John 4:5-42
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.” Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” 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?” They left the city and were on their way to him. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” 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 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 Savior of the world.” John 4:5-42 (NRSVUE)
When I was leading book discussions at public libraries in Ohio I frequently observed that although we read stories front-to-back we necessarily understand them back-to-front. Jokes and their punch lines are an obvious example, as are whodunits, but the principle applies to all stories and is especially true of parables, especially this one.
The parable above is told not by Jesus, but rather by (and uniquely by) “John,” the putative author of this particular gospel. John makes his point with a flair of dramatic irony, “. . .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?”
We (and John’s audience) all already know the answer as John reassures his audience about the power of witnessing: “Many Samaritans from that city believed in him (Jesus) because of the woman’s testimony.” He drives home the legitimacy of Jesus as Messiah: “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 Savior of the world.”
It’s clever writing on John’s part. The woman provides hearsay evidence about Jesus to the townspeople who accept her witness and later confirm it for the reader with testimony of their own (according to John) experience. For the reader, both then and now, John’s evidence might remain hearsay, but any potential skepticism is meant to be tempered by the additional eye-witness testimony of the participants.
And skepticism there must have been, for later in the Gospel (John 20:26-29) John will once more address the evidentiary issue in the story of “Doubting Thomas” where Jesus says, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” The verses that follow and conclude the chapter drive the point home: “30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
Questions for Reflection:
- Mark, (ca. 70 CE), the earliest of the four gospels, predates John’s gospel by a full generation, some 30+ years. Where John provided full-throated assertions of Jesus as Savior, Mark and Mark’s Jesus are far more muted, ambiguous, and even contradictory in making their claims about Jesus’s identity. How do the distinct and significant differences in biblical writing give us room to grow and develop our own relationship with God? With each other? And those with whom we disagree?
- In telling the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman by the well, John reveals through action and dialogue insights into his vision of Jesus and his relationships with other people. Two examples among several:
- What does the woman’s question, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” suggest about how we should respond to people otherwise considered our adversaries or inferiors.
- What is Jesus’s response, “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.” suggest about God’s openness to all of humanity and not just his “chosen people”?
- Much of the dialogue, whether between Jesus and the woman or Jesus and the disciples, hinges on Jesus’s interlocutors taking literally what he states metaphorically (cf. “living water” or “food to eat that you do not know about.”) What does this suggest about insisting that the bible be read literally? How should we decide when to take it literally and when to take it metaphorically?
Prayer:
Lord, once again we read the scriptures and ponder the words. We seek answers, but each answer brings only more questions. We are confronted again and again by the knowable/unknowable You. We see Jesus, who when asked a question responded almost invariably with another question or a parable that raised still more questions. We ask for patience, Lord. And we trust in your grace.
Amen.
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