I was a lucky and blessed kid* . Strong and independent women surrounded me throughout childhood. And the men in my life 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 it! 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 parents, grandparents, sisters, priest, would say, “yes you can, you’re a girl!”
If only our Samaritan Woman at the Well had such an experience. For generations biblical scholars labeled her either a harlot or lazy. Even the modern-day 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. Her village shunned and mocked her. The truth is, we don’t know what led her to her difficult circumstance, we just know she’d been married 5 times was currently unmarried and was being cared for by some man, probably her deceased husband’s brother. We know that things were bad enough for her that she’d traveled to the well at high noon, no doubt to avoid the stares and whispers of the other villagers. Hers was not an easy life.
Jesus is travelling from Judea to Galilee, just after his encounter with Nicodemus; the man who came to see Jesus in the dead of night, not because he had insomnia, but because he is afraid of being seen—by his friends, by Temple officials, probably even by Jesus. The shortest route to Galilee goes through Samaritan territory but Jews took the longer route, in order to avoid 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. 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 to rest at the iconic Jacob’s well—a place of great significance in the Hebrew scriptural tradition--- while the others went off in search of food.
Our Gospel author, John, makes sure we get the significance of it being noon—when no one in their 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 wants us to see this juxtaposition between Nicodemus, who lurked in the shadows, hungry for jesus’ word but very afraid of what others would think, and The Woman at the Well who has no need to hide in the dark, for everyone knows who she is and what she’s done. She simply needs water and so off she goes, bucket in hand.
As he encounters her, Jesus begins to engage her in conversation and, astonishing for that day and age and circumstance, the Samaritan Woman at the Well answers….questions…and debates!
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’s transformed by Jesus and ---dropping her water jug much like Andrew and Peter did their fishing nets --the Samaritan woman heads back to her village proclaiming that she’s just encountered the One. The Messiah.
Now remember, this woman has been shunned by everyone yet her transformation, her rebirth is so evident that the villagers actually listen to her, and then seek out Jesus themselves, thirsty to drink this living water of Christ.
Much like those heroes of Hebrew scripture, Miriam, Ruth, Esther and Judith and like Mary, the mother of Jesus, our Woman at the Well was a prophet, apostle, evangelist and preacher.
She proved a worthy sparring partner for Jesus as she questioned the wisdom of he who desired a drink yet had no cup, he who claimed to be holy, yet trod on the unclean soil of Samaria and he 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 drank his Sacred Water, she ate his Holy food and she absorbed his very being until she overflowed with truth and light.
Thanks be to God the woman at the well and Jesus the Christ refused to be defined by others.
Thanks be to God Jesus was neither elitist nor sexist.
Thanks be to God the Woman at the well refused to be shackled by shame. But most of all, thanks be to God she refused to stay thirsty.
Not bad for a girl.+
* From
this point on this sermon is an edited and somewhat reworked version of the
sermon I gave on this text three years ago.
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