This week’s gospel is a long and lovely story where Jesus encounters a woman at a well outside a city in the neighboring district of Samaria. They meet in the middle of the day, when no one else is around. They talk about water, the cultural and religious divisions between their people, their shared ancestor (Jacob), thirst and living water, God and the messiah, and Jesus tells her that he is the promised messiah. When Jesus makes clear that he knows about the details and the sorrows of her life, she runs back into the city and calls her neighbors to come see this man “who told me everything I have ever done!” and wonders aloud if he could be the messiah. The people come and invite Jesus to stay with them. In the two days he is there, many believe in him, some because of the woman’s testimony, and others because they “heard for ourselves.”
There is much in this story to explore: cultural and religious divisions, gender roles and power dynamics, literal and spiritual thirst and water, the role of sharing the good news, and what it means for Jesus to tell her he is the messiah. Among all this, my attention is caught by her statement to the neighbors that Jesus has told her everything she has ever done. It’s not the conversation they have about worship and God, his comments about living water, his willingness to chat with a Samaritan woman despite the fact that he is a Jewish rabbi, or even his assertion that he is the messiah that she wants to tell the others. Of course, all that does matter, but what catches her attention and pulls her in is that Jesus somehow knows the problems of her life and names them. He sees her. We don’t know if death or abandonment or barrenness, or something else have led to this point where she has had five husbands and now is with a man to whom she is not married, but we don’t hear words of criticism or judgement from Jesus. Instead, he talks with her about living water that will satisfy the deep thirst and become a spring of living water “gushing up to eternal life.”
Jesus sees this woman just as she is. He names her struggles and offers her kindness, compassion, and hope for another future. Her life and the lives of those in her community are changed. God sees us just as we are. God knows all about our struggles and sorrows and reaches out with kindness, compassion, and hope for another future. The living water Jesus offers the woman is offered to us, too. We also are flooded with the abundant living water of God’s love and healing as we encounter Jesus through scripture, in worship, in connections with people who are living out God’s welcome and love and compassion, and in moments where we live out God’s love ourselves. Like the woman, we are all better able to receive the abundant flood of living water when we know that we are truly seen and cared for just as we are.
Peace,
weekly prayer | Jesus talks with a woman at a well in John 4