only had I heard about the shoes, but I’d seen something similar at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. several years ago. In Cincinnati there were pictures and a couple of stories about individual shoes from murdered Jews. D.C.’s museum hosts an exhibit of actual shoes, though, piled several feet deep – hundreds of them – men’s shoes, women’s shoes, the tiny shoes of children – stacked, like bodies you might say, as a grisly reminder – not just of the number of lives destroyed by the Holocaust, but the very simple, profound, fairly universal symbol of humanity that was lost in those years.

What’s also sobering to realize is that there are museums and memorials around the world with equally large and disturbing piles of shoes of their own. Which makes sad, terrifying sense of course. More than six million murdered Jews leave behind plenty of shoes to go around. (And let us not forget the queer folk, the Roma people, those with disabilities, and thousands of others who were also murdered as part of Hitler’s Holocaust and Final Solution.)

Anyway, and of course, we also saw, yesterday, plenty of pictures, video footage, and so many living, personal testimonies about the horrors of that regime, and of those days, and of that sinful stain on humanity’s history. And they are difficult to see – sad, shameful, and scary – but necessary, to look at, in my opinion; as people of faith, as responsible citizens, as human beings on the planet, as children of God.

And, for so many reasons, I thought of these things when I thought about this morning’s Gospel.

See, when Jesus reminds Nicodemus about that time in Israel’s history when “Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” he’s recalling that strange story from the book of Numbers when God’s people had lost faith and had been disobedient and doubtful of God, so that poisonous serpents showed up to bite them as punishment, so the story goes. When they realized the error of their ways and asked for help, Moses – at God’s direction – put a bronze serpent on a pole, and set it up so that God’s people could look at the serpent – like some sort of sacred, spiritual anti-venom – and be healed from the poisonous of those snakes that had plagued them. They were called to look back; to face their fear; to stare their struggle, their sadness, their sin – the source of their pain and punishment – in the eye – in order to be healed of it.

And isn’t that, a lot of the time, the very last thing we are inclined to do – get close to and look at the source of our struggle and sinfulness, I mean? Isn’t it hard and scary, sometimes, to look our fear, our shame, our guilt, and our greatest threat in the eye? Aren’t we pretty good at – if not inherently wired for – avoiding so many of the difficult, scary, broken parts of our lives and of our history, rather than face them, admit them, let alone engage and get close to them and expect good things to come of it?

And it’s no wonder, really. Our world is an unforgiving, judgmental, punishment- seeking, vengeance-hungry, score-keeping, death-dealing kind of place to live in. Admitting mistakes is bad for approval ratings – just ask a politician. Failure is to be avoided at all costs – just ask a student or a young athlete in your life. Admitting sin and seeking forgiveness feels like weakness – just look in the mirror.

But this is what I hear Jesus ask of us in this morning’s Gospel. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” … on a pole… on a tree… on a cross for all the world to see, so that we might look at him, so that we might look to him for deliverance from that which we fear threatens us most – our greatest mistakes, our deepest guilt, our darkest shame, our unfathomable brokenness, our Sin – with a capital S – heaped upon God, in Jesus, and left to die on a cross.

And that’s the power – and the practical, holy importance – of museums and memorials that point to and remind us of our history, and that force us to look it straight in the eye, even when, especially when, it’s terrible and terrifying – like any Holocaust exhibit, like the Lynching Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, like the Vietnam Wall, the 9/11 Museum, the Stonewall National Monument in Greenwich Village, New York.

These are hard, holy reminders of humanity’s capacity for inhumanity. But there is also warning and hope and potential for transformation when we dare to confront, study, learn from, and be changed by what we’ve done.

- I don’t know how anyone could spend 5 minutes in that Cincinnati exhibit and deny the atrocities of Hitler’s regime – but there are too many who still pretend it didn’t happen or that it wasn’t as bad as it was, and who refuse to believe what their eyes could see if they’d just look.

- After learning that some of the Nazi’s first sinister steps toward “Making Germany Great” included very deliberately “Germanizing” the names of towns, villages, and streets, I’ll think even harder every time I hear or see someone refer to “The Gulf of America” on a map.

- And when I hear about innocent US Citizens being unfairly, unjustly detained, imprisoned, and deported, I’ll remember the way that happened to innocent Japanese Americans once before, too, while we were simultaneously, ironically, fighting to liberate Jews from similar tyranny in the same damn war.

We need all the reminders and reality checks we can get, people. Because, as Maya Angelou used to say, something with which I believe Jesus would agree: “When you know better, you do better.”

That’s why yesterday – and all of this – is more than a history lesson for me. It’s an exercise of faith because these Lenten days are all about doing this work – looking back, acknowledging, admitting, confessing, repenting of our sins – working to change and be changed because of them – and extending mercy, grace and love to the world of God’s children as a result.

Because “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life.” And because “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

It’s hard to look at what hurts, horrifies and threatens to kill us – at what has killed too many of us – and trust that, in doing so, we can be saved. But that’s Jesus’ invitation today, nonetheless… “to look and live” like those Israelites were commanded to do, way back when. To look at the Sin that has bitten us and that bites us, still. To see, repent for, and change all the ways we manage to break the heart of God; not avert our eyes, not run from, not pretend or deny the fullness of our Sin – and to not be fooled into believing God can’t redeem it, either.

And that’s why we look to the cross … so that we might stop hiding from the sins that hang there – all the things done, left undone, and yet to be done – so that we might look full in the face at our greatest shame and our deepest fears and into the threat of our own brokenness – into the face, even, of death – and to see God’s promised salvation in spite of it all.

Because when we see the whole of our SIN crucified and killed … then forgiven and raised to new life … it can’t bite, burden, or betray us any longer. And when we receive and accept the fullness of this grace, we can learn to walk in the shoes of our neighbor and live transformed lives in return – asking for forgiveness, extending mercy, and loving one another – wholly – the way we have already been loved, by God, in Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen