Word to the Wise
Sunday, February 24, 2008 - Third Sunday of Lent
[Exodus 17:3-7; Romans 5:1-2, 5-8; John 4:5-42]A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, "How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?" -For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans. - Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
In a gospel of vivid characters and wonderful dramatic scenes, the scene with Jesus and the Samaritan woman stands out! She is so real and alive! (Not that Jesus isn't, of course!) Consider some of the other vivid scenes in the Gospel of John: the wedding feast at Cana, the royal official, Nicodemus, the crippled man, the man born blind, Lazarus, Pilate! Not to mention his dialogues with the disciples on various occasions as well! The Samaritan woman outshines them all, in my humble opinion. The scene also contains some of the standard Johannine dramatic devices such as a misunderstanding of what Jesus says which leads to further teaching, and the progressive growth of the person who encounters Jesus. Jesus and the woman have a lot to overcome at the start. She is female and Middle Eastern males under ordinary circumstances did not (and still don't) engage females in conversation outside the home, let alone a woman by herself! She is also a Samaritan, and is doubly surprised that Jesus said anything to her! (The Samaritans were the descendants of a remnant of Jews of the northern kingdom conquered by the Assyrians in the 700's BC, who were not deported and who intermarried with non-Jews and retained their own temple! They were despised more than pagans by the Jews because their worship was considered corrupt!) Jesus ignores her gender and her religious identity and immediately engages the woman in conversation. The dramatic devices of misunderstanding and growth become immediately clear in the discussion about "living water." Some of it is comical because the woman first wonders how Jesus is going to get water since there is no other bucket in sight but hers and then she thinks Jesus might have a way of make her ordinary life of water toting easier! When Jesus works a kind of "sign" by telling the woman he knows about her promiscuous lifestyle, she finally begins to "get it." The growth in her understanding of Jesus from being "just a weird guy at the well" to prophet and then to messiah is rapid. But it seems to be a bit limited to amazement that he "told me everything I have done!" Yet this limited understanding, shared with the other villagers, is enough to bring them out to hear Jesus so that at the end of the story, the villagers are no longer dependent on her story but hear for themselves and recognize Jesus as the Savior of the world!. After hearing this drama, where are we? I often go back to the line at the beginning, "If you knew the gift of God....." I wonder if I have been at the equivalent of that well and failed to see that the improbable person there might have something to say to me about the truth about God. On the other hand, if I put myself in the position of Jesus at the well, would I be too reticent to start a conversation that could lead to the sharing of the truth? The plain fact is that the living water has to have a place to flow to and someone for it to flow from. There was little to be gained from maintaining a dignified silence based on ancient prejudice about worship or gender! We learn from this encounter that even if all we give or receive from it is limited, by sharing it others may gain an even greater knowledge. It's a lesson made both pleasant and challenging by our presence at the well in this gospel today! AMEN
config
view
logs
3840.0 KB
53 ms
4
