Samaritan Woman at the Well

(Gospel of John 4:1 - 4:42)

The Pharisees became aware that Jesus was gaining more converts and baptizing more people than John was -- although actually it was his disciples and not Jesus himself who performed the baptisms.  When Jesus learned this, he left Judea and started on his way back to Galilee.  To reach it, he had to travel through Samaria.  Thus he came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near a parcel of land that Jacob had willed to his son Joseph.  Jacob's well was located there and Jesus, tired by the journey, paused by it to rest.  It was midday.

A Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water and Jesus asked her, "Could you please give me a drink?" (The disciples had gone into town to buy food.)

The Samaritan woman responded, "You're a Judean man and I'm a Samaritan woman.  How come you ask me for a drink?" (Generally, Judeans have nothing to do with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered, "If you only knew the gift God is bestowing upon you and who it is that is asking you for water, you would ask me for water -- and I would present you with life-giving water."

"But sir," she replied, "you have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep.  Where would you get this ‘life-giving water’?  Do you really think you're a better man than our ancestor Jacob and that your water is better than that he and his sons and livestock drank?"

"Every person that drinks the water from that well will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks from my water will never be thirsty again.  My water will become a bubbling spring within bringing life everlasting."

"Please, sir, give me then this water of yours so I won't have to keep returning here to draw water whenever I'm thirsty."

"Go then, call your husband and bring him back here."

"But I do not have a husband."

"You are correct in saying that you do not have a husband.  In fact, you have had no less than five husbands, and the man you live with now is not your husband. ... Your answer was quite true."

"Sir, you must be a prophet! ... Tell me then, why do you Judeans say that God should be worshiped at Jerusalem while we Samaritans say it should be at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?"

Jesus answered her: "The time will come when you will worship the Father neither at Jerusalem nor on your mountain.  You Samaritans are ignorant of the god you worship, but we of Judea know the god we worship.  The salvation of man will come through the tribe of Judah.  The time will come -- indeed, it has come now -- when true believers will worship the Father sincerely with their spirit, for they are the kind of worshipers God desires.  God is of the spirit and must be worshiped sincerely with the spirit."

"I know that the Messiah they call the Christ is coming.  When he does, he will explain everything to us."

"But I am he, the very one speaking to you!" Jesus announced.

At that moment, the disciples returned and were quite surprised to see that Jesus was talking to a woman.  No one dared question him, though, "What do you want with that woman?" or "Why are you talking to her?" 

The woman left her water jar beside the well and hurried back to town to tell her people, "Come and see the man who told me everything I've done in my life!  Could he possibly be the Messiah?"  And so the people left the town and came out to see him.

Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus, "Rabbi, please, have something to eat."

"I partake of a food you know nothing about, " he told them.

The disciples asked each other, "How could someone have brought him any food?"

Jesus then explained to them.  "My sustenance is doing the will of him that sent me and accomplishing his mission.  You are familiar with the adage, 'Four months between planting and harvest.'  I say, take a good look at the fields, they're ready for harvesting now!  The harvester is already being paid to take in the crop of everlasting life, so that the planter and the harvester may celebrate together.  Here, the adage holds true: 'one plants and another harvests.'  For I send you to harvest what you have not planted.  Others have done that work so you might enjoy the fruits of their labor."

Many Samaritans from the town believed in him because of the woman's declaration, "He told me everything I've done in my life."  When they came to see him, they invited Jesus to stay with them.  He remained there for two days.  During that time many more came to believe in him when they heard his message.  These people told the woman, "It is no longer only because what you said that we believe.  We have now heard for ourselves and realize that he is indeed the Savior of the World."

Notes
1.  Judea has apparently become too hot for Jesus.  His success has attracted too much attention, and he is fearful that the Pharisees, who disapprove of him, will cause him trouble.  Therefore, he decides to leave Judea and return to his homeland of Galilee, a northward journey that take him through Samaria, the third sub-province or toparchy of the Roman Iudaea.  Jesus, at least at this point,  does not pursue a strategy of confrontation with authority.  He presumably will not alter his message or back down to ingratiate himself with the Pharisaical authorities, but he can place himself out of their reach or at least out of their sight.  Most Galileans practiced the Jewish religion, but there were many areas, including large cities, that had been Hellenized and where the deities of the Greeks and Romans were worshiped.  As a result, Galilee had a reputation for greater tolerance and diversity than Samaria or Judea.  And its ruler at that time, Herod Antipas, a son of King Herod the Great, exercised a considerable degree of autonomy from Rome and from the religious authorities in Jerusalem. 

2.  Interesting that Jesus reportedly performed no baptisms himself, but had his disciples do the work for him. 

3.  The Samaritan woman identifies Jesus as a Judean, which is incorrect: he is a Galilean.  Her mistake is probably do to the fact that Jesus and his disciples have come from Judea.  At any rate, the point is hereby made that Samaritans and Judeans have little use for one another and, while both practice the Jehovan, or Jewish religion, their customs differ.  Judeans regarded the Samaritans as heretics at best, pagans at worst.  There is a history of animosity between the two regions dating back to when the Israel of David and Solomon was divided north and south.  Jesus, who does not offer to deny that he is a Judean, supports a Judean point of view.  (Jesus would, in fact, often be referred to as a Judean and would even call himself a Judean, as a member of the tribe of Judah. ---  The term “Jew” did not really exist at this time.)  Jesus seems to deny the Samaritans the right to worship either at Jerusalem or at Mount Gerizim and condemns them for knowing nothing about the god they worship.  This is a serious slight and seems a gratuitous put down of the Samaritans from one who is a guest in their country.  But it allows Jesus to mention the prophecy that the Messiah will come from the tribe of Judah, from which his father Joseph was descended.  (This is a questionable, if not specious interpretation of a line from the 49th Chapter of Genesis; Jacob’s blessing upon Judah was always assumed to refer to King David, a descendant of Judah.)

4.  The tendency of Jesus to speak symbolically, metaphorically is consistently lost on his audience.  The Samaritan woman thinks the “life-giving water" is a beverage she can drink.  His disciples, no less literal minded, think the food their rabbi is speaking of is physical and not spiritual sustenance.  Jesus is a bit too deep!

5.  The disciples are told they are harvesters, in a metaphorical, spiritual sense.  Their task is to convert the population, which is ripe for conversion.  The ground work for this has been laid by others.  By what others?  It is unclear what Jesus means by this.  If they are the harvesters, who are the planters with whom they will celebrate?  Perhaps he means all the prophets who have come before. 

6.  Jesus again reveals his preternatural abilities when he tells the Samaritan woman, a stranger, the details of her private life -- five former husbands and currently shacking up with a man to whom she is not married.  (He refrains from condemning her for this.)  This is sufficient to convince her and the townspeople that Jesus could be the Messiah.  When the Samaritans talk to Jesus themselves and hear his message, they are thoroughly convinced.  This must be the Messiah, they conclude.  At their invitation, Jesus tarries there for a couple days, not really very long considering he had made such a big hit with the local populace, (even while he trashed their religious practices).  Still, one imagines he is anxious to go back home to Galilee.