The Conversation That Could Never Have Happened!

"Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony." (John 4:39)

First, I will tell you what I do not see in this story, and then I will tell you what I do see. 

First, I do not see an immoral woman as some do.  Many commentators jump to the conclusion that this woman was immoral, guilty of moral laxity.  After all she had been married five times, and the man she was with was not her husband.  What else could it be, other than she had been divorced five times?  Well, it could have been a number of things.  In fact, one possibility is that she had been ensnared in levirate marriage which was a common marriage practice among the Hebrew people at the time.  In order to keep family lineages going, when a woman’s husband died, a surviving brother took the widow as his wife. Any children from that coupling were considered to be children of the deceased husband. It is totally plausible that she had been the wife of a family of brothers who died one by one, with the last taking her in but opting out of marrying her as the man could do.     

It is we who hastily read our prejudices into this the story and are quick to label this woman as a five time loser of questionable moral character. Our inclination to jump to an unfounded conclusion about this woman should tell us something about the power of prejudice and how operative it can be in our lives even if we don’t consider ourselves to be prejudicial.  Jesus’ comment to her about her five husbands does not appear to be judgmental at all, but more a reflection of Jesus’ ability to see and know all things, which he had done with Nathanael a short time before (1:48-50), and in chapter 2 John comments that Jesus had the ability to “know what was in everyone.”  (2:24)   

Now, I will tell you what I do see in this story.  Jesus’ conversation with this woman at the well is a conversation that could have very easily never taken place if Jesus would have followed the social and religious conventions of his time.  This is a scandalous conversation, not because of anything the woman did or had done, but because of what Jesus did. 

First, he was talking to a woman. In those days it was forbidden for men to talk with women in public. And Jesus, not only being a man, but evidently having the status of a Rabbi, made it doubly worse. In fact the Rabbis had a prayer they frequently prayed as they entered the temple, "Blessed are you, O Lord, I thank you that I am not a sinner, a gentile or a woman."  I don't think we can even begin to understand the tremendous social and religious pressure that was exerted, especially upon the rabbis, to follow this dehumanizing religious and social practice.

Second, she was not only a woman, but she was also a Samaritan. There was strong and intense animosity between Jews and Samaritans. Samaritans considered themselves to be a part of Judaism, but mainstream Judaism had rejected them as inauthentic and tainted.  Contact with a Samaritan could render a Jew ritually unclean. Some believed Samaritan origins were the result of intermarriage between Jews and foreigners during times of exile. (2 Kings 17)  One thing we know for sure is that each group had a different center of worship.  This was a major bone of religious contention. For the Jews the center was Jerusalem and the temple; for the Samaritans the center was Mount Gerizim. What’s pertinent is that there existed a deep estrangement and hostility between Jews and Samaritans, providing but yet another reason why this conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman could have easily not taken place had it not been for Jesus’ initiative.

Notice that John also gives us another detail mentioning that the disciples had gone to the city to buy food. I can't help but wonder if Jesus hadn't intentionally sent them away, just so he wouldn't have to put up with their inane protests that were surely to have come. Verse 27 clues us in on this point as it says when they returned the disciples were "astonished" to see him talking to this woman.

Jesus bashed through formidable religious and social boundaries when he took the initiative with the Samaritan woman, and not only talked with her but engaged her in deep conversation. When the conversation ended we can easily say that this woman became Jesus' first missionary. "Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony," says John (4:39).  Just think, a Samaritan woman as the first missionary.  Isn't it ironic who Jesus lauds and lifts up as models of faith to emulate in the gospels?  I think of just a few examples. He held up the Good Samaritan, not the privileged religious leaders as a stellar example of mercy in his famous parable.  He pointed to a pagan Roman soldier as a model of faith. He celebrated a transformed tax collector named Zacchaeus as a model of generosity. When he finally physically left this earth he turned over his entire operation to a rag-tag group of fisherman and others led by a former traitor and coward named Peter.  And today a Samaritan woman becomes his first missionary.

What are the implications for us that come with this story?  I’ll hold up two.

First, the woman’s faith grows and transforms her right before our very eyes, to the extent that she laid down her water jar, symbolizing the limitations of the physical water that she originally came to draw, and went back to the city to let the spiritual water she had received from Jesus overflow the brim of life into her own community.   “Come and see,” she implored her friends and neighbors. 

Can you imagine what our community of faith might be like, look like and accomplish if we had similar passion in our hearts about the things of God; the Living Water; our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?

But too much of the time when we have a close encounter with the holy we act as if nothing particularly special has happened; as if we are embarrassed by the whole thing and choose keep it to ourselves.   A favorite quote of mine is from John Henry Jowett, English preacher of the congregational church from the early 20^th century:   “We leave our places of worship, and no deep and inexpressible wonder sits upon our faces.  We can sing these lilting melodies, but when we go out into the streets our faces are no different than the faces of those who have left the theaters and music halls.  There is nothing about us to suggest that we have been looking at anything stupendous and overwhelming… and what is the explanation of the loss, but our impoverished conception of God.”

Anne Dillard says, “What a pity that so hard on the heels of Christ come the Christians.”  Not true of the Samaritan woman who with passion and conviction returns to her community joyfully imploring and petitioning her neighbors to “Come and See.”  

Another implication is that neither Jesus nor the woman allowed themselves to be limited and confined by boundaries drawn by religion, tradition, convention and culture.  This conversation should have never happened, but it did, and lives were transformed!  It did because Jesus bashed through a formidable boundary with words of conversation.  It continued because the woman did not run away, but engaged Jesus with her questions, curiosity and growing faith.  It seems as if both of them were not confined by conventional boundaries. 

How about with us?  What confines us?  What boundaries do we draw?  Tradition?  We’ve always done it that way?   Worship styles and practices?  Fear of new ideas along with an unwillingness to let go and sometimes let die old things? 

Your church council is trying very hard to enter into a dialog about who God is calling us to be as we look at the next five years?  Just the other night we were challenged with a question. “If Shepherd of the Hills disappeared tomorrow would anybody in this neighborhood notice?”  I don’t presume to know the answer to that, but I do believe it is a pertinent question we must embrace.  Do we even have the courage and will? 

On April 18-19 there is a wonderful synod conference in Denver called “Passing on the Faith” put on by the Youth and Family Institute of Minnesota. This is a life changing conference about a new paradigm for youth and household ministry in the congregation.  I would like to see at least ten of us from SOTH go; people of all ages and expressions.   

We have a Strategic Planning Committee organized that will make ever attempt this year to help us to set ministry goals to empower us to have a vital and dynamic ministry for years to come.    

When we allow ourselves to embrace this story we become aware of the challenge that comes with it; to not allow our carefully drawn boundaries to stifle the possibilities of God from occurring in this place, time and community.   I pray we are up to the challenge.