Br. James Koester

Preached at the Church of St. Augustine and St. Martin, Boston.

The Third Sunday in Lent

John 4:5-42

There is a small porcelain figurine in a church sacristy that fascinates me. It depicts this encounter between Jesus, and the Samaritan woman.[1]

Jesus sits on one side of the well. He is tall, handsome, masculine, and has lots of shoulder length hair. He is deep in conversation with the woman. She stands, leaning over, with her elbow resting on the wellhead. She looks directly at Jesus. Her hair is loose and flowing, and her dress is falling off one shoulder. Her hand is under her chin, just so. She is enticing, alluring, and attractive.

What this figurine says about Jesus and the Samaritan woman is no mystery. It may be pure white, but the message is in technicolour: a seduction is happening.

But then, this is how the story has been told to us. After all, the story is of an encounter between Jesus and a woman who has had five husbands, and the one she has “now is not [her] husband” (John 4:18). Why else would she find herself at the well in the middle of the day, when the heat is most intense, and no one else is around? Because of her lifestyle, she is humiliated, isolated and ostracized. It’s clear, she’s someone with few morals, someone to avoid.

That’s what the figurine tells us. That’s what John tells us. Or is it?

Recent biblical scholarship has begun to see things differently. This is especially true as women examine gospel texts through the lens of their own experience, to discover the experience of the women in Jesus’ inner circle of friends, intimates, and disciples. With that in mind, how might we read this story differently than we have read it in the past?

“The same day some Sadducees came to [Jesus], saying there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying, ‘Teacher, Moses said, “If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.” Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother. The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh. Last of all, the woman herself died. In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be? For all of them had married her.’” (Matthew 22:23-28)

One reading is that she is the unfortunate widow of five brothers. She finds herself widowed once again, this time with no one in the family left to marry her. No one else in the community dares marry her, fearing she is somehow cursed. All she can do is to abandon hope and seek the protection of any man who will take her in, even if it means living outside the bonds of marriage.

Another reading suggests she is equally unfortunate, having married five men, all of whom divorced her.

“Some Pharisees came, and to test [Jesus] they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’ He answered them, ‘What did Moses command you?’ They said, ‘Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.’” (Mark 10:2-4)

Divorce was simple. While a man could divorce his wife, a woman could not divorce her husband. Perhaps childless, her husbands divorced her one by one, to marry another, hoping to secure an heir.

Whatever the reason, it is not her morals, but her situation which has left her reputation in ruins and forced her to allow herself to be taken in by anyone who would offer the security of a home.

In these interpretations, the Samaritan woman’s visit to the well in the heat of the day retains its power. Alone, isolated, craving kindness, goodness, sympathy, even intimacy and companionship, she makes her way to the well. To her surprise she finds Jesus, a man who takes her seriously; doesn’t condemn or demean her; and offers her the “one thing necessary” (Luke 10:42): “[To] 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” (John 4:14).

Laying aside the woman’s husbands; the numbers of them; why she had five and was currently living with one not her husband; and her reasons for being at the well alone, during the heat of the day, what other details in the story bear significance to its meaning as a whole?

There are details in the story like other gospel stories which tell of the call to discipleship.

“Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’” (John 4:28-29)

After the conversation about water, husbands, and worship, the disciples return. At this point that the woman leaves her water-jar and returns to the city, telling people to come and see. It’s important to note that in other encounters with Jesus, others also leave things behind.

“As [Jesus] walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers . . . Peter, and Andrew . . . casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him.” (Matthew 4:18-20)

Like others who left all to follow Jesus, the Samaritan woman leaves behind her water-jar, and calls others into an encounter with the Lord. Like other disciples she invites her neighbours to encounter Jesus: “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’” (John 4:29).

While her profession of faith, He cannot be the Messiah, can he? is not quite that of Andrew: “‘We have found the Messiah’”; or Nathaniel: “‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’”; or Martha: “‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world’” (John 1:41, 49; 11:27), it is nonetheless a step toward faith, and she begins to see Jesus as the Messiah, and invites others to see for themselves.

In this way, the Samaritan woman invites others into an encounter with Jesus, just as do other disciples.

“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 for 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.’” (John 4:39-42)

Read in this way, the story of the Samaritan woman is a story of discipleship, of conversion, of confession. It is a reminder that God’s invitation to belief and discipleship is not for the select few, but for all who long to drink deeply from the well of living water and eternal life. It is a story of longing for connection and reconnection, not only to the communities from which we come, but to God who calls us from our past, into a future, God’s future, where we know ourselves to be loved by God. It is a reminder that we too have been invited to become God’s children, and like the Samaritan woman, to drink from Jesus, the living water of eternal life. And that is good news, no matter where you are from, your situation in life, or what others think of you.

So rather than seeing scandal in this story, we instead see it as a story of profound faith, and eager discipleship as the woman invites others to come and see what she herself has found in the person of Jesus. Having discovered Jesus as the source of eternal life for ourselves, we can then follow the lead of the Samaritan woman and invite others to come and see who Jesus is for themselves.

[1] For a fuller analysis of the Samaritan woman, see the essays by Harold Attridge, Steven Hunt, and Peter Phillips in Character Studies in the Fourth Gospel (Eerdmans, 2013), 269ff, as well as Judith Kay Jones, The Women in the Gospel of John (Chalice Press, 2004), 13ff and Adeline Fehribach, The Women in the Life of the Bridegroom (The Liturgical Press, 1998), 45ff.