What a beautiful essay this is today from Daniel Gullotta? I am sure many who read it will feel enlightened and uplifted. It is a poignant reflection on the meaning we can take today from that ancient story where Jesus encounters the foreign woman at a well and has a conversation with here…

Introduction…

Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman by the well is one of the most interesting narratives within the whole Christian Scriptures. For one reason it contains the first "I am" (Jn 4:26) in the fourth gospel but also because it is the longest conversation of Jesus recorded in the four gospels, a noteworthy fact due to the fact that John's gospel portrays Jesus giving lengthy monologues in the first place but also because it is to a Samaritan, and a woman at that. However all across the centuries, this encounter has been misunderstood and misinterpreted time and time again. This essay will observe the major theological concerns for the Johannine evangelist and community present in the narrative of the Samaritan woman through a careful exegesis.

A Tender Relationship…

	Woman at the Well by Chinese artist, He Qi. Available as a print from www.heqiarts.com

John 4 departs from what we know of Jesus' ministry in the other gospels as it is only in this chapter that Jesus has a ministry in Samaria. Historically speaking, this is highly unlikely as it is not mentioned anywhere else throughout the Christian Scriptures and because of the hostility and prejudice between the Jews and Samaritans. This encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman represents the experience of Johannine community with the Samaritan converts being made. In symbolic fashion, the evangelist represents the woman as the embodiment of the Samaritan presence within the community and this is made clear as her name is never asked nor given, as well as her nationality being stressed right through this narrative. The evangelist makes the woman function as the representative of the Samaritan people, raising various religious issues and questions that the Samaritan people are disputing with other members of the community. While sharing a common heritage, because of their defective devotion to Judaism and their partly pagan ancestry, the Samaritans were despised by ordinary Jews. Each claimed to uphold the true faith of ancient Israel however each also differed radically in their atittudes to the sanctity of Jerusalem and Mount Gerizim, as well as legal and scriptural traditions. Yet even with so much history of conflict and discourse, the evangelist breaks all ethnic and religious boundaries within this narrative when Jesus asks the Samaritan woman for a drink of water from the well.

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, 'Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John' — although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized — he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink'. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, 'How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?' (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) (Jn 4:1-9)

Structure…

Yet this narrative contains remarkable literary framework in its structure, dialogue and style. The Samaritan woman's encounter with Jesus is an opposite reflection to the Nicodemus' encounter in the previous chapter. The evangelist in his writings places them on two opposite sides of the spectrum. While Nicodemus is a named male and as a Pharisee is a well recognized religious leader within a community, the Samaritan woman on the other hand is an unnamed female and a despised foreigner with a peculiar marital history. However, Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, only sharing a brief conversation with him before he goes into another monologue and concludes with Nicodemus not knowing how, or failing, to respond to Jesus. While a first century Jew might expect this type of scenario to come from a Samaritan woman, it is actually the other way around. She comes to Jesus at noon (Jn 4:6), the brightest and clearest part of the day. She engages Jesus in a dialogue, bouncing discourse backward and forward off one another in what Francis Taylor Gench describes as "lively give-and-take conversation". The evangelist structures her speech in the way of being the symbol of the Samaritan people; the woman speaks in plural forms, similar to what we could call 'them and us'.

"You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?" (Jn 4:12)

"Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." (Jn 4:20)

Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews." (Jn 4:21-22)

The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us." (Jn 4:25)

The dialogue between the Samaritan woman and Jesus can be broken into two major sections. The first focuses on the Samaritan tradition of Jacob's well, the question of water and the "living water" Jesus offers (Jn 4:7-15), while the second deals with the woman's history of husbands and the place of true worship (Jn 4:16-26).

The Water of Healing and Creation…

Insight – an artistic impression of the Woman at the Well by Sieger Koder Posters and banners available from www.mccrimmons.com

The Fourth Gospel makes two references to the well of Jacob, although Genesis has no record of it as such, it can be found in the Targums and rabbinic literature. The story goes that Jacob arrives in Haran, ventures to the local well seeking a wife and it is here that he meets Rachel (Gen 29:9-12). Yet when we look at the well found in John's gospel, we can find deeper meaning. According to Jewish tradition, the temple rests upon the fissure above the great abyss which is the source of the creative waters found in the Creation Story. The tradition continues by teaching that Noah's altar became the foundation stone of a new creation, and it is this altar that is linked with the foundation stone in the Holy of Holies supporting the Ark of the Covenant. In this tradition, the temple lies upon the wellspring of the earth, the centre and source of creation itself. Jewish eschatology teaches that at the End of Days, the wellspring will overflow with the healing and life giving waters of creation, restoring the desert to paradise, and returning Israel back to paradise.

Looking back over the text, the Evangelist in Verse 6 uses the word epi, which usually means on or upon. Most artworks and translations have Jesus sitting near by or on the side of the well, however in its truest meaning, Jesus is sitting on the well itself, most probably on a rock slab that lies across the well opening. With this reading cleared up, we can see once again the analogy between Jesus and the Temple. As the Evangelist revealed in Chapter 2, within the Temple courtyard Jesusis portrayed to be the new Temple, Jesus is now portrayed as the Temple again, being the foundation stone above the waters of creation. The Evangelist stresses that as the new Temple, Jesus is able to give the waters of healing and creation as Ezekiel describes them:

"It will come about that every living creature which swarms in every place where the river goes, will live. And there will be very many fish, for these waters go there and the others become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes. "And it will come about that fishermen will stand beside it; from Engedi to Eneglaim there will be a place for the spreading of nets Their fish will be according to their kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea, very many. "But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt. "By the river on its bank, on one side and on the other, will grow all kinds of trees for food Their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail They will bear every month because their water flows from the sanctuary, and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing." (Ezek 47:9-12)

Though the Samaritan woman does not fully grasp what Jesus offers her, she is open to him and asks him to give her this water, as he invited her to do so.

The Place of True Worship…

As the conversation continues, Jesus illustrates his extraordinary ability to see and know all things by knowing the woman's past and current marital status. Stunned by this, she sees him as a prophet. Seeing him in this new light, she raises the most pressing theological question separating Jews and Samaritans — the question of Gerizim and Jerusalem. The woman does this not to steer Jesus away from her personal secrets but rather on the perception she now has of him being a prophet, she dares to delve into the age-old problem between Jews and Samaritans. As Lightfoot puts it, "As a prophet, he should know".

In what might be seen as a strange a response from a Jew (one would expect him to say "Jerusalem, of course!"), Jesus gives no location but rather a prophecy of a time when God won't be worshipped in Jerusalem or Gerizim, but rather in spirit and truth.

But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." (Jn 4:23-24)

Yet Jesus warns that this hour is also now and this is the hour in which the Johannine community is living in after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. As the evangelist is stressing time and time again, Jesus is the new Temple from which the waters of healing and creation flow out of and it is from him that the true place of worship is found, worship based on spirit and truth. The evangelist even goes so far to call God spirit — a being without race or nation, neither Samaritan nor Israelite. As Jesus is the saviour of the world, God is the god for the entire world.

Conclusion…

While this narrative changes from topic to topic, the central issue of true worship remains the same. The evangelist writes to teach that Jesus as the new temple can solve the problems and conflict between Jews and Samaritans. While the Samaritan woman's faith is timid, it is still full of questions and excitement, perhaps this reflects the Samaritan mission facing the Johannine community. A people while respecting Jesus as a mere prophet, cannot fully grasp who or even what Jesus is, still stuck in the central issues which divide them.

This is a scary mirror of our world today, where we have Christians debating and fighting on whose way of worship is the right way. It follows the same style the narrative itself follows: "them and us". Yet whenever I hear this type of preaching — this idea of "we are right and you are wrong" — I am always reminded of the scene from The Temptation of Christ, where Jesus loses control in the Temple criticizing there exclusive codes and laws. He yells at the priests, "You think God belongs only to you? He doesn't. God is an immortal spirit who belongs to everybody, to the whole world. You think you're special? God is not an Israelite." While this is just a work of fiction, it does follows closely to the evangelist's belief of Jesus as the new Temple. In and with Jesus we enter the true place of worship.

Let us never forget that God is for everyone!

REFERENCES:
Coloe, M. God Dwells with Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel. Collegeville: The Liturgical Press.
Gench, F. Back to the Well: Women's encounters with Jesus in the Gospels. Louisvillie: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004.
Gowan, D. Eschatology in the Old Testament. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986.
Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version
Kealy, S. That You May Believe. Middlegreen: St. Paul Publications, 1978.
Long, T, ed, et al. New Interpreters Bible: A Commentary in Twelve volumes v9 Luke; John. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995.

©2007 Daniel Gullotta

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