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…
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…
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.
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Daniel
Gullotta is a student at ACU National, studying a Bachelor’s
degree in Theology. He is a convert to the Anglican Church and a
member of MEC's Youth Ministry in the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane.
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©2007
Daniel Gullotta
[Index of Commentaries by Daniel]
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