John 4:5-42
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 spoke to her,
JESUS: “Give me a drink.”
WOMAN: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”
JESUS: “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.”
WOMAN: “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: “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.”
WOMAN: “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
JESUS: “Go, call your husband, and come back.”
WOMAN: “I have no husband.”
JESUS: “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!”
WOMAN: “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: “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.”
WOMAN: “I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.”
JESUS: “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.
WOMAN: “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. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
JESUS: “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”
So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?”
JESUS: “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.”
Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony,
WOMAN: “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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If we are wondering why Jesus is in this particular place, it is worth considering where he has been and where he is going.
He has been traveling in Judea. He has been in Jerusalem for the Passover celebration first, and after he has been traveling throughout the Judean countryside with his disciples. But then he decided to return to Galilee – for which he had to go through Samaria. Verse 4 tells us, “But he had to go through Samaria.”
We know from our reading of the scriptures that the Jews and the Samaritans did not get along well. We know from the well-loved parable of the Good Samaritan, that the Jews who were listening to Jesus tell this story, did not, under any circumstances, consider the Samaritans to be “good.” The notion of regarding a Samaritan as a neighbor was abhorrent.
We know these things. But you might not know that the Jews and the Samaritans were really estranged brothers and sisters. The Samaritans were descended from the tribes of Israel that had been conquered and scattered by the Assyrian invaders, centuries earlier. Israel calls them the lost tribes. I don’t know, though, if the Samaritans considered themselves lost.
In any case, over time hatred had grown between these two ethnic groups, which is very sad. As each hardened their own sense of identity, they grew to despise the others. So much, in fact, that I have read that Jews would walk miles out of their way to avoid going through Samaria. Just as some of us might go out of our way to avoid what we consider to be a “bad” neighborhood.
But Jesus did not. John says to us, “He had to go through Samaria,” and I suppose he did, because there was a conversation in Samaria he needed to have.
If he had told anyone that this was what he would be doing, I wonder what kind of reactions he would have received. I am sure his disciples tried to discourage him from going this way, they could have bypassed Samaria as other Jews did. I am sure they would have been concerned about his decision to wait alone at this Samaritan well while they went in search of provisions. But, then again, maybe they thought there was little risk for him. Because going to the well for water was women’s work. How could a woman, even a Samaritan woman, harm him?
In fact, it is unlikely that anyone will be at the well while he is there. It is high noon in the desert. Most women would go in the early morning and the evening, when the heat of the sun is not bearing down on them. You would be unusually brave or foolish to venture out at midday.
But, against the odds, a woman approaches the well to draw water.
Many have suggested that this particular woman is there at noon because of who she is. She is a divorcee – a five-time divorcee, apparently. This would mean that she has been discarded by five husbands. Five different men have married her and then, for whatever reasons they had, announced, “I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you.” It had to have been her husbands who made this decision, because it was not possible for a woman to divorce a man. And it was that simple for a man to divorce a woman.
One would think that she carried this as a burden of shame. That she would have been notorious in her village. One might assume that she managed her days so that she could avoid the other women of the village because she was ashamed to be around them. Because she knew they talked about her, looked down upon her, maybe distrusted her. One might assume that she was a woman full of shame and bitterness at the hand life had dealt her, and lived life as an outcast.
That all makes sense. But the funny thing is she doesn’t act like a disgraced woman. She doesn’t shuffle around, bent over, head low in shame. She behaves as a woman in possession of herself, a woman who is at home in her skin.
She doesn’t appear to be afraid of Jesus. She recognizes him immediately as a Jew. And she knows all the prohibitions that would warn her against interacting with this man. Even so, she asks him a pointed question: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”
How is it that you, a man, are speaking to me, a strange woman?
How is it that you, a Jew, are speaking to me, a Samaritan?
How is it that you, a religiously observant son of Israel, are speaking to me, one who is considered by your people to be unclean?
What are you doing here in Samaria? What are you doing at my well?
Just asking. Maybe it’s rude, but she’s just wondering.
Jesus doesn’t get the slightest bit off-balance, however, by her blunt question. He doesn’t miss a step. It is almost like he was waiting for it. It is almost as if he were waiting for her – this 5-time married and divorced Samaritan woman.
So he says: Let’s talk about the water that I could give to you. The living water.
And they’re off. And you know what? Rather than scoff at this woman for all her presumed sins, I marvel at her.
She is a worthy conversation partner for Jesus. She doesn’t ever back down. She responds to every strange thing he says – at first not understanding him, but staying with him nonetheless. Perhaps one of the best things that can be said about her is this: She is not afraid of what she doesn’t understand, but is willing and able to continue the conversation through the ambiguity.
One can’t help but compare this conversation with the last one he had – with the Pharisee Nicodemus back in chapter 3. Nicodemus sought Jesus out because he sensed that there was something Jesus had that he, Nicodemus needed. But he struggled to comprehend, he simply couldn’t make the leap with Jesus toward a new understanding of things. He walked away, still in the dark, discouraged.
The Samaritan woman, in contrast, did not come looking for Jesus. She had no idea he would be there at the well. But finding him there she was fully present with him. In the bright light of day, they speak and listen to each other in truth. She has questions: Why do you ask me for water? How would you possibly get this water you are referring to? How can I get this living water that will forever satisfy my thirst? Wait –
Why do you mention my husband? What is that to you?
How do you know me, Jesus? How do you know me?
Jesus has never met this woman before, but he does know her. And she allows herself to be known by him.
When you have a conversation, there are two sides to it. That is what a conversation is, after all. Each one shares with the other.
Jesus comes offering something to us, and we can receive it only if we offer something of ourselves to him. Probably something we don’t really want to look at or dwell on. Most of us would rather, somehow, gloss over the less savory parts of our lives. But then Jesus will come along and say, “Let’s talk about that.”
So I ask you once again: Do you want to have a conversation with Jesus? A real heart to heart? Then open your heart to him. He has already given his heart to you.
Photo: By Carl Heinrich Bloch – http://masterpieceart.net/carl-heinrich-bloch/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18138698
