Teaching A Samaritan Woman

ON THEIR way from Judea to Galilee, Jesus and his disciples travel through the district of Samaria. Tired from the journey, about noon they stop to rest by a well near the city of Sychar. This well was dug centuries before by Jacob, and it remains even down until today, near the modern-day city of Nablus.

While Jesus rests here, his disciples go into the city to buy some food. When a Samaritan woman comes to draw water, he requests: "Give me a drink."

Jews and Samaritans generally have no dealings with one another because of deep-seated prejudices. So, in astonishment, the woman asks: "How is it that you, despite being a Jew, ask me for a drink, when I am a Samaritan woman?"

If you had known," Jesus answers, "who it is that says to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."

"Sir," she replies, "you have not even a bucket for drawing water, and the well is deep. From what source, therefore, do you have this living water? You are not greater than our forefather Jacob, who gave us the well and who himself together with his sons and his cattle drank out of it, are you?" "Everyone drinking from this water will get thirsty again," Jesus observes. "Whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty at all, but the water that I will give him will become him a fountain of water bubbling up to impart everlasting life."

"Sir, give me this water, so that I may neither thirst nor keep coming over to this place to draw water," the woman responds.

Jesus now says to her: "Go, call your husband and come to this place." I do not have a husband she answers.

Jesus verifies her statement. "You said well, 'A husband I do not have.' For you have had five husbands, and the main you now have is not your husband."

Sir, I perceive you are a prophet," the woman says in amazement. Revealing her spiritual interest,she notes that the Samaritans "worshiped in this mountain [Gerizim, which stands nearby]; but you people [the Jews] say that in Jerusalem is the place where persons ought to worship."

Yet, the place of worship is not the important thing, Jesus points out. "The hour is coming," he says,, "when the true worshipers will worship the Father with spirit and truth, for, indeed, the Father is looking for suchlike ones to worship him. God is a spirit, and those worshiping him must worship with spirit and truth."

The woman is deeply impressed. "I know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ," she says. "Whenever that one arrives, he will declare all things to us openly."

"I who am speaking to you am he." Jesus declares. Think of it! This woman who comes at midday to draw water, perhaps in order to avoid contact with townswomen who despise her for her way of life, is favored in a wonderful way by Jesus. Point-blank he tells her what he has not confessed openly to anyone else. With what consequences?

Next time: Conclusion of Teaching A Samaritan Woman

The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived, 1991