Peter Espeut | The Samaritan woman at the well

Quite by coincidence, the gospel reading in several mainline Christian churches on Sunday, March 8 – International Women’s Day – was centred on a woman. Today I take a break from local politics and global wars, to reflect on the story, found in John’s account of the Good News, Chapter 4.

The location is just outside a town in Samaria; remember, Samaritans and Jews did not take tea!

And so around noontime, Jesus, the Jew rested at Jacob’s well, while his disciples went to buy food. And along comes a Samaritan woman with her jug to get water.

She was an unhappy woman. She was a social outcast, a subject of scandal and scorn, probably because of her notorious history with men. Every woman in the town had to draw water from the well, and did so early in the morning when it was cool; and used the opportunity to socialize; but she would be ridiculed and verbally abused, so she came to the well in the heat of the midday sun when no one else would be there. She was a lonely and unhappy woman.

Today her unhappiness was increased when she saw someone else there – a Jewish man! Bother! Let me get my water quickly and go! So she goes to the other side of the well as far away from him as possible.

“Give me a drink” the Jew-man asks. But Jews do not speak with Samaritans, and especially not with Samaritan women. And certainly not while they are alone together! And Jews do not drink from vessels touched by Samaritans; They consider us unclean; ‘tis would make him unclean. Is this a trap? Is he trying to provoke an argument?

But he asked so nicely, so I too will be nice: “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” Jesus has broken protocol, both racial and gender. I hoped my question would put him off, and make him go away.

But Jesus said, “If you knew who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink’, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water ”.

Here, Jesus raises with her his identity: Who is this man? she asks herself. He certainly is like no Jew I have ever met, for he and I are here alone having a conversation. Who is he?

But maybe he is a crazy man! He says he is going to give me living water, but he has no bucket! And so she asks him in a mocking tone: “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep; where then can you get this living water?”

Jesus is enjoying the conversation with this lonely woman, who is saucily drawing her water as she chats with him. He begins to clarify: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him (or her) a spring of water welling up to eternal life”.

She must have thought: “Now I know for sure that this man is crazy! A spring inside me? So that I will never thirst? Water that will make me live forever? Let me get away from this crazy man as fast as I can!”

She dismisses him as her water pot is now full: “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water”.

Now Jesus stops the bantering, and gets shockingly personal: “Go call your husband and come back”. The topic of her men, of course, is the source of her ill-repute.

So: I was ridiculing him, and now he is trying to embarrass me! This is what I was trying to avoid by coming here in the heat of the noonday sun! Let me defend myself: “I do not have a husband”, she says.

To get through to her – to touch the depths of her being – Jesus had to be brutal: “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband’. For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true”.

Who is this man? How does he know so much about me? I have never seen him before in my life! How could he know the struggles I have been going through in my life? I am not happy with my situation; life has dealt me some bad cards; and maybe I have made some wrong choices. But deep down I am not a bad person. I want to be really good.

Now I know who he is! There is only one way he could know so much detail about me: he must be a holy man – a prophet. All this talk of “living water” and “eternal life”. I wonder if he can answer this question I have always wanted to ask a Jew?

She begins to enter into a personal relationship with Jesus. “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain; but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem”. Which is it? Because I really want to worship God in the right place.

And you know how the story ends. Jesus reveals his true identity to this wanton woman, and enters into a personal relationship with her.

With so many teenage pregnancies, there will be a lot of Jamaican “women at the well”. Jesus had come for women like this! And sinners like me!

This story has a happy ending! The woman leaves her water pot and spreads the good news as she has experienced it, among the townspeople she had been avoiding. It is a great Lenten story! Have a happy Lent! Especially you women out there!

Peter Espeut is a Roman Catholic deacon, and is dean of studies at St. Michael’s Theological Seminary. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com