Jesus and the Woman at the Well II: A Deep Story II

6. The woman then says, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water," 4:15. Even though her answer imports another confusion, Jesus has seemingly made progress in the conversation. She has left behind the appeal to tradition and to the issue of the greatness of Jesus in comparison to Jacob. The confusion she introduces is her failure to see the "spiritual" significance of Jesus' reference to living water. She, as a practical woman, simply associates his living water as some kind of substitute supply. Could she really have looked at things much differently at this point? After all, she wasn't the person in need when the conversation began; she is "helping" Jesus out of his predicament. The topic is water, and it has strayed to other areas, but the woman shows that she simply wants to keep the discussion on the level of the physical--water. Her reaction is not only understandable, but any other reaction might not have a ring of authenticity.

7. Jesus then takes a different tack in the conversation. "Go, call your husband, and come back," 4:16. We see by Jesus' response that he is determined to reframe the discussion to move it to his area of interest. What could he be thinking? The reader has no clue.

8. The woman answered him, "I have no husband," 4:17. Is she telling a lie or a half-truth? Indeed, as Jesus will go on to say, she does and does not in fact have a husband.

9. Jesus answered, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" 4:17-18. He sandwiches his affirmations of her truthfulness with a sort of dagger in the middle. He willfully "misinterprets" her statement. But since she is living with a man not her husband, she is committing adultery under Jewish law (cf. Mk.10:12). He skillfully exposes the crumbling foundations of her life. But he does so by doing something that only the Johannine Jesus seems to be able to do--call upon secret or hidden knowledge. He did this with Nathaniel in 1:48-50, leading him to confess Jesus as the "King of Israel." Now he puts his special knowledge to work on the woman.

10. She responds, "Sir I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is Jerusalem," 4:19-20. One of the fascinating points of this story is the variety of names that are ssociated with Jesus. He may be "a prophet" (v. 19), the Messiah (v. 26), the Savior of the world (v. 42). People have different "takes" on Jesus, but his task is to get them focused on spiritual matters. Here again it appears that he has been taken off his focus. The woman reverts to her earlier appeal to tradition, but now there is a "we/you" distinction very clearly in view. Yet, just as in response 4 above, she weds practicality with religious topics, a wedding that allows Jesus an "in" for his purposes.

11. Jesus picks up not on the practicality side of her claim (the debate between religious groups) but on the notion of true worship. These remarkable words need their separate "bolding."

"Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth" 4:21-24.

Jesus does three things in this response. First, he takes the issue out of the ethnic/religious debate (your mountain or my mountain?). Second, he says some words that only seem important in the context of the Johannine preaching of Christ after his death ("salvation is from the Jews"). Finally, he emphasizes that true worship will not be related to ethnic or religious background but will be a matter of the heart--and done by those who worship God in spirit and truth. The statement, "salvation is from the Jews" is the Johannine equivalent of Luke/Acts emphasis on the Gospel going "to the Jews first" or "from Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, to the ends of the earth" (cf. Acts 1:8). But the truly significant point of Jesus' exchange with the woman lies in the last verse or two. Once he has disposed of the controversy related to where one worships, he is free to redefine the essence of Christan worship. But he does so with characteristic Johannine imprecision. The true worship will be done in "spirit and truth." What does that mean? We don't have a clue, but we know that this new Christian movement will not be geographically bound or temple-dependent. That is what Jesus brings into the world.

12. The woman gamely responds, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us," 4:25. She seemingly retreats to concepts instead of persons.

13. Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you." Jesus, however, isn't bothered by her continued attempt to keep the issue at "arms length." He will break through the barriers of intellectual distance and plainly reveal his identity. The language in which he does it, "I am he," presages other statements in the Gospel of John where he says the same thing (cf. 8:58). Indeed, the connection of this statement with 8:58 shows that Jesus' claim in 4:26 is a claim to identity with God.

Conclusion

A wonderful tableau has unfolded in our presence. Jesus has gone from an expression of physical need to a declaration of identity with God. He has rather relentlessly taken the woman on a conversational odyssey that began with her protest over his forwardness and ended with her drawing out of him the confession of his messiahship. She has clearly been stunned or stupefied by the conversation. A word which entered our language only in the mid-1980s captures her reaction well. She has been gobsmacked. The "gob" is the old word for "mouth." Thus, to be gobsmacked means to be astonished as if you were hit in the mouth. She leaves her water jar behind and goes to the city. What does she remember about the conversation? The first thing is that she has met a man who told her everything about herself. Well, that is an exaggeration, of course, but Jesus did know about her five husbands. To show that she is precisely where Jesus left the conversation, she asks, "He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" 4:29.

A conversation with one woman opened the hearts of the entire village. Jesus sent her away to get her husband; she returned, instead with the entire village. Maybe there is some wry humor going on here. Since she already has had five husbands, maybe her bringing the entire village was an expression of her obeying Jesus' exhortation in v. 16! The townspeople then become convinced on their own of Jesus' being the Savior of the world. Their "second-hand" faith had been changed to a "first-hand" belief. If they can do it, and if Thomas can do it later in the Gospel (20:28), why can't those of us who haven't actually seen Jesus take the step of faith? That will be John's ultimate conlusion in his Gospel (20:30-31). The "bottom line," then, of this story is that it is a model of how those who are "outsiders" can come to faith in Christ. The Samaritan woman leads the way.

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