Who is this woman at the well? We think of her as a “woman of ill-repute,” and there is basis for that: she’s at the well at noon, not early morning, perhaps to avoid the other women who might judge or shun her; she’s had five husbands and is living with a sixth man to whom she is not married.
We think of that in 21st century terms, but this was a different era. Women didn’t “get” divorced in those days; men divorced them. In a small village, where surely her reputation and character were well known, how did a woman get FIVE men to marry her? And how come the sixth one didn’t? There must have been something phenomenally enticing about her. And yet something else that caused men to “throw her back,” ending the relationship.
But what must it have been like to be her? To live in a small village and have had five husbands, to be living with a sixth man? To come to the well in the heat of the day? How lonely might she have been? How hurt? Or was she simply one of those “very alive” artist types who cared less for convention–who loved and laughed through every minute? Those details are open to interpretation. We don’t know from the story.
We do know some other things from John’s Gospel, though. We know she was willing to talk to Jesus, once he talked to her. We know she was not intimidated by him. We know she thought for herself. And we know that she gradually entered into a very intimate dialogue with God—one that transformed her life, her reputation, and her place in the world.
And who was Jesus that day?
God, of course. We know that. But the woman didn’t know that. Did he fully know that? He’s not expressing it in John 4 like he expressed it in John 14. Jesus was fully human, too. From a human perspective, the arrest of John the Baptist and his growing struggles with the Pharisees created some serious complications for his proclamations of “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.”
“So he had to cross Samaria.” That might have been why Jesus was in Samaria—he figured no self-respecting Pharisee would follow him there and he could have a couple of days to think about how to handle them before facing them in Galilee. Or it may have been that Jesus deliberately chose to go through Samaria because he was already deliberately proclaiming religion was no longer a matter of where you worshiped or how. There are lines in the story to support that, “The day is coming when you will worship in Spirit and in Truth.” It may have been that Jesus simply saw no reason to walk longer, rather than straighter.
Or it could have been that God the Father (or God the Spirit) heard the prayers and longing of the woman at the well and set up this transformative meeting. Maybe in her strength, her questing, her ability to hit things head on, there was to be transformation for Jesus, too.
The Dialogue
Jesus was there first. He begins the dialogue. “I thirst,” he says. Oh, no he didn’t say that. That was later, on the cross, right before he died. Here he says, “Give me a drink.” There’s a difference? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe not at all.
The woman is not impressed—or demure. “Why are you talking to me?” she says in effect. Do men who talk to her usually want something? Is she surprised anyone would talk to her? Or is she just surprised that Jesus, obviously Jewish and not from there, would address her? We don’t know. We do know she takes the lead in an empathic way: she reads between the lines and figures Jesus has some agenda, some reason for talking with her OTHER than getting a drink of water.
Jesus reads between the lines, too. He reads her heart and goes a little deeper. “If you only knew who I am, you’d ask me for a drink. I have living water.”
The woman is not intimidated, but now she is curious—and skeptical. “You have no bucket, so how can you get living water? she retorts. “Are you greater than our father Jacob?”
We read the gospel story without the non-verbals. It was not customary in those days for women to make eye contact with strange men, but somehow, I think she did then. And Jesus is definitely looking into her.
There is a long silence.
Then Jesus says, “Whoever drinks this water will get thirsty again; but anyone who drinks the water I SHALL GIVE will never be thirsty again; the water that I SHALL GIVE will turn into a spring inside him, welling up to eternal life.”
Shall give? That’s future tense. Jesus isn’t ready to give it to her yet. He goes deeper into her heart.
“Go and call your husband.” Jesus says.
She answers, “I have no husband.”
Jesus is pleased with her honesty—and trust. He goes for the core, the most vulnerable place. “You are right to say ‘I have no husband, for, although you have had five, the one you have now is not your husband. You spoke the truth there.”
She doesn’t flinch. “I see you are a prophet, sir.” She attempts to divert that arrow of truth which is now in her heart by changing the subject. “Our fathers worshipped on this mountain while you say that Jerusalem is the place to worship.”
Jesus doesn’t flinch either. He takes her bait and lays it aside. Where one worships is not what this is about. After noting the disagreement, Jesus says, “But the hour will come—in fact is here already—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth: that is the kind of worshiper the Father wants.”
Jesus now goes deeper, past the woman’s impertinence, past her complicated, most likely sinful life, and sees the gold in her: “Spirit and Truth.”
How deep is the woman at the well? Deep enough that when Jesus says “worship in Spirit and in Truth” she gets it, she understands—which is more than could be said for his disciples, Nicodemus, and the learned Pharisees.
The woman recognizes Spirit and Truth sitting there. She then sends the conversation deeper still. “I know the Messiah—that is, Christ—is coming; and when he comes, he will tell us everything.”
And Jesus says for the first time in the Gospel of John, “I am he.” She strikes the gold in his heart.
The disciples return and the conversation ends…for the moment.
And who is this Woman at the Well to me?
I admire her. I can barely imagine myself that bold, than unconventional, so I can’t quite say she’s “my other self.” And yet she is. Because on the inside, where Jesus found the gold, her thirst is my thirst. And in my cave, my hidden place, I can be bold, too. I’m learning to be. I’m learning to not be afraid.
That’s one thing about the woman at the well. There is NO sign of fear in her. Her ready honesty helped Jesus be honest, forthright, bold himself, and in doing so, touch his own gold.
It’s God’s economy.
Prayer
Lord, thirst for me. Let me be the woman at the well today. Let me let you talk to me in deep ways. Help me be as honest and vulnerable with God as she was. Help me be as open as she was to let Jesus into all the nicks and crannies of my soul. Jesus, say to me today, “Give me a drink.”
