First Saturday in Lent

John 4:1-26 (NRSV)

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John” —although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— he left Judea and started back to Galilee.

But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

"Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep." The Samaritan woman and Jesus have a conversation at Jacob's well. Jesus is obviously out of his territory, in Sychar, a city in Samaria. Even though Jesus is not a Samaritan and the woman is not a Jew, Jesus crosses many social barriers to speak to the woman at the well. 

One social barrier is that there is such a difference between the Samaritans and Jews that they didn't even talk to one another, let alone share anything in common. Jews (inhabitants of Judah, which is the southern kingdom) thought Samaritans (part of the northern kingdom) were dogs, and the same thought was reciprocated by the Samaritans. Arguing over the proper place to worship was just the tip of the iceberg. Samaritans worshipped and made sacrifices on the mountain, and Jews worshipped and made sacrifices in the temple. The evangelist, John, saying that "Jews do not share things in common with the Samaritans" is an understatement. The Samaritans were half Jew and half gentile and came about after the northern kingdom was in captivity in 721 BCE. 

Another social barrier that Jesus crosses is sexual. Jesus is a man and is openly speaking to an unaccompanied woman in public. This is a little beyond a simple faux pa but goes directly in the face of cultural practice. By Jesus doing this, he puts himself in grave danger if anyone wanted to go after him for violating a social norm. I am struck by her curtness of "sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep!" reply to his request for water. But, understanding the dichotomy between them, her response makes sense.

Jesus did not commit a sin by crossing the social barriers. Jesus decides not to follow the prejudiced attitudes of his day regarding gender and ethnicity. And by doing so, the Samaritan woman and Jesus have an in-depth theological exchange. She learned the good news, and through her, the entire village came to believe. More on that part of the story Monday (John 4:27-42).

This is the most extensive conversation of this type in the Gospel, according to John. It is an important story that tells how Jesus is reaching others to reconcile them to God. It is essential to point out that he and the woman didn't quibble over the right way or wrong way to worship (something Christian brothers and sisters could learn), but he says that true worshippers will worship God in spirit and truth.

In reflecting through this passage, what might be some questions we could use for this season of Lent? One that comes to mind is; "do we let the social norms keep us from engaging those who need a drink of water (or anything else for that matter)?" Another might be; "what are the barriers that exist in our lives that prevent us from having meaningful relationships and discussions with those that differ from us? In the recent political and racial turmoil, these might be good self-reflections this lent.