Richard Mallory
Left her jar
Then the woman left her water jar
and went back to the city.
—John 4.28
She came to the well at noon,
at the end of the line, a nobody.
But Jesus saw in her something else,
something more. Sure enough,
after their conversation (the Bible’s longest!)
when she departed she left her jar—
because she knew she was coming back.
She had a mission, to bring others to him.
She who once was a pariah
had become an effective evangelist.
When you attend
to your deep spiritual thirst,
Jesus meets you there,
and touches your deep spiritual gifts.
And that in turn nourishes Jesus:
after meeting with the woman
Jesus said to his disciples,
“I have food you don’t know about.”
It turns out our deepest hunger and thirst
is also Jesus’.
Only when we are hungry and thirsty
do we join in the feast.
Dear Friends in Christ,
The woman at the well story in today’s gospel is the longest conversation between Jesus and anyone. In fact, it is the longest conversation between two persons in the entire Bible. In the history of interpretation, she is often cast as the “sinful and ignorant foreigner” who is converted by Jesus. The deeper theme is that of “outsiders becoming insiders in the family of God'”
Samaritans are composed of various captive peoples transplanted into defeated Israel by the Assyrians in 722 BCE. Many of these disparate peoples joined Hebrews in their monotheistic worship. Jerusalem wasn’t the center. Mount Gerizim was and only Torah was considered canonical. Over the centuries, Samaritans and Jews became enemies. Into Samaria Jesus chose to go, into enemy territory. Throughout the gospels, Samaritans appear as heroes. Something’s going on here!
Jesus who has been spurned by his own people meets a Samaritan also spurned just for being Samaritan. “They both become insiders, if just for one chapter and one exemplary moment in time.” One religion scholar suggests that Jesus found an inviting conversation partner: “Instead of drawing water for him, she drew truth from him, the kind of truth that would change the lives of her and her people. She also created a safe space for Jesus after he had fled from his people and land to find rest. He felt so safe, in fact, that he shared with her something he had not shared with any of his Jewish companions. Perhaps he shared his identity with her because her idea of the messiah did not carry Jewish expectations of military conquest or Davidic splendor with it—she only desired truth from a prophet, good news for her faith community. Perhaps he shared with her because for that moment, on that common, religious ground, they were both just outsiders longing for acceptance and hopeful for unity.”
She left her water jug when she hurried back to the city to share her discovery of the “living water” she found in Jesus. She then becomes the most successful evangelist or apostle in all of the gospels. Samaritans then welcome Jesus into their homes (sworn enemies) for two days.
The story serves as reminder and rebuke. A reminder that gospel essence is boundary-breaking. A rebuke to all of us when we allow scapegoating to be the lens of seeing differences. The cure for the latter is to see outsiders as insiders. To trust the example of Jesus and imitate him. Then we will have the end of xenophobia, that knee-jerk rejection of strangers and foreigners or of anything found to be strange or other.
The same religion scholar I am quoting suggests that “…most of us who grew up in the church learned unconsciously to assume a position of superiority toward outsiders.” There is hope, even for the likes of you and me. She concludes, “God works through us much more easily when we choose humility over pride and confession over condemnation. We can enter into the kind of dialogue that Jesus and the Samaritan woman had, where outsiders become insiders and we welcome even our so-called enemies into our communities and our hearts.”
I am grateful for the insights offered by Professor Jennifer Garcia Bashaw in Scapegoats: The Gospel Through the Eyes of Victims.
Your fellow traveler,
—Richard