I was a lucky and blessed kid. As a child strong and independent women surrounded me. And the men in my life—primarily my dad, my grandfather, uncle and various and sundry neighbors, church friends and clergy—were not at all chauvinistic. The kids my age in the neighborhood were mainly boys and when they tried to tell me I couldn’t do something because I was a girl, I just beat them …at basketball, baseball, or our never-ending game of Batman vs. Superman. I was lucky. I was blessed, for I was raised to believe that I could be whomever and whatever I wanted. On those rare occasions when someone said, no you can’t, you’re a girl, my mom and dad would say, yes you can, you’re a girl!
If only our Samaritan Woman at the Well had such an experience. Depending on what commentaries you read, she was either a harlot or lazy. Even the commentators who laud her as the evangelist she truly was—after all she converted an entire Samaritan city---still make reference to her being immoral, dim-witted, and unworthy. But, truth is, we don’t know what led her to her difficult circumstance, we just know she’d been married 5 times was now unmarried but being cared for by some man, probably her deceased husband’s brother and that for some unknown reason she traveled to the well at high noon, when most people would avoid the blazing desert sun.
Jesus, was coming off his conversation with Nicodemus—the Temple official who couldn’t seem to make sense of Jesus’ promise for a life infused with that living water, that spirit which is God. The man who comes to see Jesus in the dead of night, not because he has insomnia, but because he’s afraid of being seen by his friends, by his enemies and, in a certain respect, by Jesus himself. Nicodemus a well respected and powerful man who, shrouded in darkness, stumbles, trying to figure out Jesus’ message. He listens instead of hears. He’s shown the light, yet it takes him another two encounters with Jesus before he really sees.
The Woman at the Well doesn’t have to worry about power or respect, she doesn’t need to hide in the dark, for even in the brightness of high noon, she’s rarely noticed. The Woman at the Well just needs some water; so she goes to the well, bucket in hand.
Jesus is travelling from Judea to Galilee. The shortest route goes through the territory of the Samaritans but Jews took the longer route, avoiding this area. The Samaritans were a despised people. Generations earlier the Jews of Samaria—yes they were Jewish--had dared to contaminate themselves through inter-marriage with Gentiles. And, on top of that, they denied the sanctity of the Jerusalem Temple, preferring a temple they built atop Mt. Gerizim within their territory. In the Jewish world of Jesus’ day, no one was filthier than a Samaritan.
But Jesus, maybe because he was in a hurry, maybe because he never met a boundary or a bigotry or a hatred he could let stand, walked smack dab into the Samaritan territory. Tired, he stops at the iconic Jacob’s well—a place of great significance in the Hebrew scriptural tradition---to rest while the others went off in search of food. John is clear to let us know that it’s noon—high noon when no one in the right mind would be trekking to the well to draw water—high noon, where the lack of shadows leaves no place to hide, no shroud under which one may keep from being seen.
John, whom we’re reading during these four middle Sundays in Lent--LOVES symbolism especially those of LIGHT AND WATER. For John, if people accept the living water of Christ, they will be transformed, enlightened, as they move from the deceit, denial and death of the dark into the truth, the yes and the everlasting life of light.
As he encounters the woman at the well, Jesus begins to talk and, astonishing for that day and age and circumstance, the woman answers….questions…and debates! Even though Jesus, a faithful and observant Jew, should shun her, he’s eager to engage in a little theological repartee. And so they go at it.
Amazing as this may seem, it’s not the most incredible part of the story.
The most incredible, astonishing and miraculous thing in this story is that this woman, in a New York minute, gets it. She listens to Jesus and she hears. She watches Jesus and she sees. She is transformed by Jesus and she goes---dropping her water jug much like Andrew and Peter did their nets when Jesus come upon them and said, “follow me;” this woman takes off, heading back to her village to proclaim that she’s just encountered the One. The Messiah. And the town, the villagers, those people who had, apparently, been shunning her? They listened! And then they came to hear for themselves, to hear this man who knew all about our woman at the well, who knew everything she had ever seen or done, thought or felt…they came to drink this living water, to be washed in the fountain of a new life promised to them, through Christ.
Much like Miriam, Ruth, Esther and Judith, heroes of Hebrew scripture and like Mary, the mother of Jesus, the first to say yes, the first to be transformed and the first to have her heart pierced, our Woman at the Well, was a prophet, an apostle, an evangelist and a preacher . She was a worthy sparring partner for Jesus as she questioned the wisdom of he who desired a drink yet had no cup, who claimed to be holy, yet trod on the unclean soil of Samaria and who, against all common sense, good breeding and religious observance, engaged in a lengthy dialogue with her, a woman of difficult circumstance, not because she needed to be healed, saved or rebuked, but because she was willing to be transformed.
She was willing—eager-- to drink the living water of this Jesus. She didn’t just “follow him,” she absorbed his Word, until she was overflowing with this water of truth and light.
The Samaritan Woman at the well, a saint in the eastern church , an icon in the western, teaches us that the Christ who lived and died and rose again brings us all to the fountain of living water where we’re washed clean of prejudice, renewed through a sense of belonging and comforted in knowing that Jesus is indeed the One, the Messiah given to all of us, even the girls.
No comments:
Post a Comment