Jesus meets a Samaritan woman
Readings: 1Peter 4: 7-11 John 4: 1-26
This is such a familiar story that, for many of us, it's no longer revolutionary... no longer shocking. But for those who witnessed this encounter, it was nothing short of extraordinary. It was extraordinary even to find Jesus there in the first place. Why? Well, take a look at verse 4. The bible says of Jesus: "He had to go through Samaria" [my emphasis]. Samaria was not just a big city, but a whole region that sat right in the middle of Palestine, midway between Judea and Galilee. Jesus didn't have to go there at all. Most Jews avoided Samaria altogether. They just crossed the river Jordan and travelled up the east bank. And they did that (as v.9 tells us) because Jews didn't get on very well with Samaritans - something of dramatic understatement. In reality it was a case of all-out hatred. And, as result, godfearing Jews would do anything to avoid going anywhere near the place. To them, it was the pits.
Why then does the bible say that Jesus had to go through Samaria? It was clearly not for convenience, or because there was no other way. The only possible explanation is that Jesus was led by the Spirit. And that same Holy Spirit took Jesus right out of his comfort zone and into one of the most unexpected and amazing pastoral encounters of all time. It had all the classic ingredients of politics, sex and religion.
Even by heading off towards Samaria, Jesus had raised eyebrows among strict Jews. Jews and Samaritans were rather like Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. They had the same spiritual heritage; they shared much the same belief in scripture, and they were waiting for the same saviour. But, as in the case of Northern Ireland, these two groups had grown to hate their spiritual next-of-kin. And the reasons were much the same... politics and history. Hardly anything to do with true religion. So, there was Jesus, leading his followers right into the enemy camp. And that was surprising enough. But then came the encounter with the woman, which was even more extraordinary, for a variety of reasons.
The first strange thing was to find anyone there at all. The bible tells us it was noon. And generally speaking, women (and it was women) came to collect water early in the morning or late in the evening, when it was much cooler. No-one would choose to go there at noon. So what was this woman doing struggling with a heavy jar and a bucket in the heat of the day? Could she, perhaps, have been trying to avoid her fellow townswomen? The bible doesn't actually tell us. But from what we learn later, it's pretty clear that she was someone who lived in the shadows, someone shunned and rejected by mainstream respectable society. So just try and imagine the scene. The disciples had all gone off to the supermarket to buy some food and Jesus was left sitting alone by the well. John's gospel paints a picture of a Jesus exhausted from the journey and thirsty from the heat of the day. Humanly speaking - and he was human - Jesus would not have been feeling particularly comfortable or particularly sociable. But then along comes this poor exhausted woman with her heavy load. For the reasons I've mentioned, she too must have been feeling even less than chatty. And bear in mind that, in those days, men and women - even from the same tribe - didn't speak unless they's first been introduced. So, although Jew and Samaritan could hardly avoid noticing each other, the normal thing would have been to look away in silence. Anything more might attract the attention of the paparazzi!
So, try to imagine the woman's reaction when Jesus broke the embarrassed silence by asking for a drink. Who was this stranger who seemed to be flouting every rule in the book? And was he perhaps just trying to chat her up... another man like so many she'd known? (If you're a woman, just try to imagine the feeling of being accosted by a foreign man in a lonely place). We don't, of course, actually know what thoughts were going through the woman's head. But it's clear she was well out of her comfort zone. And so to avoid sounding either too friendly or too standoffish, she could only reply with another question: 'How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?' The woman obviously knew (as v.9 tells us) that if Jesus took a drink, he'd be making himself ritually unclean. Jesus was clearly thirsty, and that fact alone shows us his true humanity. But was that the only reason he asked for a drink? It wasn't, after all, very politically correct to do so. And he could have waited for the disciples to return. But, from what follows, it's pretty clear why Jesus broke so many social conventions. And he wasn't just being outrageous for the sake of it.
From many other incidents in scripture, we know that Jesus had a deep love for humanity that was much more important than merely keeping the rules. Thus he regularly consorted with prostitutes, tax-collectors and other notorious sinners. And once again we find him with someone rejected by society, someone so needy that she hardly has the strength to argue. So when Jesus eventually offers the woman 'water that will become a spring gushing up to eternal life', she's not even surprised or puzzled. All she wants is to be freed from her regular exhausting and lonely trips to the well. Then Jesus drops a bombshell.. 'Go call your husband and come back'. What must the woman have felt, because she was just living (in sin?) with her bloke? So she replies honestly, 'I have no husband', hoping - no doubt - to put an end to the embarrassing conversation. But Jesus wouldn't be diverted and he told her everything about herself, including her five divorces. Now that would have been regarded as even more immoral. In those days, women were only allowed a maximum of three (!) But the fact that Jesus knew her whole history had clearly shocked this woman into a realisation that he was, at the very least, a prophet sent from God. And so, with great relief no doubt, the conversation moved on rapidly from sex to religion. And you can hardly have a more abrupt change of subject from drinking water to worship! Worship was, of course, one of the big issues dividing Jew from Samaritan, just as today it separates Protestant from Catholic or traditional from modern. But since Jesus had already broken down one barrier, the woman clearly felt happy throwing another contentious issue into the equation, the age-old question of where to worship?
The Jews had always worshipped in the temple at Jerusalem, but Samaritans worshipped on Mount Gerizim, about 30 miles away. They even had their own temple until the Jews trashed it round around 128 BC. Yet here again, Jesus doesn't get drawn into the politics of the situation. He's much more concerned to raise matters of eternal significance. And it takes only a moment or two for Jesus to declare that he's much more than just a prophet. He is indeed the Messiah - the one long awaited by both Jews and Samaritans. And to cut a long story short, the woman goes back to her people and leads many of them to meet with Jesus and to welcome him as their Lord and Saviour. A truly happy ending. But in spite of that happy ending, I'm still left wondering about the woman herself, this anonymous person, who was so burdened with life, burdened with sin, and doubtless also the victim of other people's sin. What about her five husbands? Were they all blameless characters? Or were they (more likely), bullies and abusers? And what about polite Samaritan society, the people this woman couldn't even face meeting at the well? How caring and loving had they been? So often when we read this story, we listen more to the questions of Jesus than to the polite, but rather stiff replies of the Samaritan woman. We rarely stop to think what might have made her that way. We just put her in a box labelled 'sinner', a technique so common among religious people in all generations, and yet so prejudiced and judgemental. But what about this woman's background and her early life? Had she, perhaps, been abused or ill-treated in such a way that prevented her building stable relationships with men? In my work I come across many of them. Was the Samaritan woman someone so desperate for affection that she always ended up with the wrong men? Thank God, she eventually met the right one!
I'm going to end with a poem by Eddie Askew[1] that takes seriously the pastoral challenges raised by these questions, challenges for each one of us and for our church today. Just who was the woman of Samaria?
I wish I knew her name, Lord, the woman at the well.
She walks into my life nameless,
burdened by a history I shall never know.
Searching for love in ways and places I shall never visit,
stubbing her toes on broken hopes that cluttered the corners of her life,
just so much rubbish no one wants.
And always disappointed, Lord, until you came into her life. And into mine.
Disturbing with a love that digs up secrets, unlocks the truths I'd rather not remember.
Helping each one of us to look in honesty at what we were without you
and to show us what we can become with you. Our deepest selves.
Your judgement's only to restore and offer us a new beginning.
And as she found in you the love she'd searched for all her life,
in greater depth than she could ever hope to, so too may we.
I wish I knew her name, Lord, but I can rest content
in knowing that she's known by you, enfolded in your love for all eternity.
And knowing that her name is written in your book of life,
next, I believe, to mine. Thanks be to God.
Truly, love covers a multitude of sins.. God's love.
[1] Unexpected Journeys by Eddie Askew. Published by the Leprosy Mission International