The Living Water

Jesus sat, leaning against the well, his eyes closed against the glare of the noonday sun. He was tired after the long walk. They had set out before dawn and walked for hours without stopping. The big crowds he had been attracting in Galilee were starting to draw attention from the authorities, so Jesus decided to head for Jerusalem for a while, because it was not yet his time to confront them. The disciples were not happy when he announced they would travel through Samaria even though it was the most direct route. The Jews and the Samaritans were hostile to each other, even though they worshipped the same God. The Samaritans were originally part of the Northern Kingdom and had never fallen in line with worshipping at the Temple in Jerusalem. When the Temple was destroyed and the Judeans taken into exile, they remained in Israel and did their own thing. They built their own temple on Mount Gerazim. Over the centuries, the rift widened—to the point where it was against Jewish law even to speak to a Samaritan because it made you ritually impure. Most Jews would walk many miles to avoid going through Samaria.

But Jesus knew that God wanted him to go there, even though he wasn’t exactly sure why. It came to him while he was praying, in a moment of clarity. The disciples knew better than to argue with him when he told them he had to go through Samaria. So they rose early, while it was still dark, and made their way to Sychar, laughing and singing and telling stories as they walked.

When they got to Jacob’s well, the disciples headed into the village to look for food, and Jesus sat by the well, grateful for the chance to rest his aching muscles. He heard her coming before he saw her, heard her footsteps crunching on the stones as she labored up the hill with her water jar. He opened his eyes as she came into view. He saw her stiffen as she glanced at him.

She had come in the heat of the day to draw water, hoping to avoid contact with anyone. In the cool of the morning and in the early evening, the well was a hub of activity--women of all ages drawing water for their households; young men and children watering animals. The well was a gathering place—news and gossip were traded, business was transacted, and of course, marriages were made. Young people exchanged shy or flirtatious glances under the watchful eye of the older women and meetings were set up to discuss bride prices.

Everyone knew the traditions about Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel, Moses and Zipporah—all of the old ones’ marriages were arranged at a well. Maybe that is why the Samaritan woman avoided other people at the well. Her own marital history was fraught with pain. It was hard for her to watch the young men and women so full of hope and excitement without thinking of herself at that age and all the loss she had experienced since then.

And there were the older women who looked away when they saw her coming, or exchanged knowing glances. She felt judged and excluded from their company. Some of the men of the village had harassed her when the women weren’t around, and even the children had made fun of her.

It was altogether safer to draw water when no one else was around. Her heart sank when she noticed Jesus sitting there, and she braced herself for an unpleasant encounter. Then she saw that he was a Jew, and she relaxed, knowing that he would not defile himself by speaking to her. Not only was she a Samaritan, but she was a woman, and Jewish men did not address women in public, especially if they were not related to them.

She was so startled when he asked her for a drink that she just said the first thing that came into her mind, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” His answer puzzled her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” It flashed through her mind that he could be making fun of her or trying to harass her, but when she looked at him, she could see that he was serious. And something about him put her at ease and made her want to continue the conversation. So she teased him a little, asking him how he thought he could get that water without a bucket, and asking if he was mightier than Jacob who dug this well in the first place.

Jesus looked straight at her and said, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

Suddenly she was no longer sure if he was talking about water, or something else. But his words stirred something in her, something that had been buried a long time ago. She did not know where this was going, but she felt a sudden wild hope, and a long-forgotten sense of longing for something she could not name. She surprised herself by saying in no uncertain terms, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Then Jesus asked her to go and call her husband and come back. How had he zeroed in on this most painful issue? She felt her heart lurch as he asked the question. Should she tell him the truth? Should she admit that she was living with a man who was not her husband? Would he even care about how she got to this point in her life? Or would he blame her for everything that had happened to her as most people did? Maybe he would just end the conversation and have nothing more to do with her. Her chest tightened at the thought.

In the end, she felt she had to tell him the truth, but she kept it to a bare minimum, afraid that the moment would end as abruptly as a door slamming shut. “I have no husband,” she said.

Then it was as if he could see into her soul. Without judgment, without condemning her, he gently spoke the truth about her life—“you are right in saying you have no husband; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.” For some reason, hearing him recite the facts of her life took away the sting they always carried. In that instant, her history lost the power to wound her and make her feel worthless. Could this be the living water he was talking about? Her parched soul certainly felt as though it had just become a place of springs—pools of water where there had been only dry, barren desert. A phrase from Isaiah crossed her mind: “So rejoice as you draw water from salvation’s living spring.”

“Sir, I see you are a prophet,” she said. Then she asked him about the split between Samaritans and Jews—“Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say the place people must worship is in Jerusalem.” His answer astounded her: “the time has come when that does not matter any more. The important thing is that we worship God in spirit and in truth—that is what God wants.”

Centuries of division between Jews and Samaritans were no longer important! Just as the fact that she was a woman and he was a man no longer mattered. Just as her years of exclusion from the community no longer had power over her. Somehow, through his presence and his teaching, this man managed to create a holy space where every last division fell away.

She hardly dared ask him if he was the one they had been waiting for all these years--the messiah. So she just said, “I know the Messiah is coming and when he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” “I am he,” Jesus replied. She wanted to stay in his presence forever, but at that moment, the disciples returned from the village with food. They were obviously surprised to find Jesus talking with her, but they didn’t say anything. Still, she was not quite ready to talk to a whole group of unknown Jewish men. So she turned and hurried back down to the village, with a full heart, and told everyone she met, friends and enemies, about her remarkable encounter at the well.

Who would have thought that so many people would listen to her and rush off to find him? They must have caught a glimpse of the spring of water flowing at the center of her being.