After several days of seemingly unstoppable ministerial activity to the people of God in the ancient historical and Biblical central region known as Samaria, Jesus decided to go back home to Galilee with his disciples. The beauty of this story lies in the fact that Jesus never saw himself having to be literally bound to the cultural/religious norms of the time in which he lived. He was not supposed to be there and associate with Samaritans according to the societal norms that forbade Jews who were members of the Temple in Jerusalem from ever associating with people subjugated to the region of Samaria. You see, Jesus and his band of disciples were considered part of the genetic pure line of Jews from the time of Abraham to the time of this story. The Samaritans were considered the children of those who were dragged away from Israel during the Diaspora to Babylon (roughly 597 to 538 BCE ) who at least one of their Jewish parents or grandparents was forced to have sexual relations with one of their captors. Thus, Samaritans were considered at best as religious half breeds, or at times treated much worse like the lepers were back then by the religious leaders of the Temple in Jerusalem. This treatment towards the Samaritans was horrible, but somewhat understandable with regards to the social norms of that day, for the genetic line of Jewish purity had been broken by their families. The prohibition forbidding Jews from relating to Samaritans would not stop Jesus from relating with or helping anyone in need, for he saw the beauty of each individual person whom he wanted to help; sinner or not.

 

As the story goes, Jesus was hard at work ministering to the needs of the people by traveling to them from town to town for a number of days in Samaria. Eventually, Jesus and his disciples would wind up in the town called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. There was a well there in that area that Jacob had most likely dug himself for his family and livestock to use centuries earlier. In Jesus’ day, it was a place of rest where anyone could recoup from a long and harsh day’s journey, get a cup of cold water to refresh one’s body, and refill the necessary water skins that everyone carried with them for their next leg of the journey onward. Jesus along with his disciples arrived at the ancient site of Jacob’s Well around noon. He decided to stay there and rest for some time, while he sent his disciples into town for some food and needed supplies. One could only imagine that as Jesus sat there utterly exhausted from the previous day’s work in the area teaching, preaching, praying, and performing many miraculous cures he might entertain the thought of how could he physically keep up this forensic pace of work before he would collapse. However, what would enfold next in this dramatic encounter between Jesus and the woman would give our Lord a renewed sense of purpose and strength to the work he was doing in establishing the Kingdom of God on earth.

 

As Jesus sat there by that well getting some needed rest he saw off in the distance a woman coming closer to him with a large jar to fetch the needed day’s portion of water she would require to meet all of her daily humanly needs. So, who is this woman? We do not know her name but do know a lot about her. The mere fact that she arrives at the well at noon indicates that she has been ostracized by all the other women of the town due to her sinful way of life. Normally women would go to the well early in the morning just as the sun was beginning to rise for the start of a new day. This daily social gathering was multi-purposed in nature. It served as the time to safely fetch one’s family’s daily portion of water when it was still cool enough for one to travel to the local community well. It also gave the chance for all the women present there at the well to catch up on all the current news of the townsfolk: how one’s family was doing; what new things were happening to folks out in the countryside; news of a potential wedding, or other family religious ceremony, taking place relatively soon; along with the gossip, whether true or not, concerning the activity of one or more of the villagers. Along with these characteristics, Jesus also observed that the woman traveled alone which was highly unusual for that day and age. Women whether married or not, never traveled outside of their home alone according to the customs of that time. They would travel with either their immediate family, their clan or group, or with their husband if married, but never just on their own. This woman’s social status was unveiled before Jesus’ eyes as she approached him, a Samaritan, that she came to the well at noon and alone. That would be enough for Jesus to recognize that the woman he was about to encounter was in serious need of his loving and healing touch as the Son of God. However, there is one more trait to point out regarding Jesus meeting the woman at the well that should have stopped their potential conversation before it ever got started. In that culture men and women were not supposed to talk to one another in public unless they were related or married to each other; especially for both Jews and Samaritans. So, you can see how detrimental it was for Jesus to strike up a conversation with the woman of this story, for to do so, would render him impure as a member of the Jewish faith. Becoming ritualistically impure was with regards to his access of participating in the rituals conducted at the Temple in Jerusalem due to speaking with the sinful woman he met at Jacob’s Well was not a concern that Jesus would worry about. Nothing would stop our Lord from helping the woman in her search for a deeper, and more genuine, relationship than she already had. Jesus was compelled to minister to her in spite of her many sins because he knew how much both he and his Father loved her and wanted to bring her to the waters of salvific life that only He could do.

 

As the two met at the well their conversation would focus on how vitally important water is, both physically and spiritually, in the life of every human being, especially in the life of a disciple of Jesus Christ. In their initial conversation, they would ask one another for a drink of water. This early part of their conversation would be the needed segway for Jesus to begin talking about the life-giving water that he could give the woman. The life-giving powers of the water that only Jesus could give would well up within her and never end. It is representative of the waters of eternal life that only Jesus has the authority to impart to anyone who desires them. For us who are Christians we know that what Jesus is speaking of here is; the Sacrament of Baptism that we have received which he sees the desire for in the woman.

 

The powerful text of the early conversation between our Lord and the woman is worth noting here for it is much like how many of us come to believe in Christ. Their conversation which focused on the topic of water revealed how she was drawn to the waters of life in the well, and eventually to the very being of Jesus the Christ through his life-saving words of mercy and forgiveness. This is true for the woman in this story, as well as the same for everyone who is drawn to faith in Christ and is baptized in the life-giving waters of salvation.

 

“Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?’ For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans. Jesus answered, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep; where then can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

 

The woman desired the water that Jesus talked about by saying this to him; “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” As followers of Jesus, we know that he was not talking about the physical water that can quench one’s bodily thirst. No, for Jesus was talking about the graces of redemption, that flow from him, like water from the font of his love and mercy. She desperately wanted to drink of that water but Jesus had one request of her before he would let her drink from his fountain of eternal life. He knew if her past and said to her, "Go call your husband and come back”. She would say to him that she did not have a husband. Jesus responded by saying that she was correct in her reply that she did not currently have a husband. He would go on to tell her that the other five men she had been living with over time were not her husbands as well. This revelation of her life by Jesus probably was quite shocking to her that this man, whom she first encountered at Jacob’s Well that one particularly hot day at noon, would know everything about her past. However, what she did not realize, was that she was experiencing a personal physical encounter with Jesus Christ; the Son of God.

 

The encounter that the woman had in this story is much like our own, as well as others we have read about in the New Testament such as Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene. We might never have had a real personal physical encounter with the Lord like the woman had, but our experiences of Jesus are just as real as hers were. For many of us intentional disciples, our relationship with Jesus grows over time as we mature and grow through life, both physically and spiritually, endowed with the graces of Jesus’ love. We have been graced with the presence of Christ in our lives through our families as well as the sacraments we might have received, especially those of Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist.

 

It is not clear to many Biblical scholars what Jesus is really talking about in this story when he tells the woman; “…You are right in saying, 'I do not have a husband. For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband”. At first glance in the reading of this story, we might think that this one piece of scripture as coming to us from a literalist point of view. For there are some scholars who believe that Jesus could very well be revealing to the reader of this story, that he is referring to the actual fact of how it is known by many that the woman has really had relations with six different men over several years of her life. Or, is there something much deeper taking place here when the two main characters of the story encounter one another in Samaria at Jacob’s Well? There is another growing number of scholars who believe that there are two crucial aspects to this segment of the story that has recently been discovered. This is due to serious in-depth academic Biblical scholarship on this part of the story. That research has been rigorously debated and for the most part, agreed upon as credible exegesis regarding the woman’s relationships with her “husbands”. Those findings make this story a richer piece of Biblical literature regarding the time period in which it was written.

 

There are some theologians like Bishop Robert Barron, Auxillary Bishop of Los Angeles, California who would put forth that every time we see in the New Testament Jesus encountering a potential disciple near or in any type of body of water that the passage symbolizes a marriage, or covenant, between God and his people. There are a number of such stories contained within the New Testament that bear out this thesis as being very credible. Some of those passages that reveal Jesus to be initiating such a conventional relationship with his disciples are as follows: Calling of the disciples along the Sea of Galilee--Andrew, Peter, James and his brother John; The changing of water into wine at the request of his mother in the story of, “the Wedding Feast at Cana”; Walking on water near to where his disciples were in a boat on Lake Galilee and it is Peter who recognizes that it is “the Lord” that he sees. Peter calls out to Christ to bid him to join his “Teacher and Lord” for a stroll on the top of the water when he, Peter, begins to sink due to his lack of faith that it was Jesus himself who said, come out of the boat and walk with me; Jesus asleep in the back of the boat that he and his disciples are in when a violent storm almost sinks their boat. Jesus is awakened, reprimands his disciples by saying to them, “... oh yee of little faith…”; then turns and faces the wind and tells it to be silent and it is; He orders Peter to go out into deeper water the morning he and his partners came into port after an entire night of hard work catching nothing; This trip into deeper water would bring forth the largest catch of fish that Peter had ever caught. There were so many fish that Peter’s boat would not hold them all, so he called for another nearby boat to help him with the catch. At that time Peter dropped to his knees before Jesus and said, “Leave me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Jesus’ response to Peter’s admonition was to tell him that he would become a catcher of people for God. In Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, he will tell that Pharisaical leader that one would have “to be born again from above by water and the Holy Spirit” in order for one to enter the Kingdom of God.

 

 There is another newer hypothesis that a number of scripture scholars seem to be coming around to and accepting, like Sister Sandra Schneider, IHM, as very plausible which focuses on the theory that the Woman never personally had physical relationships with six different men. Then what might possibly be taking place here in this story, when the author of John’s Gospel reveals that Jesus acknowledges that the woman has never had a husband? It is believed by Sr. Schneider, as well as by some others, that the author of John’s Gospel with regards to this story is possibly revealing the following; Jesus as the quintessential Jewish prophetic, “Messiah,” figure representing all Jews at that time, who had been faithful to the covenants and religious practices of Temple worship in Jerusalem. The Samaritan Woman represents all of the Samaritan people who had broken away from their Jewish roots due to the Diaspora that they experienced by being captured and taken as hostages/slaves into Babylon. While there they began worshipping a number of pagan Gods (possibly as many as six in total) instead of the one true God who dwelt in the Tabernacle in the Jerusalem Temple. Those Jewish people who were part of the Diaspora, known as the Babylonian captivity, were forced into relationships/marriages and gave birth to their Jewish/Babylonian children. As they returned to their ancestral homeland and settled in Samaria they brought with them the practice of worshipping pagan gods, that they learned to rely upon while in exile.

 

Thus, Jesus was revealing to the woman that he knew that the Samaritans' worship of many false Gods on Mount Gerizim would never be the way to a true and lasting relationship like others had. Jesus had come to offer everyone a relationship with the one true God whom he knew, loved, and was in union with as His son. That gift of compassion, tenderness, and love contained within the grace of his presence before the woman was symbolized in the life-giving water he talked about which only he could give. It was that gift of himself that he wanted to give to the woman, and what she wanted to receive from him once she realized who Jesus was; the Messiah.

 

The conversation between the two of them would continue after Jesus revealed that he knew all about her or her people’s, past sinful history involvement with “six husbands”. The woman would acknowledge that she saw Jesus as a prophet. She would go on to say that her ancestors, the Samaritan people, worshipped on the mountain visibly near to where Jacob’s Well was located. However, she would go on to remind him that the people whom Jesus was united with in faith and blood “… say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus’ response to her confusion about which place is the right and true site to worship God by revealing to her where and how his Father, the Father of all Jewish people, wanted true worship to take place. Jesus would tell the woman that there will be a time, which is coming soon when believers will worship the Father neither on “this Mountain”, the one in Samaria, or the one in Jerusalem. For he would go on to say to her that we, all those associated with him who worshipped in Jerusalem, understood who and what they were worshipping, “…because salvation is from the Jews”. Our Lord would go on to say; “…the hour is coming, and is now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth, and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him”. The woman picked up what Jesus was saying to her for the Spirit was stirring deep within her soul to be a part of his movement and to walk with him wherever he would lead her to go. At this critical juncture in her faith formation she would say to him; “‘I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ; when he comes, he will tell us everything.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one speaking with you.’”

 

By this time in the encounter of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well, those who had been traveling with Jesus and who left him at the well to rest while they went into town to fetch some food and needed were now back with Jesus at the well. This seems to have been a clue for the woman that her conversion experience, coming to faith in Jesus the Christ—the one true God who gives life to the fullest—was now complete with the return of the Apostles to Jesus’ side. The woman was now so filled up with the water that only Jesus could give (metaphor for grace). Christ’s love, welling up and overflowing within her entire being was so strong that she had to leave Jesus’ presence to tell others about her newfound love. As she left the well to tell others about her encounter with Jesus she left her “water jar” behind. She went into the center of her village and said to everyone she ran into, come and see the man I met at Jacob’s Well “… who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ?” Due to the excitement, they could see within the woman the townsfolk from where she lived were quite enamored with her, as well as amazed at the joy she radiated when speaking of the man she had encountered out at the well. Thus, a number of those villagers had to go and see for themselves who was it that had loved her so much that her whole life had been turned around for the better. Once they had encountered Jesus at the well, they too were convinced that he was the Messiah that all the prophets had foretold was coming to save his people from their sins. They no longer needed her testimony about how Jesus loved her so very much despite her many sins. They had experienced for themselves the same compassion, tenderness, and love when encountering Jesus, the Son of God, just as the woman had. Our Lord’s desire in encountering the villagers the woman had sent to him was to give them the same life-giving waters of salvation he had given to the woman who had first met at Jacob’s Well.

 

The most significant line in this story is when we see the woman leave behind her “water jar”, at the well itself. Once the woman had experienced the great love and respect from Jesus despite her sins, or the sinful worship of many Gods by her people, she could not contain her joy any longer for she had to share it with others. So, she ran back to her village to tell everyone what had happened to her at the well. The simple task of leaving her jar behind was a signal that her old sinful life of performing the daily arduous task of going to the well alone at noon to draw water from it for her people was over. The encounter she had with Jesus had a profound effect on her entire life. Once she had accepted Christ as her Lord and Messiah, she made him the very center of both her public and private lives. She no longer had to go to the well at high noon for the encounter with Jesus restored her to her rightful place within her village and with the other women who once rejected her. The old jar that she left at the well once her conversion experience had been completed was replaced with a newer one given to her by the women she would now travel with once again to the well in the early morning hours.

 

Once we have been forgiven of our sins, or healed physically, emotionally, or spiritually from our woundedness by Jesus we are also restored by him back into the community from which we have been estranged. This is almost always the case of every story that we see in the New Testament where we see Jesus healing an individual from their wounds caused by their sinful ways. Those sins always cause us to be cut off from God, our immediate family, or community so that once we are healed by Jesus we are always restored and returned back to the community that we have been separated from due to our sinful behaviors. Bishop Robert Barron would have a slightly different twist on that same spiritual principle. He would tell us that no one goes back the same way they had traveled to get to Jesus. This is so because once one has made the long and arduous journey to find the one true God who will love you no matter who you are, or what you might have done, you will not take the same route back in which you have traveled to find Jesus, the Christ. That old route is a metaphor for one’s former sinful life that one has been living for a number of years, and the new route you take to go back home after your conversion is a metaphor for the new life you have received from Christ by having turned every aspect of it over to him.

 

Most of us are like the woman in this story. We need to come closer to Christ and leave our water jars behind; whatever that object might be for us as a symbol of our brokenness like the woman’s, at the waters of salvation, the Baptismal Font. That is where we were first plunged into the graces of Christ’s love and forgiveness, which unites us to him forever. We all have some baggage--sins, flaws, brokenness—that we need to leave behind so we can come closer to Christ. The Lenten season is the perfect time to do just that. So, if you still have not done that, there is still some time left in this season in which we should die to our sinful ways, leave our jars behind, and rise to a new life in Christ. I hope you will consider doing this.

 

Written by Bob Sugrue