John 4:5-42 Jesus and the Samaritan Woman
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| By Il Guercino 17th Century |
Since at least the fourth or fifth century, the Gospel Readings for the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Sundays of Lent have been taken from the Gospel of John: Jesus and the Samaritan Woman, from John 4; Jesus and the Man Born Blind, from John 9; and Jesus and the Raising of Lazarus, from John 11. These Gospels were and are used to prepare the Catechumens for baptism at the Easter Vigil and also prepare the already Baptized to renew their Baptism at Easter. Water imagery is used in both John 4 and John 9.
near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there,
and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well.
It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water,
Jesus said to her, ‘Will you give me a drink?’
(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)" (John 4:5-8)
It is intriguing that the Gospel of John records that Jesus had to go through Samaria. The fact of the matter is that his journey could have been made avoiding Samaria. There had been centuries of political, racial and religious separation between the Jews and the Samaritans (Samaria was a region of ancient Palestine). So Jews did avoid Samaria, "like a bad neighborhood," and considered Samaritans to be unclean and not a part of God’s people, i.e. the Jews.
That Jesus felt that he had to go through Samaria indicates that there was something important, or in this case someone important, that he needed to attend. It had to be this Samaritan Woman.
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| Jacob and Rachel at the Well by William Dyce |
Second, the details that Jesus is at this well, Jacob’s well, is significant. John’s Jewish readers would expect to then hear a love story, for a man at a well and a woman who came to draw water was the scene for several Old Testament encounters that resulted in marriage: Isaac (represented by his father’s emissary) and Rebekah, at the well (Genesis 24) , Jacob and Rachel his future wife at the very well Jesus is at in this story (Genesis 29), and Moses and Zipporah his future wife at the well (Exodus 2).
It would be like our hearing that there was this sleeping princess who could only be awakened by a kiss. We would expect a handsome prince to come along and kiss her and then they would live happily ever after. The man-at-well-and woman-there-to-draw-water would set up certain expectations of the readers for a future marriage in the making.
One final note: near Sychar was the town of Schechem. Here, Joshua renewed the Covenant which God had made with his People in the desert. The name "Jesus" is a variant of the name "Joshua." This "new Joshua," i.e. Jesus, comes to bring a New Covenant. The relationship that is used to illustrate a covenant is very often marriage:
And I will betroth you to me for ever; I will betroth you to me
in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy.
I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord" (Hos 2:16, 19-20).
"The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman.
How can you ask me for a drink?’ (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink,
you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.’
‘Sir,’ the woman said, ‘you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep.
Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob,
who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?’
Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,
but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.
Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water
welling up to eternal life.’" (John 4: 9-14)
I have already mentioned the animosity between Jews and Samaritans. There was also the convention that a righteous Jew, especially a Teacher, would not address a woman in public: that would be unrespectable. Obviously, Jesus puts aside these barriers to relationship in order to be able to interact with this woman. This type of unconventual behavior often got Jesus into trouble. A complaint made often about him was that he ate with tax collectors and sinners. (See Mark 2:13-17, for example)
Jesus has revealed that he is thirsty by asking for a drink. The Woman is surprised by this and doesn’t immediately give him a drink. Jesus further draws her into this encounter by offering her "living waters."
We know that this is not just a literal discussion about water–though the Samaritan Woman thinks so. The Gospel of John constantly operates at two levels: the literal and the symbolic. Jesus is talking at the symbolic level about "living water." Of course, this could be literal water, "water of life," for water is essential to our life and like all gifts is a gift from God above.
Jesus, is speaking of a spiritual gift, a spiritually life-giving water. He is the one who gives the gift. Elsewhere in John the "living water" refers to the Holy Spirit (See John 7:37-39). The Holy Spirit is not something but someone, a Person. When Jesus gives the Spirit, he also gives himself. And where there is given the Son and the Spirit there is given God the Father.
So Jesus is offering this Woman himself–just as one would expect in a love-story. However, he is not giving himself to her in a sexual way, but rather as Spiritual Lover, i.e. Lover in the Spirit.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? "
"The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty
and have to keep coming here to draw water.’
He told her, ‘Go, call your husband and come back.’ ‘I have no husband,’ she replied.
Jesus said to her, ‘You are right when you say you have no husband.
The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.
What you have just said is quite true.’" (John 4:15-18)
The Woman still doesn’t understand what Jesus is talking about regarding living waters (why should she at this point?) Perhaps Jesus senses that he must go in another direction to get the Woman to understand (he did say, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.")
So Jesus speaks to this Woman about her husband. Some commentators observe how this conversation with this Woman sounds like a man trying to "pick up" a woman, if we didn’t know that this is Jesus who has a different agenda. If a man says to a woman he doesn’t know "what does your husband do?" he could be fishing to see if that woman has a husband without coming right out and asking it.
Jesus says to the Woman, "Go call your husband." She says, "I have no husband." The Woman has stayed with Jesus long enough to reveal this truth about herself. In our journey with Jesus this can be important information: we come to know Jesus personally a step at a time usually. A relationship where we trust him must come about. We see here that the Woman begins by knowing Jesus only by externals: as a Jew and as a man; she comes at this next stage to see that he is a prophet.
But what is the significance about 5 husbands and the one she is living with who is not her husband? Is this a case again of John’s two levels of meaning: literal and symbolic? John Shea notes: "As water imagery was used [in this story] to symbolize spiritual life in the first part of the conversation, marriage imagery will be used to symbolize spiritual life in the second part." (On Earth As It Is In Heaven, p.120)
In fact, the matter of the 5 husbands and the one who is not her husband is barely mentioned and next a discussion ensues about worship. Some say the 5 husbands represent the 5 pagan gods worshiped by Samarians in their past. Yet by Jesus day, Samaritans were strict monotheists. On the other hand, if Jesus is actually pinpointing the woman’s marital history, it would have been a story of rejection of the Woman by five men (only men could divorce in that society) and the unwillingness of the sixth man to commit to this "broken woman." If that was the case, Jesus is opening her to her own need for true love "in the desert of her life"which would be found in the living water of Christ.
The Woman comes to see Jesus as a prophet and the story continues; now she is going into the spiritual level Jesus wants her to be at.
but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.’
Jesus declared, ‘Believe me, woman, a time is coming
when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
You Samaritans worship what you do not know;
we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.
Yet a time is coming and has now come
when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit
and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit,
and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.’
The woman said, ‘I know that Messiah’ (called Christ) ‘is coming.
When he comes, he will explain everything to us.’
Then Jesus declared, ‘I who speak to you am he.’" (John 4:20-26)
Finally, with this discussion of true worship which is the expression of God’s People to their Covenant Relationship, the woman receives direction for her life and the invitation to enter into the relationship Jesus will establish with those chosen: He will be the Bridegroom and the Church will be his Bride. (See Ephesians 5:25-27) This Bride will not just be Jews nor will it only be righteous people who are eligible to be members; instead, all invited–even Samaritans!–and people broken and rejected are more than welcome to have this personal relationship with Christ and his Church. Entry into this relationship is by Baptism, and the use of this story of water and marriage imagery makes it a perfect story to speak about Baptism and the relationship it brings.
The Woman is brought into the revealed identity of Jesus: he is the Messiah.
The next section of this story is like a "Part 2" and it is permissible to omit it as we will do at Holy Faith this Sunday. It is John 4:27-38. It deals with food. The nourishment of Jesus comes when he can bring others into God’s love. Jesus both hungers and thirsts to have this love relationship with us.
" Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town
and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.
Could this be the Christ?’
They came out of the town and made their way toward him."
The Woman leaves her heavy water jar behind, perhaps representing laying down her burdens at the feet of Christ. It is also reminiscent of the disciples who left their nets to follow him and become "fishers of men," i.e. evangelists (See Matthew 4:18-22) . This Woman goes to share her new-found knowledge and relationship with her townspeople, the very ones who probably shunned her before.
So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them,
and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.
They said to the woman, ‘We no longer believe just because of what you said;
now we have heard for ourselves, and we know
that this man really is the Savior of the world.’" (John 4:39-42)
The identity of Jesus is further revealed: He is the Savior of the world. This knowledge on the part of the townspeople began with listening to the testimony of the Woman, but became personal as they came to know Jesus themselves: "now we have heard for ourselves."
This story gives us many insights into the depths of love Jesus wants to bring us into, so that we might not thirst and die but have his life-giving waters. We come to know him gradually as did this Woman. And he comes to where we are at, to speak to our hearts.
