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The Woman at the Well
a gospel reading
for 4 or 5 readers:
N - Narrator,
J - Jesus,
W - Samaritan Woman,
D - Disciple,
S - Samaritan
(D & S can be the same person)
Part 1 - John 4:5-26
N - So Jesus 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,
J - "Give me a drink."
N - (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The
Samaritan woman said to him,
W - "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of
Samaria?"
N - (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus
answered her,
J - "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."
N - The woman said to him,
W - "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?"
J - "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."
W - "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or
have to keep coming here to draw water."
J - "Go, call your husband, and come back."
W - "I have no husband."
J - "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!"
W - "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."
J - “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."
N - The woman said to him,
W - "I know that Messiah is coming"
N - (who is called Christ).
W - "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us."
J - (pause) "I am
he, the one who is speaking to you."
"I
love to tell the story" (vs. 1)
- #398
Part 2 - John 4:27-38
N - Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he
was speaking with a woman, but no one said,
D - "What do you want?" … "Why are you speaking with her?"
N - Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city.
She said to the people,
W - "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!
He cannot be the Messiah, can he?"
N - They left the city and were on their way to him. Meanwhile
the disciples were urging him,
D - "Rabbi, eat something."
N - But he said to them,
J - "I have food to eat that you do not
know about."
N - So the disciples said to one another,
D - "Surely no one has brought him
something to eat?"
N - Jesus said to them,
J - "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to
complete his work. Do 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. The reaper is already receiving
wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and
reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true,
'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which
you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered
into their labor."
"I
love to tell the story" (vs. 2)
- #398
(note - our hymnal omits the 2nd of the 4
verses on the above webpage)
Part 3 - John 4:39-42
N - Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of
the woman's testimony,
W - "He told me everything I have ever
done."
N - 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,
S - "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."
"I
love to tell the story" (vs. 3)
- #398
scripture text taken from The New Revised Standard Version,
copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States
of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Dramatic reading
used again on
3/22/2014
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