Lent 3 John 4.5-42
Last week Nicodemus, this week the woman at the well, two truly significant meetings and conversations in the gospel story. Jesus is on a journey, he leaves Judea a province in the south and is heading north to Galilee and he chooses to leave Jewish territory and go through Samaria and it’s here that he meets the woman at the well near the Samaritan city of Sychar. Let’s not forget that there is history between Jews and Samaritans – remember the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Many Jews viewed Samaritans as a mongrel people for their racial mixture and religious practice. So here is Jesus tired and thirsty from the journey sitting near the well and along comes the Samaritan woman who came to get water and Jesus asks her for a drink and just watch her reaction, “How is it that you a Jew, ask a drink of me a woman of Samaria?” In this moment Jesus seems to cross so many divides, religious, ethnic, gender and frankly he doesn’t seem to care.
Thinking of the woman. What’s her story? Often people make play of two things from the text, she came to the well at noon, and that she was not married to the person she lived with and had had five husbands. They say she must have been rejected by her community because she came alone at the hottest time of the day and also her marital history implies dodgy moral behaviour. In line with one theme of this passage I am not sure this really holds water. Firstly just look at the way people took notice of her witness to Jesus, she seems to be a trustworthy figure in the community. Secondly we have no idea why she had had five husbands, tragedy may have struck as it often did at that time. She may have lost them through death and divorce who knows. Jesus does not pursue this with further comment. Neither Jesus nor the Gospel writer make a value statement about the five husbands. Jesus does not judge nor seek to shame the woman and I think that is significant.
We might still wonder about the sharp turn in the conversation what’s that about. The woman asks for living water and Jesus says, “Go call your husband and come back.” What’s this all about? We could say it all has to do with a well and things that happened at wells. In Genesis 29, Jacob meets his future wife, Rachel, at a well at midday. A generation before, Abraham’s servant had found Isaac’s wife, Rebekah, at a well (Genesis 24). Even Moses meets his wife at a well (Exodus 2.15-22) The first people to hear John’s Gospel would have recognised the “meeting at the well” type story and no doubt would be wondering where this one was going. Who is going to find a wife!
One take on this passage says we should interpret the five husbands symbolically. It’s an approach which I find quite helpful in following what’s going on and what Jesus says. I have to admit it’s not that easy to follow. This reference to five husbands represents maybe the five powers that had ruled Samaria, or possibly the five ethnic groups that were supposed to have made up the early Samaritan people – remember my comment that many Jews saw the Samaritans as a mongrel people. In this encounter Jesus is actually speaking then of Samaritan history, to someone who would have had more insight than we do.
On this occasion this is not a betrothal scene as in other stories of such meetings at wells, but anticipates the relationship of the Samaritans and God and that as Jesus says things are changing, relationships will change, divisions will be broken down – Jews and Samaritans will worship God in “spirit and in truth”. Jesus speaks to her of the very nature of God, he leads her into the mystery of God, “God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and in truth.”
This truly is a very significant encounter when this woman keeps at it with Jesus, keeps up her questions and goes deeper. In fact this is the longest conversation Jesus has with anyone in the Gospels. It goes from “living water” to “God is Spirit” to “I am he”.
The woman shares her hopes, responding to what Jesus has to say about the future. “I know that Messiah is coming,” she says, “when he comes, he will proclaim all things to us”.
Jesus confirms her hope: “I am (he) … the one speaking to you” (John 4:26). This is the first “I am” statement in John. The “I am” statements come in two forms: affirmations in which Jesus simply replies, “I am,” and statements like, “I am the bread of life.” Here, Jesus says only “I am,” but in the context, he means, “I am the Messiah.” This is the central truth of the Gospel of John (see 20:30-31) and it is the only time that Jesus reveals this truth to another person in this direct way. That the person he trusts himself to is a Samaritan and a woman is deeply significant, not only to John’s first-century audience but also to anyone who seeks to understand the gospel. Let this sink in for a moment, a foreigner and not a man!
The gospel truth of Jesus’ life is that he brings a new way of life, a way that results in all people—women and men, Samaritans and Jews, outsiders and insiders—worshiping in Spirit and in truth, being able to come to the throne of grace. This gospel becomes life changing for the Samaritan woman’s neighbours when she tells them about the Messiah, and becomes the first and most effective evangelist of John’s Gospel.
“Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “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 Saviour of the world.”
Canon Stuart Bain