God's Love Poured Out

Romans 5:1-11   John 4:5-42                                                                        “God is Spirit, and those who worship God must worship in spirit and truth.”

In our scripture of the Samaritan Woman at the Well, we find Jesus and his disciples traveling through Samaritan territory – which they have to travel through on their way from Jerusalem to Galilee.   What is astounding is that Jesus doesn’t seem at all concerned about the fact that these people are considered heretics by his fellow Jews.   They had different sails on their boats, as Shane Hipps would say, but they were still able to catch the wind of spirit, or the ‘living water’ that Jesus describes. Jesus didn’t seem at all fazed by the fact that the woman he meets and talks to at the well is an outcaste and a sinner.  His ‘shame and blame’ detector doesn’t work.   He’s just not interested in that; he’s only interested in authentic faith, spirit and truth, and ‘living water.’

Lewis Smedes, in his book Shame and Grace writes:  “No one ever bore the pain of shame more nobly than Hester Prynne – Nathaniel Hawthorne’s tragic saint in The Scarlet Letter.  Hester loved the good Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, loved him well but not wisely, and became the mother of his child.  She was condemned for the rest of her days to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her dress whenever she walked the paths of the village.”  He writes…

         “Continually, and in a thousand other ways, did she feel the innumerable throbs of anguish that had been so cunningly contrived for her…It could have caused her no deeper pang had that leaves of the trees whispered the dark story among themselves…had the wintry blast shrieked it aloud!...Hester Prynne had always this dreadful agony in feeling a human eye upon the token…”

         The Samaritan woman, whom Jesus meets at mid-day at Jacob’s well, was such a woman.   There was a reason why she would draw water in the heat of the day instead of in early mornings or evening; it was to avoid glaring eyes and sharp tongues in her community.   As much as she was independent, smart, and decisive, she had been divorced five times, and was now living with a man out of wedlock.  Heads wagged and gossip spread in a traditional society where women who don’t fit in have few options and fewer hopes.

I just saw a movie called, “Fill the Void,” the first film ever made by an ultra-orthodox Jewish woman.   The movie tells the sad story of a 17 year-old girl in an orthodox community whose older sister, dies suddenly.   

This sister was just about to deliver her first child, and was happily married to a handsome young man, but the family finds her collapsed in the bathroom.  The baby survives and is cared for by the girl’s family.  This woman’s husband, who is in his 20’s, now has to find a new wife.  This is a man’s world, and he alone chooses, with help from his rabbi, and by a middle-aged male match-maker.  The girl’s mother decides that it would be best to have him marry this 17 year old sister, so that the baby can stay in the family home, and the mother does all she can to convince the young man.  

He ends up taking her advice and asks the 17 year-old to wed him.  This girl is so innocent, young and confused that she asks if he would rather marry a woman closer to his age, who is unmarried in the community.  He is angry and insulted and walks out on her, making her feel like an outcaste.  She is deeply ashamed and worries that she will become an old maid, unable to marry, which is terrifying when the only meaningful role for a woman in that community is wife and mother.  In the end, she assents and goes through the ceremony, but with dozens of conflicting feelings written all over her girlish face.   Within traditional societies, women are left with few options, and with harsh consequences for disapproval.   Shame and blame are everything.   But not so for Jesus…

Jesus walks right up to the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:5-42) and asks her for a cup of water.  Seems like a simple request, right? But for a Jewish rabbi to talk with a Samaritan woman, or any woman he isn’t married to, that is a no-no, totally un-kosher.  They are from completely different worlds.  His disciples, when they arrive, are amazed that he is doing this.  She also must have felt threatened, as most women would when approached by a stranger.  The two of them go through a marvelous martial-arts duel with words – with Jesus pushing past her defensiveness time and time again.  She keeps throwing karate chops to knock him away. 

She begins by asking why he, a Jew, is asking anything of a Samaritan.  Jesus responds with words that move beyond particular religious boxes or racial labels, talking about ‘living water.’  She counters with a literal smack: “You don’t have a bucket, and the well is deep. Where will you get that living water?” Duh!  How stupid are you?  Jesus again pushes back with grace: “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”  How beautiful!  But she throws him another kick: saying, ‘Great, now I don’t have to schlepp down here with my bucket every day to draw water.’  

She must think she’s pretty clever, until Jesus counters with a punch of his own: “Go, call your husband and come back.”   That one sinks in – she is ashamed because she’s been divorced five times and now is living with another guy.    Now he’s got her.  But that doesn’t stop her from trying one more time to distract him and push him away.  She talks about the core difference between Jews and Samaritans: that they worship in different places: Samaritans on Mt. Gerazim, and Jews in Jerusalem.   He bats aside her objection by saying that in the future ‘true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.”   Where you worship doesn’t matter; what matters is that you worship, ‘in spirit and truth,’ catching the wind in your sails.   She tries one last time, by appealing to the messiah.  Jesus does a slam-dunk by saying, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”  

Now this woman is transformed; her eyes are opened.  Their encounter has broken down her defenses and caused her to realize she is standing before the messiah, who knows her, and sees her shame, but who still accepts and loves her for who she is.  She discovers ‘living water,’ and is both healed and empowered.  She goes off to become the first evangelist to proclaim the good news of the messiah to others.   Overcoming shame by discovering true acceptance is a profoundly moving experience. It is to feel the grace of loving inclusion, after the sting and loss of rejection, able to stand up to the fear of judgment and criticism. 

On the Moth Radio Hour, an Australian woman named Magda Szubanski, tells a story entitled: Reclaiming Fear.  She talks about how she had been a nationally known representative for the “Jenny Craig” weight-loss program in Australia.  At one point she gets a call from her publicist, who drops the news that the paparazzi have taken pictures of her at a beach in her ‘bathers’ that is very unflattering.   She has gained back a lot of weight and knows this is not going to be pretty.   She is suddenly terrified.  From deep within her comes screaming her deepest fear of being rejected, of being overwhelmed and destroyed by the ‘mob.’  At that moment, with her publicist asking how she will respond, her fear rushes up from early childhood memories.   Then she also feels something else, something stronger and more mature rising up, taking over and she finds herself yelling:  “Beep em!  I’m going to wear my wet, tight bathers on any beach I want to go, and there’s freaking nothing they can do about it!”  Her courage bubbled up, overcoming her fear and shame.  When the pictures came out publicly, there was a slight scandal that blew over quickly, and she found that the Australian people were amazingly kind and forgiving, and appreciated her courageous honesty.  

That’s the courage that the woman at the well showed that day with Jesus; she was willing to stand up to him, to be real. Jesus also didn’t back down, but patiently and kindly treated her with equality and dignity, so that she could trust enough to be transformed. Jesus treated her with respect and equality, with kindness and with consideration, and this enabled her to regain her self-esteem, her standing, and her power.  She then became a resource to heal and empower others.