Dcn Susan Erickson

Dear Siblings in Christ,

There are things I’ve done in the course of my life that I’d prefer not to dwell on, much less publicize. So to think that Jesus knows everything about me is a little unsettling. And maybe that’s a good thing.

Today the Church celebrates Photini, the “Enlightened One.” You might know her simply as the Samaritan woman at the well, from Chapter 4 in John’s Gospel. Jesus defies social conventions by speaking to this woman, who has come out alone at midday to draw water.

The Samaritan woman finds herself drawn into a strange conversation about thirst and water, and the different places held sacred by Samaritans and Jews. At times it seems as if she and Jesus are talking at cross purposes, because he’s talking about “living water,” whereas the Samaritan woman’s mind is still on H2O.

But when Jesus tells her to call her husband, and she replies that she doesn’t have one, Jesus astonishes her by replying: “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!” (John 4:17-18)

First the Samaritan woman calls Jesus a prophet. But when he tells her that he is the Messiah, she goes running back to her village in astonishment: “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” (John 4:29). John tells us that “[m]any Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony….” (John 4:39)

The Orthodox Church gave the name Photini to the Samaritan woman and considered her the first evangelist. Tradition has it that she and her daughters were eventually martyred under Nero’s rule.

We don’t know the back story of Photini’s five exes. But we do know that she went from a traditional belief in some future Messiah to believing that she was looking at him face to face. And Jesus’s knowledge of her life was her springboard to evangelism.

Whatever you think of the recent Super Bowl ad campaign, Jesus does “get us.” How liberating. Unburdened in the eyes of God, we are free to follow Photini, proclaiming the Messiah by doing our best to love others as God loves us.

Faithfully,

—Dcn Susan