John 4:1-26
“The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you’” (John 4:25-26)
The first half of John’s Gospel is structured around seven signs (more on this during Epiphany 2021!). The seven signs are a literary device meant to help convince and persuade John’s original audience that Jesus truly is the Messiah, the Christ. Our lectionary reading for today – the story of the woman at the well – is not one of these “sign stories.”
This story is at once both remarkable and difficult. It’s remarkable because Jesus is talking to a Samaritan (Samaritans were half-Jewish, half-not and were regularly regarded as outside the election of Yahweh by other Jews of the day) and a woman and a woman with a clear checkered history. Cultural taboo after cultural taboo are crumbling before our very eyes with this story.
It’s difficult, though, to the degree that Jesus has to put this poor woman on blast (as the kids might say). Jesus doesn’t make a habit of going around and throwing peoples’ sins in their faces – and when He does, it is most typically aimed at the religious leadership of His day. I mean, when Jesus meets Zacchaeus, He doesn’t yell up to him in the tree, “Get down here, you dirty little money-lover!” He just invites Himself over for a meal (and, in that, actually honors Zacchaeus!). Same with the unnamed woman caught in adultery who is brought before Him. He completely ignores the terrible situation and doodles on the ground until the religious leadership’s hypocrisy gets the best of them. So, why does He have to participate in some sort of “call out culture” with this woman at the well? What has she done so wrong as to warrant such behavior?
The only logical option is that Jesus isn’t actually all that concerned with her marital status. This should not be read as permission to pursue whatever romantic entanglements we think might please us, but rather that Jesus’ real focus is on worship. Maybe He understands that her living arrangements are about survival – at least as much about survival as fetching the day’s water needs – and knows that within this woman is a desire to worship God well. The conversation does take, after all, a rather sudden shift into theological territory. (Side note: I dream about scenarios where people talk to me about the weather and then are like, “Hey, what’s the importance of our order of worship for the right worship of God?” It seriously never happens!).
Whatever the case, Jesus very quickly reveals Himself in His entirety to this most unlikely of recipients. The disciples who are following Him are still debating who He is, but this woman now knows it all. The readers of John’s gospel have to labor through seven signs to get the full picture, but this woman gets it in one, five-minute conversation at (almost literally) the watercooler. That’s amazing! She is a blessed recipient of holy news – and before any of the “good” people.
I wonder what other “bad people” might know something about God’s work and will in the world that the “good people” just miss? What if the protestors knew something those who just sit at home in Laz-E-Boys, clucking their tongues and shaking their heads, don’t know? What if a member of the political party you don’t affiliate with knows something about God that you don’t? I suspect this entire story is preserved in John’s gospel for the sole purpose of keeping everyone humble, of forcing us to break God out of whatever box we might like to domesticate Him to. And if this is the case, then we’ll do well to listen more carefully because – who knows? – maybe a loose woman from the wrong part of town is carrying around the keys to unlock the right worship of God. Amen.
