Here is Duccio's painting and St. John's account of Jesus in conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. Some one might think, "Oh, forty-two verses, I know that story already; I don't need to read it again." Hmm. Strange how a Christian will tune in to a favorite radio, talk-show guy, endlessly blathering his themes, but opt out of a fresh reading of Christ's words in the Gospel. Anyway, might I suggest a meditative reading which allows for some new insight or observation.
1 When Jesus heard that the Pharisees had found out that he was making and baptizing more disciples than John-2 though in fact it was his disciples who baptized, not Jesus himself-3 he left Judaea and went back to Galilee. 4 He had to pass through Samaria. 5 On the way he came to the Samaritan town called Sychar near the land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there and Jesus, tired by the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, 'Give me something to drink.' 8 His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, 'You are a Jew. How is it that you ask me, a Samaritan, for something to drink?' -- Jews, of course, do not associate with Samaritans. 10 Jesus replied to her: If you only knew what God is offering and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me something to drink,' you would have been the one to ask, and he would have given you living water. 11 'You have no bucket, sir,' she answered, 'and the well is deep: how do you get this living water? 12 Are you a greater man than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself with his sons and his cattle?' 13 Jesus replied: Whoever drinks this water will be thirsty again; 14 but no one who drinks the water that I shall give will ever be thirsty again: the water that I shall give will become a spring of water within, welling up for eternal life. 15 'Sir,' said the woman, 'give me some of that water, so that I may never be thirsty or come here again to draw water.' 16 'Go and call your husband,' said Jesus to her, 'and come back here.' 17 The woman answered, 'I have no husband.' Jesus said to her, 'You are right to say, "I have no husband"; 18 for although you have had five, the one you now have is not your husband. You spoke the truth there.' 19 'I see you are a prophet, sir,' said the woman. 20 'Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, though you say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.' 21 Jesus said: Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know; for salvation comes from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming -- indeed is already here -- when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth: that is the kind of worshiper the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth. 25 The woman said to him, 'I know that Messiah -- that is, Christ -- is coming; and when he comes he will explain everything.' 26 Jesus said, 'That is who I am, I who speak to you.' 27 At this point his disciples returned and were surprised to find him speaking to a woman, though none of them asked, 'What do you want from her?' or, 'What are you talking to her about?' 28 The woman put down her water jar and hurried back to the town to tell the people, 29 'Come and see a man who has told me everything I have done; could this be the Christ?' 30 This brought people out of the town and they made their way towards him. 31 Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, 'Rabbi, do have something to eat'; 32 but he said, 'I have food to eat that you do not know about.' 33 So the disciples said to one another, 'Has someone brought him food?' 34 But Jesus said: My food is to do the will of the one who sent me, and to complete his work. 35 Do you not have a saying: Four months and then the harvest? Well, I tell you, look around you, look at the fields; already they are white, ready for harvest! 36 Already the reaper is being paid his wages, already he is bringing in the grain for eternal life, so that sower and reaper can rejoice together. 37 For here the proverb holds true: one sows, another reaps; 38 I sent you to reap a harvest you have not laboured for. Others have laboured for it; and you have come into the rewards of their labour. 39 Many Samaritans of that town believed in him on the strength of the woman's words of testimony, 'He told me everything I have done.' 40 So, when the Samaritans came up to him, they begged him to stay with them. He stayed for two days, and 41 many more came to believe on the strength of the words he spoke to them; 42 and they said to the woman, 'Now we believe no longer because of what you told us; we have heard him ourselves and we know that he is indeed the Saviour of the world.' John 4:1-42
Verses 4:1,2: Perhaps Jesus senses there could be trouble with the investigator Pharisees, so he heads back to Galilee.
Verses 3-6: Along the way, Jesus has to pass through a Samaritan area. Jacob, his land and well are mentioned. Jacob was Abraham's grandson and so we are taken all the way back to the very beginning of that lineage from which the Messiah will come. The Messiah: the great and glorious king, greater than Solomon and David, who will usher in a kingdom of security, prosperity and peace.
Duccio has Jesus seated on the edge of a great green marble well. He's sitting because he's tired, but I would suggest also because he is going to teach. In the ancient world, a teacher sat.
Verses 6,7: It's noon when the Samaritan woman appears. It is the little window of time when she can go to the well without being hassled, the Jewish women having left after their morning time, the men in the afternoon. Duccio shows us the woman arriving. She is poor, carrying the clay water jar on her head. She holds a metal pot in her left hand with a rope attached, so she can lower the pot into the well.
The apostles have gone off for some lunch and so Jesus is alone when the woman arrives. He should not talk with her because she is the wrong race and gender. Jesus poses a simple request to get the conversation going. That question will take her (and eventually her village) to new spiritual awareness. When did I last have some new personal spiritual awareness?
Verses 8-10: Jews considered Samaritans to be heretics: worshipping on the wrong mountain, following the wrong scripture arrangement, having allowed themselves to be infiltrated by pagan god-worship (maybe symbolically alluded to later with the five husbands). But isn't it interesting that the Gospels propose Samaritans as the great heroes of Jesus' stories. I mean, the poor Jew who was beaten up and left naked on the roadside, wasn't helped by a fellow Jew, but by a Samaritan! There's a teaching in there for us too.
Living water! Wells and water play a major role in the ancient stories. Springs welling up symbolize the richness of life God gives through the Law and God's Wisdom. But now, Jesus takes this further—the living water he offers is his Word and his enduring Spirit which invites us to become truly alive in God.
Verse 11: She doesn't get it (let's be honest, we usually don't). She is still on the level of buckets and geologic wells—like people who are religious practitioners but have no interior understanding that challenges them in any meaningful way.
Verses 12-14: She's a little snappy, kind of like, "Who do you think you are? Are you greater than Jacob, whose well this was?" The answer is, Yes.
Jesus leads her to spiritual insight, and she allows herself to be taught. "I have water that can well up in you that will enable you to live fully." He says eternally. But we usually think eternal life means just a happy heaven, a forever-get-together with our relatives. Eternal life starts now. This is where Christianity can fail miserably—leaving us untransformed, thinking and acting like everyone else, especially as it pertains to how we view and treat other people. Our lack of transformation is perhaps most evident there.
Verses 15-20: The woman is coming to understand in stages. That's how it is, isn't it? She's interested, but is still thinking of the satisfaction of physical thirst. Jesus doesn't fuss about that, but tells her to get her husband. This is the part where the five husbands may be symbolic of the Samaritans dabbling in pagan worship. Don't judge her harshly—the whole nation dabbles in false worship: our vulgarity and greed, shopping lust, gun worship, thinking we can solve every problem by throwing money at it, our selfishness that leaves children poor and environment wasted, the militarization which will bankrupt us, our over eating, our equating real life with having fun, our obsession with looking young, the bubble worlds we create which are zones of comfort protecting our petty and immature opinions about everything, the entertainment and political personalities around which we create adoring cults. The panoply of stupid gods is endless.
Verses 21-24: Then there's this bit of conversation about mountains and where we should worship. Ugh! Do we get it? So many Catholic and Orthodox agenda ridden books and websites that exist essentially to tell people, "The way you're going about it is all wrong." Jesus tips his hat to the Jews who worship in the Jerusalem temple, but then, the time is already here when people will worship in spirit and truth. But that's because the Jews have the lineage from which he would come. Jesus is the one with spirit and truth. But what's that? A new thousand-paged catechism? No, spirit and truth is his law of love. Not his law of nice, but his law of love. Love is a heart loved by God and set on fire for people, who, like the Samaritan woman are excluded, told to mind their place, not to bother trying to get in, who are "other" or not worth the trouble. The planet is filled with these kinds of people and many Christians respond to them with fear, not love.
Verses 25,26: The woman brings up Messiah, and Jesus, now speaking plainly says, "That is who I am, I who speak to you." No chariot. No escorts. No imperial anything. In seminary, we often sang a hymn at Mass: "The King of love, my shepherd is..."
Verses 27-38: The apostles return from their food shopping and are surprised to find Jesus talking alone with this woman. Duccio shows us the first four coming through the gate, looking perhaps confused. John holds a couple of little rolls in his cloak, the second has a weightier meal hidden in his. Another conversation takes place, this time a mysterious conversation about food, a full harvest and farm laborers. They don't get it anymore than the woman understood Jesus' words about a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Remember Brother Luke, who when asked to give a speech to the guests on the occasion of his monastic jubilee, stood up and simply said, "I think I see the starting gate." He'd been at it - living as a monk for fifty or sixty years and in humility announced he wasn't even a beginner. We're all Christ-disciple wanna-bees.
Verses 39-42: The Samaritan woman then ran off to share with the village the news of her having met Jesus. She's an evangelizer. How hospitable of these Samaritans, inviting Jesus (a Jew) to stay with them. And Jesus accepted the invite, undoubtedly talking with them about these things further and personally, such that they came to believe for themselves. One priest theologian fearfully wonders aloud, "Do Christians in our country even really believe in Jesus anymore?" Many Christians can't tell the simplest stories about him, let alone grasp what Saint Paul's words can mean, "For me, to live is Christ," or "May you have the mind of Christ."
Verses 25,26: The woman brings up Messiah, and Jesus, now speaking plainly says, "That is who I am, I who speak to you." No chariot. No escorts. No imperial anything. In seminary, we often sang a hymn at Mass: "The King of love, my shepherd is..."
Verses 27-38: The apostles return from their food shopping and are surprised to find Jesus talking alone with this woman. Duccio shows us the first four coming through the gate, looking perhaps confused. John holds a couple of little rolls in his cloak, the second has a weightier meal hidden in his. Another conversation takes place, this time a mysterious conversation about food, a full harvest and farm laborers. They don't get it anymore than the woman understood Jesus' words about a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Remember Brother Luke, who when asked to give a speech to the guests on the occasion of his monastic jubilee, stood up and simply said, "I think I see the starting gate." He'd been at it - living as a monk for fifty or sixty years and in humility announced he wasn't even a beginner. We're all Christ-disciple wanna-bees.
Verses 39-42: The Samaritan woman then ran off to share with the village the news of her having met Jesus. She's an evangelizer. How hospitable of these Samaritans, inviting Jesus (a Jew) to stay with them. And Jesus accepted the invite, undoubtedly talking with them about these things further and personally, such that they came to believe for themselves. One priest theologian fearfully wonders aloud, "Do Christians in our country even really believe in Jesus anymore?" Many Christians can't tell the simplest stories about him, let alone grasp what Saint Paul's words can mean, "For me, to live is Christ," or "May you have the mind of Christ."
