Come See!
How often we pass through life ignoring its finer details. It is an unfortunate fact that we do this in conversations with family, friends, and strangers alike, even more unfortunate when we do so with the word of God. We all do it, and it is natural to zone out sometimes, but in the case of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John, we miss so much by skimming, not pondering. John 4 features the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, a story rich with meaning. Here Jesus ignores social and religious norms and not only speaks with a woman in public, he speaks with a Samaritan woman and asks her to provide him a drink (John 4:7). Now, from the parenthetical note in John 4 and perhaps recollections from Sunday school, religion class or CCD, we know that the Jews did not like the Samaritans, and vice versa – enmity that could be traced back centuries. What is not readily clear though is that Jews considered Samaritan women to be ritualistically impure. To drink from a vessel handled by a Samaritan woman would make Jesus himself impure according to Jewish law. The fact that he disregards this could mean one of three things, the last of which we believe and that should shape all of our thoughts and actions:
1) He was not religious and therefore had no respect for the law. This we know is not true, for although he often challenged an overly legalistic adherence to Jewish law – one that cleverly found ways to avoid application of the spirit of the law to oneself while condemning others for minor offenses – Jesus often referenced the law, Jewish scripture, and the prophets.
OR
2) Jesus was a madman. Some may argue as much, but we know that the ways of God – although sometimes counterintuitive to our feeble and self-centered minds – are genius even beyond our understanding of genius. OR 3) Jesus IS the law, the Word of God, one in being with the Creator and the Spirit, not bound by human interpretation and misinterpretation, but speaking the law with every one of his actions. The woman and her words, though, are the inspiration for Siloam #4. Oftentimes reading Holy Scripture, we do so only through the “holy and otherworldly lens.” It is right to do so, but it sometimes obscures the power of Jesus’ influence over the real people, with fears and feelings and histories, that he touches. This is one of those times.
Given the Samaritan woman’s history – five husbands and living out of wedlock with her current man – one can imagine her replies to Jesus as playful and flirtatious, like when he makes the strange claim: “The water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:15) She replies, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Reading this 2000 years after Jesus’s time, with the benefit of the revelation of the New Testament, we think, “Oh, Jesus just converted her.” But no sane person would instantly and seriously ask for some miraculous new water just revealed to them by a stranger. She is playing with him, maybe sizing him up for the role of husband number six. This makes her true conversion all the more wonderful and striking. After Jesus makes it clear that he knows her entire history and reveals his identity (“I AM” John 4:26), she goes into town, calling the others, saying, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done!” (John 4:29)
Keep in mind who is saying this, one who would have been reviled by the townspeople, gossiped about, and shunned. Yet she uses this past to call the others. Who does this? Who uses their failings to call others to God? No one except one whose life has been changed by the Word of God. It is a beautiful lesson for us. Our past and current failings do not hold us back. They do not haunt us when we give ourselves entirely to God. The mercy of God is limitless. His love for us is a salve that heals all wounds. When we accept God’s grace, we accept true freedom, freedom from our past, from the unholy customs of our time, freedom to live knowing that God is always above us, beside us and behind us, helping us to be more like Jesus, so that we can offer this same healing and freedom to those who we meet at the wellsprings of life.
