John 4:5-42
Usually when someone says, “I know
what you did” or “I know all about you” it’s not a good thing. It’s a threat or an attempt to induce guilt
or shame. Thus it has always confused me
that this woman at the well went and told the whole town, “Come and see a man
who told me everything I have ever done. He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” Why
would that be the thing that proved he was the Messiah? Furthermore, why was
she so excited about it?
This Gospel reading is a long one
and that is because it was a long conversation.
In fact, it is one of the longest conversations Jesus had that is
recorded in the Bible and it was with a Samaritan woman who was alone. That is three strikes against her
already. Let’s begin with the fact that
she was a Samaritan. To say that the
Samaritans and the Jews did not get along well would be like saying the people
of Israel and the Palestinians don’t get along.
It’s a huge understatement. This
hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans was centuries old. Some of it had
to do with what happened in the past and some was related to how and where they
worshipped, which was a big deal at that point.
The second and third strikes were
that she was a woman and she was alone.
Women typically did not travel far without a male to accompany
them. If they were not with a man who
was related to them, they were with other women. Most women went to the well in
the morning and the evening when the sun was not so high. This woman was there in the middle of the
day, the hottest part of the day. Many
have assumed that she was avoiding people.
Thus there were many reasons Jesus should have avoided this woman. Jewish men (especially rabbis) were forbidden
to speak to a woman alone who was not related to them. If seen by others, this would have been a
scandal. She knew all of this which is
why she asked, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of
Samaria?” She already knew that this man
was different.
Things got even stranger as Jesus
began to engage her in a theological conversation. He wasn’t just telling her what to do. He was not merely making a demand. He was
forming a relationship with her. She
must have felt relatively safe because she responded and even argued a little,
which was a risky move on her part. Then this theological debate took an
unexpected turn. Jesus asked her to call
her husband. When she told him she had
no husband, he conceded that she was telling the truth. He added that she had five husbands and the
man she was living with right now was not even her husband.
For
millennia people have interpreted this statement by Jesus as an accusation of
sin. He was confronting her for her sinful
behavior. Clearly this woman was a harlot.
She had five husbands and now she was living with someone she was not
married to. No wonder she was there
alone in the middle of the day. She was
avoiding people because she was an outcast.
She knew they were talking about her.
She didn’t need to see their critical gaze. That is one theory anyhow. In my opinion, it’s wrong.
In
the time of Jesus, women did not have many rights. A woman could not ask for divorce. If this woman at the well was divorced five
times, it was because five different men divorced her. Men did not need a reason to divorce. There was no extensive paperwork. All they needed to do was to put it in
writing. There was nothing the woman
could do to salvage her marriage. Since there were not many occupations
available to woman, the only options for a divorced woman was to remarry, move
in with a male relative, beg on the street, prostitute herself or starve.
While
a man could divorce his wife for any reason, there was one situation when
divorce was recommended. Because
procreation was a so important in the Jewish faith, if a woman could not bear a
child in the first ten years of marriage, it was recommended that the man take
an additional wife or divorce and then remarry.[1] It is very possible that the reason she had
been abandoned by so many men was due to barrenness.
Even
if the divorces were a result of her being barren and not an adulteress, people
would have thought that there was still something fundamentally wrong with
her. She had been abandoned by the men
in her life. She had been abandoned by
God. The respected women and men of the
town were almost surely talking about her and judging her. More than almost anyone, she needed this
living water that Jesus was talking about.
She needed this living water because she was barely alive.
Because
of her thirst for hope, love and a relationship with God, she was open to
Jesus’s words. She was ready to hear
them. Instead of hearing what most
people hear in this conversation (accusation and shame) she heard a man who
knew her and wanted to know her more. He
wanted to share the most important thing in the world, his love and acceptance. He revealed that he knew her story--some of
which was shameful to her because she had likely come to believe what others
believed about her. More important than
the fact that he revealed what he knew of her, he also revealed a love and
compassion for her. He didn’t care what
others said about her. He knew the truth. He knew her heart, before it was
corrupted by pain, shame and fear.
In
addition, he also revealed himself, as the Christ—the Messiah. Jesus did not
reveal himself to the most important men of the town. He did not go to the place of worship and
announce that he was the Messiah. No, he
went to her, a Samaritan, a woman, a person alone and abandoned.
Thus
when she ran and told the whole town of people who had likely ostracized her to:
“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done.” ---she was saying
that she had met someone who truly knew her and saw past the assumptions and
stereotypes. Because this man, this
Messiah had reminded her what it was to feel love and hope, she did not care
that she was running into the middle of this town of people who had cast her
off. She didn’t care that they
considered her a shameful person. She
had known what it was to live a life of shame.
But now she knew the Messiah and he knew her. And once she knew that, there was no way she
could hold it in. She had to tell the
world.
People have occasionally told me
that they don’t feel comfortable in church because they feel judged. Others tell me that they worry that if people
know the truth, they would not respect them and that is something they don’t
want to be reminded of. I think the reason so many people fear being part of a
community of faith is combination of those things. I think people---we---have begun to judge ourselves
based on what others have assumed. We have started to believe everything this
culture is telling us, that we are not enough.
We have forgotten that the truth lies not in the hearts of others, or
even our own, but the heart of God. More
than anything, God wants a relationship with us. God wants to know us and be
known by us. There is no room for shame
when it comes to our relationship with God.
No shame.
[1]
Biblical and Jewish law regarding divorce: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3140621?seq=7
and http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/toledot/shi.html
