Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Saturday, February 1, 2014 Read John 4:1-42 Once again we are at a long narrative that is best read as a whole – in fact this is the longest narrative we have encountered so far. Once we have heard the whole story we can go back and listen to the smaller parts. The setting of this narrative connects it with the discussion of the concurrent ministries of Jesus and John the Baptist which preceded the theological insertion of 3:31-36. Earlier the narrator had left stand the comment that Jesus had also baptized. At this point the narrator interrupts to make the correction that it was not really Jesus who did the baptizing but only his disciples. Why he found it necessary to do that is hard to tell. There certainly would have been nothing wrong with Jesus engaging in baptism. As mentioned earlier this is one of the peculiar “glitches” in John’s gospel. A smoother presentation would have made for an easier reading – but we have what we have. The point of the narrative is less about the baptisms than it is about providing a motive for why Jesus begins to move back to Galilee. In some ways this story mirrors the stories in the Mark, Matthew, and Luke where we are told that after John had been arrested Jesus left for Galilee. There is no mention of the arrest of John the Baptist here but the timing parallels the other gospels. But Jesus will not go directly to Galilee. A stop in Samaria will happen first and that makes up the main narrative we will take up next.