Caught in the Fence

Jody Winston
27-February-2005

1 Sermon
“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”1
Grace and peace are gifts for you from God, the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. 2
Growing up on a small ranch in South Texas, I became familiar with freeing
animals from fences. Maybe a few of you have had to free animals from fences
also. Normally what happened on my parent’s ranch was that a calf would try
to escape from its pen so that it could reach its mother and in doing so, the calf
would become entangled in the barbed wire fence. In order to free the calf from
what held it, the calf would have to be calmed down, the calf would need to be
cut out from the fence, and once these items were done, the calf could then be set
free to live.
After extensive research, I have come to the conclusion that Jesus is a rather
good ranch hand. I would like to hear if you agree with me because I think that
His actions in this story appear to match those of any good Texas ranch hand. As
we study today’s Gospel, hear how Jesus calms down the woman. See how He
carefully cuts her free from the fence. And notice how He then sets her free to
live.
It really doesn’t matter why the animal is trapped in the fence because all that
really matters is freeing the animal so that the animal can go live again since the
animal will die if it stays entangled in the fence. In other words, the ranch hand
1
Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1:2, Galatians 1:3, Ephesians 1:2, Philippians
1:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:2, Philemon 1:3.
2
Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1:2, Galatians 1:3, Ephesians 1:2, Philippians
1:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:2, Philemon 1:3.

1
must go out into the pasture and find the trapped animals because the trapped
animals will never find the ranch hand and they will not free themselves.
Just like the ranch hand, God goes out and walks the fence line But unlike the
ranch hand that can only find trapped animals, God will be there before we are
tangled up in the fence. We are mistaken if we think that we can find God out
walking the ranch because God’s ranch is the entire universe. It is wrong for us
to think that we can extract ourselves from the fence because we cannot see how
tangled up we actually are in the wire.
Like the trapped animal in a fence, it does not really matter why we are in the
fence. What is important is that we will die if we stay there. So, we should not
concern ourselves why the woman came to the well during the heat of the day
or why she was drawing water from this specific well.3 What matters most to us
in this story is something completely different. The Good News is that God is
already waiting for us.4
The Spirit drove Jesus to the well and the Spirit will drive Him to us.5 He will
be waiting for us no matter where we are. No matter how tired He is from the
journey, He will be there for us just like He was there at the well for the Samaritan
woman. 6 If we let Him, He will save us.
The trapped animal must be calmed down before the ranch hand tries to do
anything else. If the animal is not treated with respect, then the animal will be
frightened and might hurt themselves or the ranch hand.
In this story, Christ’s attitude towards women and Samaritans places the woman
at ease. Instead of making a derogatory remark about her racial background or
completely ignoring her because she was a woman,7 Jesus simply tells her to give
Him a drink of water.8 In this simple action, Jesus shows us that God meets us in
our situation.
The woman could have tried to run away from God or become angry with
God. We can do the same thing when God talks to us and we focus our energy on
self-preservation instead of listening to God. The flee or fight response can hurt
us. If we try to flee, we will hurt ourselves as we try to pull away from the fence.
If we try to become angry and thrash out at God, our actions will cause us pain.
3
John 4:6-7.
4
John 4:4-6.
5
John 4:4.
6
John 4:6-7.
7
S.D.B. Francis J. Maloney; S.J. Daniel J. Harrington, ed., The Gospel of John, Vol. 4, Sacra
Pagina Series, (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1998), p. 116-117.
8
John 4:7.

2
 After making the animal feel safe, the ranch hand must place themselves at
risk and hold the animal still so they can cut the animal out from the fence. If
the ranch hand has forgotten to bring the appropriate tools, the fence cannot be
removed from the animal.
Four different types of wire trap the Samaritan woman: the binding of birth,
the tangle of tradition, the wire of religion, and sin’s fence. One of the ways that
birth traps us is that we are either male or female. In the culture of the day, women
were property and either their father or their husband owned them. Men were not
to speak to women they did not own. Jesus cuts through this legal system and
speaks directly to the woman.9 Birth also ensnares us by placing us into a given
race. As a Samaritan, the woman would never share anything with a Jew.10 In fact,
most Jews viewed the Samaritans as “mixed blood” and because of this attitude
the race relations between the Samaritans and the Jews were “hostile.”11 Jesus
quickly and carefully removes this wire by asking the woman to give Him a drink
from her water jar.12 Tradition has forced the women into a fence. She thinks
that no one can be greater than her father Jacob.13 Jesus extracts the woman from
this mess by telling her that His water quenches your thirst forever and gives you
eternal life unlike Jacob’s water.14 Religion has trapped many people and it has
caught the woman. Her religion teaches her that God must be only worshiped on
the mountain.15 Jesus strips off this portion of the fence and tells her that God
must be worshiped in “spirit and truth.”16 We do not know anything about the
woman’s six husbands and it is pointless for us to speculate why she is on her
sixth husband.17 But we do know that she is a human and just like every human
she has sinned sometime in the past. In her present state and despite her sin, God
was there before she arrived at the well and God accepted her. Jesus tells her all
she has to do is believe in Him.18
At each of these encounters with Christ, the woman could have refused to let
Jesus do what He needed to do. Each of us has the option of remaining where we
are and dieing because we cannot get the food and the water that we need.
9
John 4:7 and following.
10
John 4:9.
11
Francis J. Maloney, p. 120.
12
John 4:7.
13
John 4:12.
14
John 4:13-14.
15
John 4:20-21.
16
John 4:24.
17
John 4:16-18.
18
John 4:21-26.

3
 Jesus is willing to meet us in all of our messy situations. Even though we
might lash out and hurt Him, He is willing to put himself at risk and He extracts
us from our problems. In every encounter with the woman, Jesus brought the
correct tools to remove her from the fence. He will do the same for us. He will do
anything, including dieing on the cross, to remove us from the fence.
Standing in the cut fence does nothing for the calf. The calf needs food and
water. The ranch hand must send the calf on its way so that the calf can live.
Jesus sent the woman to find her husband and then for them to come back to
Him.19 We do not know if her husband did what Christ ordered him to do. We
all have that choice of ignoring Christ’s word and dieing where we stand. We do
know that the woman not only returned to Christ but also that she told others who
found her. Because of her witness, Jesus spent two days with the Samaritans and
many of them believed because of His word.20
If the Samaritan woman would have stayed at the well instead of going back
to the town, she would have literally starved to death. She listened to Jesus and
followed His command to go.
When God frees us, we all have a choice to make. We can stand where we
are and not leave the place where God set us free. This is a tempting choice for
us because we all want to remember our encounter with God but if we stay here,
we will surely die. We can go back to our old way of life. This option is easy for
us because then we can continue to walk in our old ways even though we know
that one day they will take us back to the fence. We can kill the one that set us
free because we find that His freedom is too frightening. Or we can take the most
demanding choice, going and telling others about how God cut us free from the
fence.
Jesus wants us to take that difficult option of telling others how God released
us. He wants us to invite others to come and see what we have seen.21 Even if
our invitations are as weak as the woman’s, “Come and see a man who told me
everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”, by the power of
the Holy Spirit, they will produce results, just like the woman’s confession.
Where are to go and who are we to tell this story to?
Jesus Himself has provided us the answer to this question. Just has He started
the work in Samaria and had other people finished it. He is asking us to do the
same. We are to lift up our eyes and see how the fields are already ripe for har-
19
John 4:16.
20
John 4:41.
21
John 4:29.

4
vesting.22 When we go into the field and help Christ with the harvest, Jesus has
promised that we can celebrate with Him.23
I think that you will agree with me that Jesus is a good ranch hand. He goes
out and is there before we are trapped. He works with them, to free them from the
fence. He sets them free to live.
“The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and
minds through Christ Jesus.”

References
Francis J. Maloney, S.D.B.; Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., ed.. The Gospel of John.
Vol. 4, Sacra Pagina Series. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press,
1998. ISBN 0-8146-5806-7.

22
John 4:35b.
23
John 4:36.