The Samaritan Woman At The Well
by David Morson
Have you ever gone through the motions of doing the same thing every day. It becomes a routine or “Ground Hog Day” and then, all of a sudden, out of the blue, something different happens Something unexpected, which can be life changing.
This was certainly the case for the Samaritan Woman who came every day to draw water from Jacob’s Well, but on this occasion she has an encounter with Jesus that she will never forget.
In a sense, St John makes this episode an “Epiphany” moment when God’s glory or essence, is made manifest in Jesus those those outside the Jewish Faith. But, unlike the account of the kings in Matthew’s Gospel, where they come to find the Saviour, in this conversation with the Samaritan Woman, Jesus comes to find her and in her, us all.
Jesus breaks a number of cultural rules in this discourse with the woman which God’s inclusive love for us all.
First, a Jew would never speak to a Samaritan. They were detested and despised, because following the Assyrian invasion of Israel in 722 BC Samaritans intermarried with the conquerors, thus defiling the notion of God’s Chosen People. Following the exile in Babylon in 586 BC,the Samaritans retained an Aramaic version of the Torah or Law (a dialect of Hebrew) whilst the Jews kept to the Hebrew Scripture. Because the Samaritans were forbidden to worship at the Temple at Jerusalem, in 400 BC they built their own Temple on Mount Gerezim, but it was destroyed later by the Jews in 128 BC. So the hatred and Jews rand deep between the two people and the woman was taken aback when Jesus, a Jew asked her a Samaritan woman for a drink. The Books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy forbad Jews from drinking out of “unclean” vessels.
But more significantly, a Jewish Rabbi would never initiate a conversation with a woman in public, let alone a Samaritan woman, who, by her own admission had five husbands, even making her an outcast amongst her own people, as only two divorces were permitted in Samaritan law. Yet it is to this woman, that Jesus directly reveals Himself to be the awaited Messiah. In no other Gospel Discourse does Jesus do this to any other individual, so why does St John record this in this way?
Significantly, he records the contact between Jesus and the woman began at the “Sixth Hour”, the time, St John later relates in Chapter19v13, that Pilate sentences Jesus to be crucified. For John, the crucifixion reveals the inclusive total and unconditional love which is the essence of God for all people created by Him out of love, in the loving Sacrifice Jesus makes to reveal Him.
The Samaritan woman represents all of those not considered fit for such love and salvation by some, but not so by God. The Prophet Jeremiah reminds us that God knows each one of us by name as part of His creation and holds us in the Palm of His Hand. Jesus seeks her out, knows her past intimately but does not condemn her. Rather, He offers her water that springs up and which no one will ever thirst, namely, the revelation of a totally loving God and the offer of sharing in this water, the living “Spirit " of God’s life. A God who is not concerned about where people worship, but only that they worship in “Spirit and “Truth”. A God who is totally inclusive in His love for all and the offer he makes to share in His life.