Nicodemus came to Jesus at night ... He was embarrassed, ashamed, perhaps, that a man of his stature and learning should come to a carpenter's son ... Then again, he was a leader if the Jews, a prominent Pharisee. It wouldn't have done to be seen consorting with a trouble-maker, a threat to their hegemony and rule.
Although Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, the woman—John doesn't even bother to tell us her name—comes to the well, and thus to Jesus, in broad daylight. At noon, as a matter of fact, nearly the hottest heat of day, when the sun scorches your eyeballs and is reflected off the bleak, Samaritan rocks as if they were dusty mirrors. Nobody in their right mind leaves the house at noon, much less does any work ... water was normally hauled in the cool of the evening in those parts, when they wouldn't get sun-stroke from walking from house to well.
So a fair question is this: why did this woman, like Nicodemus, come at a most inopportune time? Clearly, it couldn't have been expressly to see Jesus. Unlike the Pharisee, she couldn’t have seen any of his signs—he hadn’t been doing them in Samaria. To the woman, he was just another dusty man on a dusty road. So it’s hard to say, but perhaps there's a clue in their conversation ... Jesus asks her to fetch her husband, and upon saying she had none, Jesus reveals that he already knows that she's had five in the past, and that the man she is now with isn't her husband.
Now, a lot of preachers have gone on about her "sin," and Jesus’ presumed forgiveness of it, and they apparently mean some kind of sexual misdeed, but Jesus doesn't go there. He just matter-of-factly lets her know that he knows, and it serves to convince her that he indeed is a great prophet. What others fail to understand is that it very likely wasn't her fault that she'd had five previous husbands. Women were no more than property in that culture, no more than chattel. In truth, we have no idea why the woman lost her husbands ... Divorce was entirely the prerogative of the man, and it could be for trivial reasons: in fact, there was a debate at the time over just how trivial. The eminent Rabbi Shammai opined that the reason had to be serious, while the equally eminent Rabbi Hillel claimed it could be for something as trivial as burning the soup.
Of course, life could be nasty, brutish and short in the first century, so it's likely that at least one of her husbands expired in some untimely way or another, thus leaving the woman wholly without protection, completely without a means of supporting her or any children she might have. In fact, it was imperative that a woman have a man of some flavor to support her, lest she and hers be reduced to begging.
But though I don't know for sure whether or not the woman was blameless, what I do know is that each time she lost a husband, her social status decreased or to put it crassly, she became increasingly damaged goods. So that by the time she got to the sixth man, it's likely she was little more than a maid, someone to haul his water, cook his food, and provide for his other needs.
All this suggests that the reason she comes to the well at the ungodly hour of noon is shame. Has she had enough of the stares, of the open contempt from her neighbors? Is she so out of the pale, so outside the bounds, so much of an outcast that she doesn't dare show her face when others are about? People who are constantly told that they are lesser, constantly reminded in some way that they are different and inferior—especially if it has to do with sexuality—tend to internalize it, and so I suspect that it isn't just a water jar she brings to Jacob's Well, it’s a load of shame to boot.
And marvel of marvels, the dusty man speaks to her ... He’s clearly a Jew, and a male to boot, and yet he speaks to her. She was so used to being ignored, so accustomed to being the invisible woman, persona non grata, that just being acknowledged is transporting to her, like a breath of fresh air.
And so begins a conversational dance that has the character of theological sparring, and also—dare I say it?—playful speech between a man and a woman. And what is important to understand is that there are movements to the dance, stages that lead the nameless woman to a genuine relationship with the Christ.
First movement: he asks her for water, she counters with “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” He answers her, explaining that Samaritan or not, he has a much greater gift to give her, and calls it “living water." Like Nicodemus, she takes it literally—"How can you give me any of this water?” she asks, "you don't even have a bucket!” And then she takes her first step toward the Kingdom: "are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who built this well?” It’s beginning to dawn on her that she's not in Kansas anymore, that this isn't just any old thirsty traveler . . .
Second movement: Jesus ups the ante . . . everyone who drinks of this water won’t ever be thirsty, he says, this water will become for them a spring of water, gushing up to eternal life. And I love this image, especially because I’ve been in some pretty arid places in my life . . . I picture stumbling along in the desert, heat rippling off the horizon, sweat stinging my sun-slit eyes … and there is a cool blast and a gusher, springing from the ground, disappearing into heaven . . . birds swooping joyously, palm trees bending toward the water, eager to suck up precious moisture.
And the woman, who in her life has known nothing other than the harsh desert, marvels at this image as well, she is captivated by it, and the image—along with the man who gives it—causes her to reach a new level of understanding—though it is imperfect still, and she who thought she had something for Jesus realizes it’s the other way around, she needs something from him . . . And it’s important to see that it’s Jesus who’s pulling her along this path, who is leading her to a saving faith . . . but unlike Nicodemus, she is open to it . . . could it be because of her shame, her low self estate in life? Could Nicodemus’ refusal to consider what Jesus is saying, or perhaps his inability to do so, have to do with his position, which was just about as respectable and important as any could be? Could his status in life—secure, well-to-do, in charge—keep him from being open to Jesus’ lead? Remember that ol’ camel and the needle’s eye . . .
Movement 3: Jesus tells her about her five husbands and the man she is living with—and again, there is no shaming, no saying “go and sin no more”—and she comes to the realization that he is a great prophet . . .
Movement 4: the woman assumes that because he is a Jew, he’d tell her that she must worship in Jerusalem, and he counters with a prediction—as befits a prophet—that soon they’d worship God neither in Jerusalem or on Samaria’s mountain, but—since God is spirit—true worshipers would worship in spirit and truth . . . and was radical to the nameless woman, ‘cause Samaritans—like their Jewish cousins—believed God resided in their temples, on their mountains. To say God could be worshiped in spirit and truth is to say that God could be worshiped anywhere—and this is what tips the Samaritan woman over the edge—by anyone.
And now she’s hooked, she starts thinking about the Messiah, and says the Messiah will come and tell them all things, including about who could worship whom on what mountain, and Jesus calmly says: “I am.” And although most translations add the “he” so that it reads “I am he,” in the Greek there is no pronoun, so it’s just “I am,” and who else—and where else—have we seen that phrase? On Mt. Sinai, of course, coming from a burning bush . . . and so in the fifth and final movement, Jesus declares himself fully to her, without reference even to “Messiah”—note that he never says the word. He just utters the Greek equivalent of God’s declaration on Mt. Sinai, I am . . .
And it is a remarkable disclosure, one that I don’t think Jesus makes to anyone else, and right then—at the worst possible moment—here come the disciples, back from town, and though they’re amazed, simply amazed that he is talking to a mere woman, they’re too polite to say anything, and the woman leaves her water jar—symbolic of leaving her old life behind—and runs into town, telling everyone “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?"
And in the Greek, it is clear that she believes Jesus is the Messiah, but what’s more interesting is the first sentence of that phrase . . . it seems to me to have an unfinished feel, especially in light of what we know of her past, and likely present. You could complete that sentence with four words: “Come see a man who told me everything I have ever done . . . and loved me anyway.” She doesn’t say the last four words, but they’re implicit in the joy with which she runs. “Everything she ever did” is a long list, and they’re ever before her, in the judgmental stares and backhanded comments of her neighbors. And for Jesus to know her past is one thing—prophets weren’t unheard of, after all—but for him to know her past and love her still, well . . . that is as new as springtime flowers, as fresh as a new creation.
Sisters and brothers, I can’t think of any society that has as many opportunities for shame as ours . . . it’s one of the by-products of our extreme individualism, and our national story that anyone can get ahead if they just work. And when someone has clearly not gotten ahead, the immediate inference is “well, they must not have worked hard,” and they’re branded a priori as lazy, as a class, as a group, and they internalize that judgment, and it can be terribly shaming.
But wait, there’s more! Western society is an equal opportunity shamer. We’re barraged by images featuring beautiful people, and we’re told what we should wear, how our hair needs to look, and how much we should weigh. And if we’re not like that, if we can’t afford the latest clothes, if we can’t afford to be toned and tight, or don’t have the genetic disposition, well, we internalize that too . . . Just as in Jesus’ day, women get it the worst . . . our society objectifies women, and the objects that it uses to fie them—get it? Object-i-fy?—the objects with which they are compared are impossibly slim and airbrushed. We’ve all known women, slim women, who are obsessed by what they imagine is a few too many pounds on their frame, and this causes no small amount of anguish and shame, and—not by accident—fattening of the diet industry’s coffers.
Men aren’t immune from this, however: Western society is an equal opportunity shamer, after all . . . I remember growing up, being a little—and I know you find this impossible to understand—overweight, and I was always last to be chosen for a team, and etc., and a child internalizes this, she or he gets to believing it, and it can cause a world of pain, a world of hurt.
But you know what? We are spirit, as well as flesh, and God is spirit, and as Jesus told ol’ Nicodemus, the spirit goes where it will . . . and although we can’t know everywhere it goes, we can be certain of one thing: the spirit was with that nameless woman at the crack of noon in Samaria, and the Spirit is here today, as is Jesus, who knows everything we’ve ever done—all the petty lies we might have told, all the resentments and animosity that we harbor, all the many things we do that separate us from God, Jesus knows all of these things, and loves us anyway. Amen.
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