Samaritan Woman with Jesus
Painting by Sunitha Jijo Flowerhill, Delaware

A Samaritan Woman Meets Her Messiah

4 Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John 2 (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples), 3 He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. 4 But He needed to go through Samaria.

5 So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give Me a drink." 8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

9 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

10 Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water."

11 The woman said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?"

13 Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."

15 The woman said to Him, "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw."

16 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here."

17 The woman answered and said, "I have no husband."

Jesus said to her, "You have well said, 'I have no husband,' 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly."

19 The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship."

21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

25 The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When He comes, He will tell us all things."

26 Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He."

The Whitened Harvest

27 And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, "What do You seek?" or, "Why are You talking with her?"

28 The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, 29 "Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" 30 Then they went out of the city and came to Him.

31 In the meantime His disciples urged Him, saying, "Rabbi, eat."

32 But He said to them, "I have food to eat of which you do not know."

33 Therefore the disciples said to one another, "Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?"

34 Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. 35 Do you not say, 'There are still four months and then comes the harvest'? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! 36 And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. 37 For in this the saying is true: 'One sows and another reaps.' 38 I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors."

The Savior of the World

39 And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, "He told me all that I ever did." 40 So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of His own word.

by Sarah Dylan Breuer

Jesus is traveling through Samaria, a land populated by Samaritans, whom Judeans despised. It wasn't always that way. But in 586 BCE, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon dealt the Israelites a humiliating military victory, destroying the Temple that Solomon had built and bringing the leadership of Judea to Babylon in chains.

The sting of that defeat didn't lessen in the years to come. People were looking for someone to blame long after the Exile ended. Knowing that Israel's safety lay not in superior arms, but in God's protection, people tried to explain how it was that God allowed this to happen. People like Ezra and Nehemiah blamed those men of Israel who had married foreign women, and they demanded that all such men immediately divorce their wives, passing along the experiences of humiliation, abandonment, and exile. Many of the men, especially in Samaria, refused, and so they got this kind of treatment, reported as the words of Nehemiah:

I contended with them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair; and I made them take an oath in the name of God ... Thus I cleansed them from everything foreign ...
- Nehemiah 13:25-30

And so began the enmity between Judeans and Samaritans that was centuries old by the time Jesus sat by Jacob's well, and was approached by a woman of Samaria.

It was noon, in the heat of the day, and the last time that most women would have wanted to do the heavy lifting and hard walk back to the village involved in getting water from the well. The other women went early in the morning or in the cool of the evening, when the work wouldn't be quite as hard, and the drudgery of hauling water would be broken by the fellowship shared by the women around the well.

A woman who chose instead to go to the well at noon must have been seeking specifically to avoid that company; she was an outcast even among Samaritans. She was used to the whispering in the village wherever she went, having been used and discarded by so many men of the village, and in a culture in which there was little if any privacy, and gossip spread news quickly. As oppressive as the noonday sun is, it doesn't burn like the stares of the others in the village. So she goes to the well at noon, when she can be sure to be alone.

But she isn't. Jesus is there, and he speaks to her. Men spoke to women directly and in public like that if they were related by blood, or as a proposition, so it's no wonder that there's an edge in the woman's replies to Jesus. But Jesus addresses her in the same terms as he addressed his mother (John 2:4). He meets a woman who couldn't be more of an outsider, and he receives her as an insider, an intimate who has no cause for shame. He brings up her past, and her present, not to shame her, but to take away their power in showing how little they affect how Jesus and the God he proclaims receive her.

I meet a lot of people who could rightly be called "church-damaged," people who have had some of their most painful experiences of shame and humiliation in churches, often in God's name. And I've met a lot of Christians whose ability to function as evangelists, as people who proclaim Good News so that others can experience it, is seriously impaired by their concern to make sure that sinners know just how shameful their behavior is, and that they be kept from the center of Christian community. For me, the question about how we evangelize isn't a question of "What would Jesus do?"; it's a question of "What DID Jesus do?"

Jesus received the Samaritan woman with such love and such grace that she was profoundly transformed. She had once accepted the village's verdict that she was so unfit for their company that she could draw water only at noon. After meeting Jesus, she's bold enough to demand (using the imperative!) living water from him. By the end of the conversation, she's left her water jar behind and is rushing into the very center of the village, demanding to be heard by those who were once her tormentors. And she IS heard; many believe in Jesus because of the woman's bold testimony.

What transformed this woman could transform our world. The woman at the well was despised by her village, which was despised by Judeans, whose ancestors had been humiliated by Babylonians. From generation to generation, humiliation, resentment, and violence were passed down by people keeping the score so that they could seek to even it. Jesus sets aside all score-keeping, and by treating all as if all were forgiven, he makes forgiveness possible -- even for self-righteous sinners like us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person-- though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
-Romans 5:6-11

by Dr. David Sapp

Gospel: John 4:5-42

She came to my office to talk, but by the time she sat down, she was in tears. When she was finally able to speak a few words, this is what she said: "Nobody knows me, pastor. Nobody gets me."

She poured out dark and painful stories of her past. For years she had had a drug habit and had turned to prostitution to make a living. Now she had conquered her drug habit and had a legitimate job. She was deeply ashamed of her past, and she told no one. She guarded her dark secret and prayed no one would ever know.

She feared that if she revealed her secret, she would be rejected by the new friends she had made. After all, none of them really knew her. None of them really "got her," as she put it.

People like her are not rare. They make up most of the world. The Woman at the Well is the story of most of us. The dark side of our hearts is bigger than anyone knows. No one would understand if we told them. No one really "gets" us.

Male or female, rich or poor, prominent in the community or unheard of, this condition is no respecter of persons. Jesus met just such a person at a place called Jacob's well, located deep in the territory of Samaria. His encounter with her was so poignant that when John sat down to record the events which seemed to him to make up the essence of Jesus' life, he included this story.

When the woman came to the well, Jesus was sitting beside it, tired from his morning's travel. He had nothing with which to draw water, and so he asked her to draw him a drink. She was stunned. She asked how he, a Jew, could ask water from her, a Samaritan woman. After all, Jews and Samaritans shared nothing in common. It was as though Jesus had lived in the days of black-white segregation as a white boy and had asked to drink from the "colored" water fountain. Later, John tells us that his disciples were astonished that he was talking to a woman, Samaritan or not.

Jesus should not have understood this woman at all. They shared nothing in common. But listen, and be amazed!

He turned the conversation from the mundane (a drink of water) to the spiritual. "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water" (John 4:10, RSV). She wondered what he was talking about. In the common parlance of their land, living water meant flowing water as in a river, not the well water they were discussing. But Jesus told her that his living water was different. He said the living water he would give would come "gushing up into eternal life" (John 4:14, RSV). She had been drinking water that satisfied only for a time, but Jesus spoke of water that would never again leave her thirsty.

She asked for this water; and in the conversation that followed, he peeled back the layers of her life right before her eyes. Moving boldly into the secret places of her heart, he told her that she had had five husbands and was now living with a man not her husband. When at last she left him, she went into the city and told anyone who would listen, "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done" (John 4:29).

He knew! He understood! He got her! He saw her sin, calling it what it was, and he loved her anyway. He offered her hope. He gave her living water.

This is the simple point that I believe John was making when he recorded this story. We are like this woman. John knew. Jesus had appeared in his path one day and changed him. John was holding up a mirror for us, helping us to see that we stumble along through life, wrestling with demons and burdened with guilt and unable to get free of our pasts. Most of the time, we keep this suppressed, and we don't have to deal with it. But, then, Jesus suddenly appears in our pathway. He looks into our souls uninvited, and he tells us everything we ever did. He knows. He "gets" us. And, still, he loves us.

If we open our lives to this encounter with the Master, then he gives us living water. The wells from which we have been drinking lose their luster, and we realize that they give only water that satisfies for a time. We have been chasing the whirlwind, as Ecclesiastes said. We have been seeking salvation in a bottle or a needle or an affair or a job or the esteem of our community, or any of a thousand other things, and none of them have satisfied. They have left us empty, yearning for something more, but not knowing quite where to find it.

A gospel song says it pretty well:

Like the woman at the well I was seeking
For things that could not satisfy;
But then I heard my Savior speaking:
"Draw from the well that never shall run dry."

But Jesus sees and knows, and in the very fact that he sees our hearts, we begin to experience the power of living water. When we wash in it, it cleanses us. When we drink it, it slakes our thirst. When we draw it, there is always more.

When God looks into our souls, sees our dark side, divines our secrets, knows our guilt, discerns our motivations, and loves us anyway, is this not the living water that renews us and remakes us? When God sees how we are dying inside and gives us water that flows from a Source eternal in the heavens, when he tells us everything we have ever done, is this not living water to our dried out souls?

And one more thing about this woman: After Jesus' vision had pierced her soul, she told the people of her town: "Come, and see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? He told me everything about myself. Can he be the Messiah?" (John 4:29)

She is asking the question around which this whole story revolves. If he can know us so completely, if he can give us living water, then can he be the Messiah?

Jesus leaves no doubt. "I who speak to you am he" (John 4:26). Family therapist David Mace once said that strong relationships are not built on common interests or perspectives on life. They are built on self-revelation. Enduring relationships grow when two people are able to reveal themselves to one another.

He was right. Several years ago I remember encountering an old friend whom I had not seen in many years. We had a serious conversation about all that had happened to us in the intervening years, and he told me about some things he had done that even he did not understand. I said to him, "You know, I think I understand. I think I get you." And he replied, "I believe you do. I believe you do." That is the stuff that makes for lasting relationships.

And that is exactly what happened at Jacob's well. Jesus revealed himself to the woman whom he found there, and a Samaritan sinner was able to begin a new relationship, and eternal relationship. When he meets us on the road of our lives, he opens the way for us to begin such a relationship ourselves. This relationship is the living water. He was not offering free advice to this woman. He was offering himself.

His affirmation of who he was contains no shade of equivocation. The living water has no earthly source. It comes from God. That is why it is "living" water. That is why it slakes the thirst and cleanses the heart. That is why it changed the life of that woman who came to my office. It comes from God.

In a gospel song is a prayer:

Fill my cup Lord, I lift it up, Lord!
Come and quench this thirsting of my soul;
Bread of heaven, Feed me till I want no more--
Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole!

If you can pray this prayer, you will have living water. You will have refreshment for your soul, cooling for the heat of your journey, life for your veins. You will have all that living water gives, and you shall be satisfied.

In the end this is not simply a story about Jesus "getting" a woman he met at Jacob's Well--as in understanding her. It is a story about Jesus "getting" her as his child. He wants to get us all as his children. Will he get our trust? Will he get our discipleship? Will he get us to be his followers, to drink of this living water?

Jesus himself could not answer that question. Only you can. How will you answer? Will he get YOU? That is really what the story is about.

Please join me in prayer.

Dear God, in a world where so many people do not get us, where so much of our darkness is hidden, we pray give us living water and give us grace to give ourselves to you. In the name of Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.

by Daniel B. Clendenin, Journey with Jesus Foundation

Gospel: John 4:5–42

Three years ago when I was in Addis Ababa, a group of us took a day trip to the mountains that circle that capital city of four million people. At the top we prayed over the city, enjoyed the panoramic views, identified buildings in the distance below, and gasped after walking uphill only a short distance in the alpine air. That was the fun part.

The disturbing part was our ascent from the city center at 7,000 feet to the summit at 11,000 feet. As our mini-van belched clouds of blue exhaust, the higher we went the more women and girls we passed carrying loads of firewood on their backs down the mountain. Bent over at the waist, often barefooted, these women carried seventy-five pound bundles of eucalyptus saplings, seven feet wide, back down to the city center about ten miles away, all for a few pennies. The women firewood carriers in Addis are a common sight, so much so that you can read about them in the Lonely Planet guidebook.

I remarked to a friend in the van that if Jesus were alive today and the Gospels were written amongst these women, our New Testament would contain a story about the firewood carriers. In fact, the Gospel reading for this week contains something similar.

Like the woman caught in the act of adultery (John 8), the story of Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4) reminds us that the kingdom He inaugurated is a realm of inclusion not exclusion, dignity not denigration, empowerment rather than exploitation, and affirmation rather than marginalization. His simple request for a drink of water provoked a dialogue with a marginalized woman that teaches us that Jesus does not desire any human being to shrivel and die from a parched soul. Rather, he longs to quench the deepest needs and desires of each one of us with the "living water" of his Spirit.

As Jesus traveled from Judea to Galilee he stopped in the town of Sychar around noon time, tired and thirsty from the journey. There he sat down by a well and asked a Samaritan woman for a drink of water. That Jesus, a Jew, would talk to a Samaritan shocked the woman (4:9). That he would talk to a woman surprised His own disciples (4:27). In fact, through death or divorce, this woman had burned through five marriages and was then living with a boyfriend not her husband (4:18).

When you connect the dots of her story, you realize that in her one person this woman epitomized the many ways that society marginalizes people. Jesus shatters all the taboos that held sway then (and now) - gender discrimination, ritual purity (sharing a drinking cup with a Samaritan), socio-economic poverty (any woman married five times was likely poor), religious hostility, and the moral stigma of serial marriages.

In marked contrast to the male, rabbi, scholar Nicodemus in the previous chapter (John 3), the Samaritan woman displayed spiritual thirst, candor about her past, and genuine insight. She longed not only for literal water, but for the "living water" (4:11) that Jesus offered her, so much so that in her excitement she forgot her water jar when she returned to town (4:28). This thoroughly powerless woman made such a powerful impression upon Jesus and her own neighbors that John included an interesting eyewitness detail about Jesus's itinerary: upon the neighbors' request, "he stayed two days" in Sychar (John 4:40). The woman embraced Jesus as the Messiah, her witness converted many other fellow Samaritans in town (4:39), and she became the cause of the story's punch line: "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we really know that this man is the Savior of the world" (4:42).

These women, the firewood carriers in Addis Ababa and the water collector in Sychar, challenge us with equal parts prophetic vinegar to develop our social consciences and pastoral honey to transform our inner hearts.

As in so many Gospel stories about God's alternative community, John 4 subverts and then reverses conventional human wisdom and power relations. Jesus not only engaged a disreputable, ostracized, foreign woman; He cast her as the hero of the story, a symbol of life in His kingdom, and as an ardent witness to his universal lordship. In so doing He warns us of religiosity that turns a deaf ear to the disenfranchised, and which masks an otherwise smug, exclusionary and self-serving faith. How easy it is to succumb to "a diminished religiosity that is characterized by privatized belief systems, devoid of the prophetic and social witness of Jesus and the prophets — ultimately, nothing more than 'small-s' spirituality that is really only ad hoc wish fulfillment or a collection of little self-help techniques we use to take the edge off our materialistic rat-race lives."1

The kingdom that Jesus announced is not one of a privatized faith whose purpose is to guarantee personal peace and affluence. Contrary to so many popular Christian counterfeits, His kingdom does not peddle what the distinguished sociologist Christian Smith of the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) aptly laments as "the god of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" who like a Divine Butler is tasked to make us feel good.2 Rather, Jesus proclaimed that God longs to assuage the deepest needs, spiritual and material, of the morally, spiritually, religiously, and economically least and lost. He invites us to join Him in that service.

Jesus also offers each one of us the "living water" that is the life-giving action of His Spirit in the deepest recesses of our being. In the beautiful poetry of the Hebrew prophet Isaiah (55:1–3), God welcomes every person, rich or poor, to drink deeply of what He alone can give us and what all that our culture offers - money, jobs, prestige, the proper zip code, the best university degree, or the latest diet - can never satisfy.

Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
Give ear and come to me;
hear me, that your soul may live.

To the call of outward service to the vulnerable, these women add the invitation to inward personal renewal contained in the words of Jesus: "Everyone who drinks this ordinary well water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (4:14).

References:

[1] Jim Wallis, God's Politics; Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It (San Francisco: Harper, 2005), p. 36.

[2] "What American Teenagers Believe," in Books and Culture (January-February 2005), p. 10.

For further reflection:

* How and where might Jesus call you to break powerful cultural taboos such as those featured in the story of the Samaritan woman?

* For further reading: Frank Anthony Spina, The Faith of the Outsider; Exclusion and Inclusion in the Biblical Story (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005).

by Sunitha Jijo Flowerhill, Malankara World Board Member

The Encounter of the Samaritan Woman with the Lord Jesus Reveals His Breaking Down of Three Barriers: Racial, Social and Religious.

1. Historical Background

Palestine in the time of the Lord Jesus was divided into 3 provinces: Galilee in the North, Judea in the South, and Samaria between the two. The journey from Judea to Galilee could take 3 days (if the traveler went through Samaria), or 6 days if, avoiding Samaria, one crossed the River Jordan, traveled along its eastern bank, then crossed the River again north of Samaria, and came to Galilee. Because of the enmity between the Jews and the Samaritans, many Jews took the longer route to avoid passing through Samaria.

(a) Enmity between Jews and Samaritans

This goes back to the year 720 B.C. when the king of Assyria captured Samaria, deported the Israelites to Assyria (2 Kings 17:6), and brought people from Babylon and other pagan countries and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites, as noted in 2 Kings 17:24. Intermarriage among foreigners and Israelites who had escaped captivity contributed to tensions between Samaritans and Israelites.

Later, when under Ezra and Nehemiah, the Israelites returned from captivity, the Samaritans wanted to take part in the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem; but they were despised because of the reasons above, and their offer was stoutly rejected. This enmity increased when, in 450 B.C., Menassa, son of Eliashib the high priest, married the daughter of Sanballat the Horonite (Nehemiah 13:28), and, on refusing to divorce his foreign wife, was forbidden to approach the Lord's temple in Jerusalem. He was further enticed by Sanballat to build a special temple for the Samaritans on top of Mount Gerizim. From that time, the Samaritans worshipped on their own mountain, and were further despised by the Jews. Samaritan religion closely resembled Judaism, but on key issues their followers had gone their own way. They accepted only the first five books of the Torah, and insisted that Mount Gerizim, not Jerusalem, was the proper place to worship God. They also maintained that God had asked Abraham to offer his son, Isaac, on Mount Gerizim and not on a mountain in the region of Moriah, as recorded in Genesis 22:2.

The Samaritans insisted that they could venerate the one God in Samaria; the Jews insisted that this could only be done at the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus as a Jew is therefore in a region that is in conflict with and separated from the Jews. And because of the laws around ritual purity and kosher food, Samaritans and Jews were not eating together. All this will play a role in the discussion between Jesus and the Samaritan woman.

(b) A woman comes to draw water.

Yes, this is a situation that can be found every day in a million places all over the world. Water is the element that is needed to survive in more than one way. Water is even more important than food. To rely on good, clean water is a question of being healthy and alive. Where water is polluted, illnesses and poverty go hand in hand. Good health is directly correlated to the importance of having clean quality water. Today, about 884 million people worldwide still fail to have easy access to clean water. Water carrying is hard work, time consuming and mostly done by women. UNICEF states: "Access to local water resources increases women's opportunities and raises women's rights in the developing world." Where clean water is not provided by the community, women have to walk long distances to find clean water. This was also the case in the time of Jesus. The woman comes to draw water.

2. The Occasion

Jesus was traveling with his disciples from Judea in the South, to Galilee in the North. Instead of trying to avoid Samaria (as most Jews would have done), he chose the shorter route which leads through Samaria. They came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, situated near a desert in which Jacob's well was (about 100 meters deep), close to the land which Jacob had given to his son, Joseph (John 4: 5-6; Gen. 48:22). Exhausted, Jesus sat at the well, while his Disciples went into the town to buy food. The well was the same as that where Isaac had met Rebekah, and Jacob had met Rachel (Gen. 24:11, 29:10). It was the sixth hour (noon), a time when the place was usually deserted because of the heat. The reference to the sixth hour is connected to Jesus - and only found one other time in the New Testament, on Calvary. At noon time, on the cross, blood and water came out of the side of Jesus (John 19). The hour could be a reference to how Jesus died and what he did for us, giving himself as the living water.

3. The Events

- Jesus, a thirsty man in a desert place on a very hot day, presents his own need to the Samaritan Woman, asking her for a drink.

- The woman, astounded, questions why he asks her: he is a Jew, while she is a Samaritan; he is a man, but she is a woman. Jesus initiates a conversation with a request and she continues with her own questions. A dialogue begins. She is knowledgeable about her tradition and can speak directly about the basis of the differences between Jews and Samaritans.

- However, Jesus - ignoring racial, religious, and social barriers answers: "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water".

- "Sir," objects the woman, "you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well and drank from it himself?!"

- Jesus, ignoring her question, tries to draw her attention to the spiritual meaning of his words: "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water I give, will never thirst." Greatly excited, the woman retorts, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water".

- Although the Samaritan Woman cannot yet understand the spiritual dimension, she is deeply touched by the respectful way Jesus has been addressing her.

- Jesus asks her to go and call her husband, and she truthfully answers that she has no husband.

- The Samaritan Woman is often portrayed as a lustful sinner. Yet this view needs to be examined. We know from several passages in the Old Testament, and from the story of Ruth, that when a married man died without children, it was the duty of his nearest relative to marry his widow. It is possible that the husbands of this woman were forced on her successively, upon the death of each one. The man, with whom she was currently living, could very possibly have been a near relative taking advantage of her, and refusing to legalize the relationship. She could have been "more sinned against, than sinning".

- Upon realizing that Jesus is aware of her situation, she greets him as a man of God, "I can see that you are a Prophet", she says.

- Having discovered that Jesus is not an ordinary man, she seeks his opinion about the Jewish/ Samaritan problem regarding worship: "Our fathers worshipped on this mountain" (at their own Temple, destroyed in 129 B.C.), "but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem".

- Some commentaries contrast the story of Nicodemus, the Pharisee visiting Jesus at night with the Samaritan woman. Jesus begins his mission with the Jewish community, and is moving toward the mission to the gentiles by going through Samaria.

- When the woman confides to Jesus her belief in the expected Messiah, his answer is: "I (who speaks to you) AM he, calling himself by the same name God used of himself when speaking to Moses: I AM (Exodus 3: 14).

- On their return to the well, the Disciples are surprised to find Jesus talking with a Samaritan woman; but they say nothing.

- Having met the Messiah herself, and having drunk of the living water that He gives, the woman forgets all about her water jar, and rushes into the town to share the good news with her fellow Samaritans.

4. The Living Water Offered by Jesus

This "living water" is also mentioned in the Old Testament: "With joy you will draw
Water from the wells of salvation" (Isaiah 12:3); "My people have…forsaken me, the spring of living water" (Jeremiah 2:13).

The significance of this is that Jesus' call to the Samaritan Woman was the same as God's call to his people in the Old Testament. It is also the same as His call to us today:

"Forget the former things,
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland."
(Isaiah 43:18-19)

After meeting Jesus, the Samaritan woman left her desert past and, partaking of his Living Water, became a missionary to others, and bore much fruit. Like her, we are called upon to drink of the Living Water, and to live a fruitful life in the present.

Consider a few of the questions below to have a group reflection:

5. Questions

(1) What changes are gradually taking place in the Samaritan Woman during her encounter with Jesus? Can you think of a time when you became convinced of your position, and then moved to a different understanding?

(2) How would you describe the Samaritan woman at the end of the narrative? Who do you know that is like a Samaritan Woman?

(3) The other Samaritans, drawn to the Lord Jesus because of the woman's testimony, urge him to stay with them. Does Jesus accept their invitation? With what result? (John 4: 39-41). Share about the testimony of women that is bringing change to your community.

(4) The assertion that "this man really is the Savior of the World" (John 4:41) is also found in 1 John 4:14: "We have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the World". What is the implication of this assertion today?

Samaritan Woman Meeting Jesus - John 4:3-42

• Why did the Samaritan woman come to draw water at noon, the hottest time of the day?
• Did she want to avoid the times the other women in town came to the well?
• What are the places in my life where I am embarrassed, where I avoid interaction with others?
• What are the noon day wells of my life?
• Can I imagine Jesus approaching me there?

Jesus tries to reveal his thirst to her - perhaps his thirst for intimacy with her - but she puts him off. She's not worthy. It won't work. When he offers to satisfy her thirst, she puts him off. He can't satisfy what she needs, at least with this well, and without a bucket.

How do I put Jesus off, with excuses, with problems, with barriers? I don't have time; I haven't done this before; my stuff's too complicated; I don't know how to find you in this mess.

When he shows her that he knows her, she knows she's in the presence of someone special - perhaps the one she has thirsted for all her life.

• Do I let Jesus show me that he knows and understands me?
• Can I find the words to say he is the one I have thirsted for all my life?

The grace will come when I see that I have been at the well a long time and have long been thirsty. When I can name the new thirst, the Water that now satisfies that thirst, I can overcome my remaining resistance to trust. When I see that Jesus reveals himself to me by revealing me to me, thereby showing me my need for him as Savior, I will rejoice and tell the whole world, too.