The text involves a discourse by Jesus around the occasion of his meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob. The interlocutor is a Samaritan woman. It was remarkable to his contemporaries that Jesus did not adhere to the practice of keeping women in seclusion.[1] It relates a story like that of Mark 8:27-30, with speculation that Jesus might be a prophet who would restore fidelity to the Lord and revive the people of God. It also supports the point of the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-35). It supports the Samaritan mission of the early Christian communities by saying that it goes back to Jesus. The significance of the mission is that it is an anticipation of the time when the strife about temples ends and the religious separation of the peoples is set aside.[2] The theme of the main dialogue in verses 7-15 is living water, a characteristic use of Johannine irony. This story is powerful. We learn of living water and therefore of life in the Spirit that quenches the thirsty soul. The Samaritan woman comes to represent us all when we come to Jesus. She came to the well in great need. She will meet the one who can satisfy the deepest needs of humanity. Since salvation is of the Jews, the approach to Christianity is through Judaism. The ways of religion belong to the sphere of the flesh. In contrast, Christ inaugurates genuine worship on the plane of full reality. In Christ a new kind of religion is inaugurated, symbolized by the wine of Cana, the living water that Christ gives, and the new temple that Christ will raise up. The conversation between the woman and the Samaritans (verses 28-30, 39) moves within the limits of popular messianic concepts, especially among the Samaritans, who looked for one like Moses,[3] leading to a reflection upon the harvest like that of Mt 9:35-38. The positive reception of Jesus by the Samaritans contrasts sharply with that of the Jews.
The tensions between Jews and Samaritans are legendary. Samaritans did not worship in Jerusalem, put obstacles in the way of building the temple, and helped Syrians against Jews in 200-100 BC. In 128 BC, Jewish High Priest John Hyrean burned the Samaritan temple on Gerizim. The times of Jesus contained frequent clashes as Galileans passed through Samaria. The context makes the story interesting. The faith of the half-pagan Samaritans who accept Jesus so whole-heartedly stands out in sharp contrast to the superficial crowds in Jerusalem who accepted Jesus only because of signs in Chapter 2. They also stand in contrast to the bewildered Jewish leader Nicodemus. The response among non-Jews also requires patience on the part of Jesus but eventually leads to a positive outcome. Jesus will disclose his mission as savior of the world. We might also note that the early church had a special interest in the Samaritans. The story is a drama of a person rising from the things of this world to belief in Jesus.
Scene one is 4:4-26 is a dialogue between Jesus and the woman concerning living water and true worship of the Father. The point here is that everyone must recognize who it is that speaks and ask for living water from him. As the author begins, Jesus “had” to go to Samaria, not geographically but theologically. He came to the Samaritan city Sychar, to the well of Jacob, land that Jacob had given to Joseph. Tired by his journey, Jesus sat at the well. A Samaritan woman came to draw water around noon. This was an unlikely time for a woman to be at the well, normal time being at sunrise or sunset, for obvious reasons. Jesus asked her for a drink. He was alone, because his disciples had gone into the city to buy food. The woman wondered how he, a Jew, could ask her, a Samaritan, for a drink. Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans, for they considered Samaritans on the same level as ritually unclean Gentiles.[4] Jesus responded that if she knew the gift of God, and if she knew the one who asked her for a drink, she would be asking him for a drink! He, Jesus, would have given her living water. Of course, even if in a crude way, the woman does not understand this, as is typical of the dialogues in John, designed to give a decisive turn in the dialogue.[5] However, Jesus is also patient to teach her and bring her along. His reference to living water might refer to the revelation or wisdom Jesus provides to all. It might refer to the Spirit that Jesus has promised to all. Both could find justification within the Gospel of John. It suggests the close relation between gift and giver. Rabbis in the days of Jesus referred to the Torah as living water. In either case, the implication is that the disciple of Jesus must be willing to go beyond the Law. From the standpoint of John, Jesus needs nothing, while the woman is in great need. She will meet the one who can satisfy the deepest needs of humanity. She wonders how he can have water, for she sees no bucket and the well is deep. Where could he get the living water? Is he greater than Jacob is (hitting upon the truth, even if sarcastically), who gave her people this well? His sons and flocks also drank form it. The question shows she remains out of touch with what Jesus is offering. Jesus responded that everyone who drinks this water would be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that he gives to him or her will never be thirsty. The water he gives will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. Jesus leaves no more room for thirst, for he becomes in people a well of water springing up to eternal life, for the gift of Jesus quenches the desire for life because it gives birth to life in humanity.[6] The new eschatological life is life in the full sense in comparison with which earthly life can be called life only with reservations.[7] The water source within the person comes from abiding fellowship with Christ.[8] The water of life is a gift of paradise, indicating the dawning consummation of the world.[9] The woman responded that she wanted this water, so that she may never be thirsty or come here to draw water. Jesus, showing his patience, asked her to get her husband. She responds that she has no husband. Jesus patiently says she answers rightly, for she has five husbands and is living with one now who is not her husband. We might note that Jewish teaching was that a woman could only marry twice, or three times at most. The Samaritans also considered such frequent re-marriage as dishonorable and illegitimate. The woman responds that she sees he is a prophet, reflecting the common view of Jesus among the people.[10] The Synoptic Gospels also note that people thought of Jesus as a prophet. Yet she remains quite concerned with the cultural chasm separating Samaritans and Jews. Then, wanting some theological discussion, she notes that her ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but Jews says that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem. The opposite of Jerusalem and Gerizim is not the universe at large, but the worship of God mediated through Jesus as the One who makes everything known to us. God does not cease to dwell in the world in definite and distinct ways, that is, even as omnipresent, and without detriment to the divine omnipresence, God does not cease to be in special places. [11] Jesus responds patiently that the hour is coming when she and her people will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. The view of Jesus regarding the conditions of the end always focusses upon the community. Although this could refer to worship in a figurative sense and lead to spiritualizing the act of worship, the reference is still to a place of worship that includes all persons who worship in spirit and truth.[12] She and her people worship what they do not know. Jews worship what they know, for salvation is from the Jews. This statement reminds us of the role of Israel in the history of salvation. In 1:17, we read that the law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, a hint of the view of John concerning the relation between Judaism and Christianity. If the church tries to cooperate in hostility to Jewish blood, it simply proves that it has become, blind, deaf, and stupid. In rejecting the Jew, one rejects God. The Bible as the witness of divine revelation in in Jesus Christ is a Jewish book. One cannot read, understand and expound it unless one is prepared to become Jews with the Jews. [13]Regarding salvation itself, since Jesus mediates future salvation in the present, we may extend the term soteria to his work, as here, that soteria originated in the proclamation of Jesus himself. The statement is surprisingly close to modern exegetical insights on the theme of the proleptic presence of the salvation of the divine rule in the message and work of Jesus.[14] However, the hour is coming, and is here now, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, thereby defining what it means to offer genuine worship.[15] Spirit is the world of God that remains inaccessible to humanity so long as humanity does not live in the spirit.[16] The Father seeks such as these to worship the Father. God is spirit, and those who worship God must do so in spirit and truth, from above rather than from below, of the spirit rather than of the flesh. The view of Jesus regarding the end included the community of the redeemed worshipping before the throne of God.[17] John is inviting people who believe in God to an unheard-of intimacy with the Father. If humanity is to adore God in Spirit and truth, the Spirit of God must fill and penetrate it. This immediate, eschatological gift of the Spirit has come about through Jesus Christ. The glorified Jesus is the one who will bestow the Spirit.[18] God is spirit, which is a reminder that God is different from all that is earthly and human. The eschatological hour of the meeting of above and below, spirit and flesh, God and the world, has already come. God summons humanity faith and seeks to encounter humanity in the historical man, Jesus of Nazareth. To offer genuine worship is to worship in the sphere of God and no longer in that of the world, to worship in reality and no longer in the realm of mere appearance.[19] In I John, we learn that God is love. Theologians also derive divine immutability from Exodus 3:14. The point is that these passages are the closest the Bible gets to a definition of God. In this passage, God is spirit, but in the theological tradition, God as supreme reason or mind is also strong, even if it does not have the biblical support.[20] However, Origen interpreted this idea in terms of the Platonic and Aristotelian view of deity as nous or mind, because his only alternative was to construe the saying in terms of the Stoic doctrine of pneuma. Yet the Stoic teaching of pneuma involved a refined sense of corporeal reality. In our time the dilemma is no longer present. The field theories of modern physics, related to the Stoic view of pneuma no longer view field phenomena as bodily entities, but see them as independent of matter and defined only by their relations to space-time. Field theory can help the theologian to interpret the notion of God as Spirit depends on relating space-time to the eternity of God. He also points out that the definition of God as Spirit is the essence of God as well as the third person of the Trinity.[21] As Spirit constitutes the divine essence, the Spirit is opposed to the world, but is also at work in creation as the origin of life, and the one who sanctifies creatures by giving them a fellowship with the eternal God that transcends their transitory life.[22] The woman says she is aware that the Messiah (Μεσσίας) is coming. When he comes, he will proclaim all things to them as Samaritans. The Samaritans looked for a Moses-like prophet and teacher (Dt 18:15-19) of the Torah who would restore genuine worship as described in Torah. In 36 AD a man summoned the Samaritans to go with hm up Gerizim and promised he would show those who came with him the buried sacred vessels that Moses had put there (Josephus, Antiquities 18.85).[23] Jesus responds that he, Messiah is the one speaking to her (Ἐγώ εἰμι, ὁ λαλῶν σοι), although the title Jesus used for himself is usually Son of Man.[24] Its use here is consistent with the Jewish usage of the era as a title rather than as a proper name, but unusually applied to the earthly Jesus.[25] The Messiah can be known only when he reveals himself, a revelation unique in John. His history gives the Messianic understanding the new form that is traced back to Jesus.[26] We have another example of what scholars call the Johannine misunderstanding, as she is looking for a Messiah of the future, while Jesus points to the present. Yet her religious yearnings are sincere. Her sincerity opens the door for Jesus revealing himself to her as Messiah.
Scene two is 4:27-38. The disciples arrived. The fact that Jesus was speaking with a woman astonished them, rather than the fact that she was a Samaritan. It was remarkable to his contemporaries that Jesus did not adhere to the practice of keeping women in seclusion.[27] No one asked what he wanted or why he was speaking with her. As this story unfolds, we see the missionary interests of the early church making itself felt strongly. The woman left the water jar at the well and went back to the city. She told the people she meant to “Come and see” a man who told her everything she had done, wondering if he might be the Messiah, unusually applied to the earthly Jesus,[28] although the Greek phrasing of this suggests she doubts this. People followed her to meet Jesus. While she was doing these things, the disciples urged their rabbi to eat something. However, again, Jesus answers cryptically, speaking spiritually about physical things, telling them in a metaphor that contains an allegory that he has food to eat of which they know nothing. Jesus will again need to be patient and bring the disciples along to the spiritual truths he sees around them. They wondered, confused as was Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, with each other if someone had brought him food. However, Jesus tells them, in a description of his ministry typical of John,[29] that his “food” is to do the will of the one who sent him and to complete his work. We find a similar description in 5:30 and 6:38. The style and wording mark it as a word of revelation. The whole life of Jesus centers on and grows out of an effort to do the will of God who sent him. Jesus lived his life that way, and our duty is to recognize this in him. The Old Testament notion of the divine command and the divine good pleasure provide the context for the divine will in the New Testament.[30] He then invites them to reflect on their experience with farming in a way that will strongly suggest the missionary interests of the early church, like that recorded in Mt 9:35-38, praying to the Lord of the harvest. The notions of sending and laboring carry this theme through. In addition, the text reveals an interest with the community of their mission to Samaria. In verses 35-38 is a metaphor that is close to allegory, using the well-established harvest image of the new age.[31] They can estimate that it will be four months more and the harvest will come. This would make the time of year May 15-June 15, making the feast mentioned in 5:1 the Passover. However, if they were to look around, the “fields” of people are “ripe for harvesting” for eternal life. The reaper is already receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. The second proverbial saying, one sows and another reaps, is true. As Micah 6:15 suggests, this was a probably a negative reference, where one sowed calamity and therefore could not reap the benefits of his or her work. Jesus turns it into a positive image of the mission field. Jesus sent them to reap that for which they did not labor. Others (John the Baptist and Jesus possibly) have labored, and they have entered their labor. Harvest is a symbol for the time of salvation and its abundant riches, the fields being white and the seedtime and harvest arrive together, all suggesting the dawning consummation of the world.[32]Readers of this text should have the reminder that they cannot know just how much time and labor have gone into sowing faith among others before those we recognize as missionaries actually arrive on the scene. Even when we think we are sowing, we may be reaping.
Scene three is 4:39-42, where John contrasts the Jewish and Samaritan responses to Jesus. We now learn that many Samaritans from the city believed in him due to the testimony of the woman that he told her everything she had done. When the Samaritans asked him to stay with them, he stayed two days. This led to many more believing due to his word. They stress to the woman that they no longer believe because of what she said, but for what they have heard for themselves. The point is that one comes to full faith only by the personal encounter with Jesus. They know this Jesus is truly the Savior of the world, not just the people of God, and the only time “savior” applies to Jesus in his earthly ministry. Luke 2:11 uses the title as well. The content of faith matters, seeing in Jesus his eschatological and soteriological significance. Faith in Christ reaches its climax in confessing Jesus as savior of all. Jesus is the savior in the Messianic sense, since he answers the hopes of Samaritans as well as Jews. His saving work was the purpose the Father had in sending him into the world.[33] His self-revelation has taught the Samaritans that the true savior sent by God does not belong to one people alone, does not set up a special form of worship in Samaria or Judea., but bestows salvation on the whole world. Even in the witness of prophets and apostles, Christ is the one witnessing and the one to whom they respond. Believers always need to “hear” more than just the human witness.[34] Christian handing down of tradition by proclamation and teaching has reached its goal only when by its recipients achieve their own independent relation to the matter, and hence a relation of immediacy that can cause them to forget the communication process. This immediacy that Christians experience as the work of the Spirit characterizes faith in Jesus, yet not just in the sense of knowledge of Jesus, but as the immediacy of a personal relationship. Believers have immediacy to Jesus because all have individual fellowship with Jesus in faith.[35]
Meditative reflection on wells in modern life that do not provide nourishment
This woman had gone to the well of pleasure. She went to the well of sex, having one sexual partner after another. I do not know what her hopes and dreams were. She came to a well for water at a time when other women would not be present. Does this mean she wanted to avoid meeting others? Did she feel some guilt? We do not know. Like many people, however, she had her hopes and dreams, she sought a way to have those hopes and dreams fulfilled yet come up empty.
Pleasure is not the only empty well in her life.
Another empty well is religion. This woman at the well knew her theology. She knew where Jews worshipped, and she knew where Samaritans worshipped. She thought she could take refuge in her religion. Yet Jesus directed her, not to religion, but to the worship of God in spirit and truth.
Another empty well is social status. This woman refers to the difference between her as a woman and Samaritan and Jesus as a man and a Jew. Jesus does not allow her to get away with the difference. He simply refers her to the living water that God offers to her.
Another empty well is surrounding ourselves with all the stuff we can. Yet the gospel tells us that a rich young man approached Jesus one day, and Jesus told him to give away all he had and follow him. The man left Jesus, sorrowful because he had many possessions. When Jesus meets us, we have a decision to make.
The strange thing is that people keep coming back to those empty wells. Yet, for most of us, the empty well needs to be our empty well. We need to experience its emptiness personally before we become open to true satisfaction. There is so much fear and rejection in life; we do not know where to turn.
There is no way the woman at the well could visualize how refreshing this water is. Jesus is not suggesting a better way to do her chores. He is not proposing to create a better work environment for her.
He is offering to ease the burden of her troubled soul and release her from the pain of guilt. This woman is living with a past that makes her an outcast in her own village -- she has been married multiple times. Even worse, for that day, age and culture -- she is now living with a man who is not her husband (v. 17).
She carries with her the pain of guilt, shame and rejection -- and that is a far heavier burden than the water that she hauls every day. Jesus does not want to help her with the burden of her hands; he wants to ease the burden of her heart. He wants to remove the pain of isolation and disgrace.
Today, I would like us to reflect upon the empty wells of life, those places people have gone to with hopes and dreams yet find only emptiness. I would also like us to reflect upon our attitude toward others who try to have noble dreams fulfilled, yet do not do it in ways we approve. There may be members of our own families who have rejected our faith or moral standards. What do we do?
Second, the woman at the well experienced the empty wells of life, the pain of rejection and fear.
She recognized Jesus to be a Jew. Jews rejected Samaritans. She tried to hide her past and present from Jesus. After all, she had experienced rejection from many people. Her loose moral standards simply did not fit in with her culture. She feared rejection from Jesus. She even wondered about a theological issue, whether the right place to worship was on the mountain in Samaria or in the temple in Jerusalem. Fear and rejection are behind almost everything the woman at the well says to Jesus. Yet she continued to live that way. She kept going back to the empty wells of her life, hoping to find refreshment, and instead finding rejection.
Rejection is a part of life.
Third, what ought our attitude to be toward those who have experimented with empty wells?
Jesus has a missionary spirit. Does the word “missionary” scare you? One missionary to a foreign land was here in the states. Someone approached him and said, "Isn't it true that you are a missionary?" He responded, "Isn't it true that you are?" You see, in this situation, Jesus had something life giving to share, and he shared it. I will suggest today that we need to be missionaries in our own way.
There is that familiar missionary text toward the end: but I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. Jesus accepts her and helps her to feel comfortable talking with him. He offers living water. The result of the conversation is that she begins to believe that in Jesus she just might find her hopes and dreams fulfilled.
In the conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well, I see a model for being a missionary in our world. If the church is holier than thou, then people with real needs and hurts will not respond. They will keep us at a distance. What concerns me is that so often people will say about the church, "Church has nothing to do with my life." Alternatively, "It's boring." On the other hand, some who are inactive will say, "I wasn't getting anything out of going to church, so I quit." I know we can defend ourselves. Nevertheless, do we not also need to listen?
For example, with this woman at the well, if we knew her history, we might tell her to stop living like that. We might tell her, “Just say no.” Some people will respond to that admonition. However, even if we have lived from one empty well to another, we have still invested ourselves in that way of life. It may not be quite so easy to turn our lives around and adopt another way of life. What I notice is that Jesus offered a “Yes” to the woman at the well. He offered her living water. All other places she might go to receive nourishment in life will dry up. She needed Jesus, who is living water!
To summarize, the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well reminds us that true fulfillment cannot be found in the “empty wells” of pleasure, status, or even religious ritual. Instead, genuine satisfaction comes from encountering the living water that Jesus offers—a relationship with God in spirit and truth. In a world where many still seek meaning in places that leave them thirsty, this passage invites us to reflect on our own sources of hope and to extend compassion to others on their journeys. Today, let us open ourselves to the transformative presence of Christ, and, like the Samaritan woman, become willing to share the good news of acceptance and renewal with those around us.
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[2] Jeremias, TDNT, VII, 93-4.
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[4] Jeremias, TDNT, VII, 91-2.
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[6] Goppelt, TDNT VIII, 326.
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[8] Michaelis, TDNT VI, 116-7
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[12] Greeven, TDNT VI, 764.
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[15] Greeven, TDNT VI, 766.
[16] Schweizer, TDNT, VI, 439-441.
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[19] Schweizer, TDNT, 438-9.
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[23] Jeremias, TDNT, VII, 89.
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[26] Grundmann, TDNT, IX, 567-8.
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liked the take on empty wells. you could have referenced Isiah's empty cisterns. Sounds like you are struggling with what I am how does the church respond in this culture. I think you have the answer. I'm reading Brian Green who feels religion is just an invention of the mind. BUT he admits it meets a need in our lives. I guess the pint is we have deep psychological needs that only a relationship with God can satisfy.
ReplyDeleteBTW what happened today? Hope you are not sick.
Well it is always a possibility that religion is nothing but a human projection of hope and fear. It may reflect our best and worst From an evolution perspective religion has had its use in human culture. The issue is always whether we have good reason to think God has spoken and acted.
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