Come and See the Living Water

Sometimes we think we know a biblical story so well that we lose sight of what the passage is actually trying to convey to us. The passage known as the “Woman at the Well” is exactly one of these stories. We think we know what is happening, we recall what we’ve been told about the story, about the woman, and as a result, we read those inherited assumptions right back into the text.

But as we begin to look at this passage today, let’s peel back the layers and see what we can uncover together.

The early theologian Clement of Alexandria, writing just decades after John’s gospel was composed, called John a “spiritual Gospel.” He suggested that while the other gospels gave us the straightforward history of Jesus’ life, John was written with something deeper in mind. John is always inviting us into a shift in perspective. Just as we saw in our lesson last week with Nicodemus, things are rarely how they initially seem. Faith requires us to look deeper.

John provides us with some fascinating insights right from the start. First, we need to recognize that this is a literal, intentional journey. Jesus isn’t just wandering; he travels to Samaria. He doesn’t merely pass through it; Samaria is his destination.

And then there is the setting. The places where Jesus meets people have stories of their own. Geography and politics play a massive role in this passage. The conversation happens at Jacob’s well, on the parcel of land given to Joseph. Who are the characters in this story? Jesus, a Jewish Rabbi, and a Samaritan woman. Samaritans and Jews lived in neighboring lands and practiced similar religions, all while expressing deep, historical animosity toward one another.

This makes our story immediately surprising. They are outsiders to one another. The woman is surprised by the conversation, not merely because it was taboo for a man and woman to be speaking in public, but because of the deep, entrenched lines of ethnicity and religion. Yet, Jesus initiates the conversation. He demonstrates a profound desire to invite people into relationship, offering a radical kind of hospitality.

The conversation starts innocently enough around daily chores: Jesus asks for a drink of water. The Samaritan woman responds by focusing on the common ground they share, their ancestor Jacob, who gave them the well.

This kicks off the longest conversation Jesus has with anyone in the gospels. It is longer than any single conversation Jesus has with his own disciples; it is longer than his chat with Nicodemus. And we need to be abundantly clear: according to the rules of their society, this is a conversation that never should have happened. Yet, the depths of revelation that occur here are astounding.

Let’s talk about water for a moment. In John’s gospel, water shows up a lot. While the other gospels have traditional baptism narratives, John gives us Jesus turning water into wine, Nicodemus learning about being born of water and spirit, and now, a debate about drawing water from a communal well versus receiving “living water.” John is hinting at something. Whenever water is poured out in this gospel, transformation is about to occur.

So, in the midst of this beautiful theological debate, why does Jesus suddenly change the subject and ask about the woman’s husband?

This is where we need to put on our biblical scholar hats. In the Old Testament, there are numerous occasions of a man meeting a woman at a well. Isaac’s wife Rebekah is met at a well. Jacob met his wife Rachel at a well at noon. Biblical scholar Robert Alter labels these repeat scenes as “betrothal type-scenes.” When John’s original audience heard about a man and a woman meeting at a well at noon, they fully expected a marriage proposal.

But Jesus doesn’t marry the woman at the well. Instead, it is a coming together of Jew and Samaritan, finding common ground about what God is doing in creation.

For centuries, the telling of this story has created a biography for this woman based on two details: the time she arrives to draw water (noon), and the fact that she has had five husbands and is now living with a man who is not her husband. The traditional assumption is that she was ostracized from her community because of her poor moral choices, forced to draw water in the heat of the day to avoid the judgmental glares of the other women.

Author Debbie Thomas writes about this brilliantly: “Long before I was old enough to read John’s Gospel for myself, I ‘knew’ that the woman at the well was sensuous, promiscuous, unchaste, and immoral. In some sermons, she was described quite explicitly as a prostitute… And the grace of the story in this version resided in nothing more than Jesus’s shocking condescension: ‘God even forgives the sins of such a woman.’”

Friends, we need to be absolutely clear: neither Jesus nor John make any comments about this woman’s character. Reading this passage as a story of a “fallen woman” is historically inaccurate and deeply damaging. Our assumptions about her lifestyle are based on misplaced, modern patriarchal ideas.

Think about it: in her society, a woman could not initiate a divorce. If she had five husbands, it was likely due to devastating tragedy, widowhood, a patriarchal legal system that abandoned barren women, or a heartbreaking combination of them all. Furthermore, the traditional assumptions simply don’t hold up to the text. If she was a moral outcast on the fringes of her community, why do her neighbours listen to her and believe her so easily at the end of the story?

We need to stop typecasting her as immoral. When we do, we rob her of her true identity in this text. She is not a silent sinner; she is a theologian and an evangelist. She engages Jesus in a robust discussion of theology. She demonstrates a brilliant understanding of her own beliefs.

So why mention the five husbands at all? Jennifer Garcia Bashaw notes that many commentators interpret the woman’s husbands symbolically. They represent either the five political powers that had ruled Samaria or the five pagan groups that comprised early Samaritan history. In this view, Jesus isn’t shaming her; he is reciting Samaritan history. The betrothal scene at the well doesn’t anticipate the marriage of a human couple, but the reconciliation of the Samaritans and their God.

This leads them to debate where to worship: in the temple in Jerusalem, or on the mountaintop in Samaria? Jesus asserts his tradition, but then shatters the paradigm entirely. He indicates that the day is coming when it will be neither location. And then, he reveals his identity to her. Using the very first “I Am” statement in John’s gospel, Jesus says, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

By announcing his identity to this culturally opposed, marginalized woman, Jesus shows that the nature of worship has already changed. The hour is here, simply because Jesus is here. In confiding in her, Jesus breaks down barriers of gender, politics, and religion, proving that God is fiercely interested in doing something completely new in creation.

When the woman receives this truth, when she drinks the living water that Jesus offers, she does something beautiful. I wonder if you get this detail. She leaves her water jar behind. When she leaves the presence of Jesus, she leaves her water jar behind. She doesn’t need it anymore. The unnamed woman immediately becomes a follower of Jesus. She has drank of the living water.

An encounter that society said shouldn’t have happened produces a brilliant evangelist who runs to preach the good news. And because of her voice, many others believed. As Chelsey Harmon writes, “The Samaritan woman’s invitation to her neighbours echoes Jesus’s own invitations to the early disciples. ‘Come and see,’ they both say. And like Andrew tells his brother Peter, the Samaritan woman tells her friends, it’s the Messiah! Come, see, welcome and be welcomed by the Saviour!”

May we stop putting limits on who God can use. May we celebrate the theologians and evangelists in unexpected places. And may each of us drink deeply from the well that is the living water of God’s welcoming, nourishing love.

Amen.