Third Sunday before Lent, 19 March 2023, Austwick, Keasden
Following a conversational reading of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, John 4.5-30,39. [Click here for transcript PDF]
That conversation we have just had, was astonishing for its time, and still has impact today. That Jesus even visited a place like Sychar was unlikely enough, for there was mutual antagonism between Jews and Samaritans then, just like there is between Israelis and Palestinians today.
Then that Jesus 'gave the time of day' to a woman was equally astonishing, in a culture where men didn’t speak to strange women, especially rabbis like Jesus, for women weren't allowed to learn from rabbis - only from their own fathers and husbands. Women’s education, then as now, was proscribed by, and limited by, what men wanted.
And as for speaking with a woman at a well…. Wells were where men would go to meet women for the same reasons that a young man in our culture would go to a singles bar. Some famous couples in Israel's history met at wells: Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, Moses and Zipporah.
So Jesus wasn't supposed to be in Samaritan territory, but he was. He wasn't supposed to talk to Samaritans when he did encounter them, but he did. Etiquette dictated that men - especially respected rabbis - shouldn’t talk to women, especially at wells, but that's just what Jesus did. And the biggest shock of all was this: which woman Jesus chose to talk to. Only the one with the worst reputation in town! To be frank about it, this woman had the biggest reputation for sleeping around. She had been married and divorced several times. She was currently living with a man she wasn't even married to. Maybe she had money, after all those divorce settlements, but if she did you can imagine even how much more the other women of the town would have disapproved of her.
I don't know; would you want a woman like that in your church, or sewing club, or as your tennis partner? Imagine how the other women of Sychar gossiped about her and condemned her. That's why she came to the well at noon, at the hottest time of the day - to avoid them! All the other women came at daybreak when it was cool. She was least likely to bump into anyone else at noon. She whose reputation was so bad that she visited the well at the quietest time of day… this woman, of all people, was the very person that Jesus chose to speak to. And not just to have any old conversation with her - at the well, in the wilderness, Jesus had one of the longest, richest, most engaged discussions recorded in the gospels, opening himself up to her probing questions just as he gave her the precious space she needed to open up to him… It was arguably a deeper recorded conversation than Jesus ever had with any man. And at the end of it he offered her the gift of salvation, no less. Can you believe that?
And Jesus wasn't just being naive. He wasn't just being nice. He knew exactly what he was doing. He understood why this woman was coming for water at midday. In fact, he seemed to know everything about her. That's why the people listened to her when she came running into town afterwards to tell them what had happened. Most of the time you’d imagine they turned their backs on her and she kept herself to herself around town. But this day everyone saw she was so excited, so animated, she was changed; somehow alive again!
This woman who had been dead to them, buried under the load of shame the community had heaped on her, she boldly ran into the middle of the city with a spark of life in her eyes and a message she couldn’t help risk sharing. "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He can't be the Messiah, can he?"
The Messiah! Before they even thought about it, the people ran to meet this person, too. If they had thought about it, they might have wondered why she was so excited about someone telling her about her miserable life. But the woman’s enthusiasm and her testimony sparked something in the people; they went to see and hear for themselves, and come to believe, that this Jesus was indeed the Messiah.
What was so striking about what Jesus did for that woman was that in just a short time he got to the very heart of her character. Jesus met her where she was, and in what he did and said to her Jesus met that woman's most fundamental needs - to be listened to; to be known; to be understood, to be accepted as she was.
That's all that any of us want, deep down, isn’t it? To be listened to; to be known; to be understood, to be accepted as we are. That’s what we thirst for. That’s all that the other women of that Samaritan town would have thirsted for too.
The woman’s story suggests that up to that point, her life had been a relentless search for satisfaction. Her longing to be loved, her deep desire to be accepted, led her into so many dead-end relationships that could never satisfy her thirst. She was addicted to things that would never satisfy her, but only increased her hunger and thirst for more, until she had a famished craving, and her spirit died of thirst. Addiction is the exact opposite of what Jesus came to give that woman at the well. He came to give her a living water that would forever satisfy her longings and desires.
'He told me everything I have ever done!' - finally, a man who had come to know her fully, to understand her entirely, to love her wholly, to accept her as she was. No wonder she was so transformed that day. No wonder that her story made such an impression on those who heard it; because she may have been the most notorious addict for love in the city of Sychar; but everyone else in that place had just the same desires and longings, deep down, too.
And the message is that just as he came to them, Jesus comes to give us something that will finally quench our thirst, satisfy our hunger, here and now.
How we relate to this woman's story: for we share that deep desire to be known, listened to and understood. We share that ache to be accepted, that longing to be loved.
This is one of the many Bible stories where women are the central characters. Women who discover that in a world where they are usually suppressed by men, God gives them agency; women who are empowered by a spirit which defies the judgements of others, to assert themselves and their truth; women who find creative ways to defy corrupt authority and save innocent lives; women who bring dignity and worth to their relationships with others. Women, all, who, finding themselves accepted and loved by God are released to be all that they were created to be.
What a wonderful message this is for today, where around the world countless women are struggling for the right to live free from violence and discrimination and to enjoy the best possible physical and mental health; where they are striving to achieve equity in education, property ownership, wages and the right to vote. Is this great tradition of faith the inspiration they need to sustain them in their struggle? [2]
Notes
Written on International Women’s Day, 8 March 2023.
[1] Based on "He told me everything I have ever done!": on being accepted, preached in Somerset, 2017, which is a rewrite of Paul J. Nuechterlein, A Shocking Revelation, 1999, and of my version of that, He told me everything I have ever done! preached in Devon, 2011.
[2] Amnesty International: Women’s Rights are Human Rights!; International Women's Day 2023 campaign theme: #EmbraceEquity.
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