The Pharisees hear that Jesus is baptizing more people and gaining more converts than John the Baptist. This news prompts Jesus to leave Judea and head back to Galilee. Jesus passes through Samaria on the way to Galilee.
So, why is becoming more popular than John the Baptist a problem with the Pharisees? It is not explained entirely in the text. On one hand, Jesus has cleared the temple of money-changers, which the temple leaders did not like. But Jesus used the occasion and performed miraculous signs. Thus, the event may have been controversial, but Jesus turned it around.
On the other hand, in the prior chapter, we saw an argument break out between the disciples of John and "certain Jews". Clearly, this issue is bringing up raw emotions. Likewise, the "certain Jews" might be the people who reported to the Pharisees that Jesus is becoming more popular than John. If so, that would help unpack the story of the argument in that it was the disciples of John who were defending Jesus against those who wanted John to retain prominence.
It could also be that the message of John the Baptist has changed. John has gone from preaching repentance in the wilderness to preaching that this man Jesus, who cleared the temple, is the Messiah. The people might need time to digest this. Until that happens, emotions will be raw and there will be a lot of fights.
Regardless, Jesus heads back north, but must pass through Samaria.
Jesus arrives in Samaria. He is tired and sits at a well. He disciples go into town to buy food.
It is midday and a Samaritan woman comes up to the well. Jesus asks her for a drink of water. This prompts an interesting dialogue. First, they discuss social and cultural boundaries because she is a Samaritan woman and Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus also discusses this mysterious life giving water that she will make h never thirst again. Eventually, Jesus tells her that he knows she has had five prior husbands and the man she lives with now is not her husband. This statement out of the blue convinces her that he is a prophet.
In the last part of the dialogue, they finally discuss religion. They discuss the religious dispute between Samaritans and Jews, which is the proper mountain to worship. Through this, Jesus reveals that he is the Messiah and soon the issue of where to worship will be irrelevant.
By then, the disciples return and stand silently above her because they are surprised by this interaction between Jesus and this woman. The woman leaves her jar at the well and runs off. This indicates that she may have felt intimidated by the disciples. She runs back to the town and tell the town folk that she found a man who might be the Messiah. As a result, the town folk swarm Jesus, many believe in him, and they ask him to stay an extra two days.
But before the arrival of the town folk, Jesus chastises the disciples for not harvesting when the harvest is ready and right before them.
This story is full and I will try to unpack. I probably cannot "harvest" it for all that it is worth.
First, the story is a contrast in style with Nicodemus, a Pharisee who already believed in Jesus. Jesus does not preach condemnation to the woman, whereas it was discussed with Nicodemus. Jesus talked about the attributes of belief in him, in particular the living water. The message carried its own weight and eventually he let the holy spirit take over.
The woman did precisely what the disciples did not do. She goes into town and invites everyone to Jesus. In that since, she "harvests" alone, whereas the disciples just go into buy food. We can infer that while buying food, they maintained all the proper social etiquette of the Jewish-Samaritan interactions given their surprise of Jesus breaking the social norms when they return.
About the religious tension, I think a modern analogy would be the dispute between Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem today. The Samaritans today exist, but are a marginal group. According to Wikipedia, they currently number about 750 in total population today. However, at the time, this was a major split. The Samaritans believed that Mount Gerizim was the proper mountain to worship on while the Jews believed it was the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Nowadays, a similar dispute in the Middle East occurs, but it is not whether the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is more important, but rather which religion claims it. In particular, Judaism or Islam. Several centuries after the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, the Muslims built the Al Aqsa Mosque on top of the Temple Mount.
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