The Samaritan Woman

 

At the beginning of the Gospel according to John, the section of the signs shows a passage from the institutions of the Old Testament to the novelty brought by Jesus. There is a part, from chapter 2 to chapter 4, characterized by two signs, and both are set in Cana of Galilee.

Between the two episodes, there are some other narratives in which Jesus is shown meeting different people, and with his word, he offers an institutional novelty. We have already seen the reality of the renewed covenant at Cana with the sign of wine, the novelty of the temple, which is the very person of Jesus, the newness of the law that Jesus shows in the dialogue with Nicodemus, the newness of the mediators highlighted by John the Baptist himself who, a friend of the bridegroom, retires, giving way to Jesus who is the bridegroom. Jesus who had gone to Jerusalem for the Passover feast decides to return to Galilee.

In chapter 4, we find an extended episode where an encounter is simply narrated—the encounter of Jesus with a woman of Samaria. In verse 4, the evangelist begins the episode by saying, ‘he had to cross Samaria.’ To go from Judea to Galilee, one can pass through Samaria, but it was not the usual route those pilgrims traveled because the Samaritans were considered an excommunicated people, an unfriendly race. They were the followers of hybrid religion that, in part, they had the elements common to Judaism—they retained the Pentateuch, but they had added other elements of their own creation, a sort of Jewish heresy. The Samaritans were considered impure.

A Jew did not pass through Samaria because he feared ambushes, but above all, an observant Jew was not supposed to pass through Samaria because he would be contaminated by touching impure objects, by eating unclean foods, by coming into contact with the impure Samaritans. So, usually, pilgrims from Jerusalem went down to Jericho, crossed the Jordan, went up north on the other bank of the river, and then re-crossed the Jordan at Bet She’an and went to Galilee.

Therefore, the indication that the evangelist places at the beginning, ‘he had to pass through Samaria’ is a provocative statement. It does not conform to the practice and customs of the time, rather it is contrary to habits. Why did Jesus had to pass through Samaria? Because the path of God led him to openness towards the strangers to Israel, towards the reality of adulterated religion.

The woman of Samaria represents precisely that religious humanity but, in their way, religious in the wrong way. And Jesus had to meet that type of people too. Nothing particular happens in this episode. It is not healing, perhaps a conversion. If at all there was a dialogue, it was not underlined visibly the fact of the conversation. There is a change, but everything is due to the encounter with Jesus. That woman meeting Jesus, realizes that she has found the meaning of her life, and her existence changes. But let us read the text carefully because, in the details, the evangelist hides precious teachings. “Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon (the sixth hour).”

It is important to note the reference to six, a particular number that John likes in as much as an indication of imperfection. The sixth is the number of humanity. It is the number of the incompleteness that tends to the fullness of the seven. The well is an important symbolic place. In the Old Testament tradition, the meeting of the lovers took place around the wells. Marriages were easily combined at the wells because young women went to draw water.

It was one of the rare occasions when one could meet girls alone. Usually, in the early morning or the evening, the moments of less hot of the day, when the women from housework went to draw water from the well. Jesus is exhausted, tired from the journey and he sits by the well. It is the sixth hour, the hottest of the day, and there is supposed to be no one. His disciples have gone to town to buy some provisions for lunch. Unexpectedly a woman comes to draw water. She is alone at an inconvenient hour.

The evangelist does not say anything about it. But he leaves it up to the listeners to understand that that woman going to the well at an unusual time did not intend to meet anyone. She did not want to meet the people of the village. She had something to hide or not to share with others. The woman of Samaria comes with an amphora to draw water, but she cannot because Jesus is sitting by the well. The well is a large hole in the ground that goes deep down the earth and allows one to draw water from the depths of the earth.

It is a symbol of the life, of the primordial life that emerges from the depths. It is a maternal symbol of birth, of deepening, of interiority. Jacob’s well was, in the contemporary language of Judaism at the time of John, an image of the law, the source of life, that is that depth of divine teaching that emerges and makes live. Jesus, sitting by the well, takes the place of the law, and that woman to draw must pass through him. He takes the initiative by simply saying to the woman, ‘give me a drink.’

She reacts roughly. In some way, she feels offended. She recognized from the accent that he is Jewish. She saw that he is a man, and then she reacts in an aggressive way saying: ‘you are a man and a Jew, you despise me as a woman, you despise me as a Samaritan. Now that you need, you ask me for water.’ The strangeness of the fact is that a Jew, who feels superior from a religious point of view, asks for a drink from a jar of a Samaritan woman. It is not normal; the one who makes such a request is a strange character. The woman reacts with wonder and even with a rebuke.

Jesus, however, raises the level of the discourse. It is he who asked for a drink but immediately reveals himself as the one who can give the woman a drink. “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” Jesus reacts in a polite but theological way. He begins by saying, you don’t know who I am. If you knew, you would have asked me for water because I have water that makes you live forever. The woman reacts almost jokingly teasing him: ‘but who do you think you are, do you think you are more important than the patriarch Jacob, who dug this well? He, his children, and his flock drank and continue to draw this water for centuries.’

The legend tells that when Jacob dug that well, the water rose to the level of the earth and was overflowing for a long time so that the flocks could peacefully drink from that water. Is Jesus greater? He has nothing to draw water; he does not have a jar, does not have a glass. How can he draw that water? Jesus responds by accepting the challenge but raising the level of the discourse. “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst.” Water that quenches thirst, that is, that fulfills the desire of every person.

It is the gift of God. What is he talking about? About the Holy Spirit, the Spirit is the gift of God. If that woman knew, she would ask him because the Spirit, the living water, is that water that Jesus will give. For now, it is a promise: the water that quenches the thirst. The woman does not understand the theological discourse of Jesus. She continues to remain down to earth, thinking materially of the water. She sensed that this strange character could have some powers. If he has water that definitively quenches thirst, it would be a gain. She would not have to return every day to draw water.

She asks Jesus: “Give me that water.” Jesus brings up a very strange discourse: “Go call your husband and come back.” The woman feels discovered. She had started the conversation with a stranger talking about water. She is now being asked about her personal life. She must admit having no husband. And Jesus calmly continues revealing her own life or rather by showing her that he knows her and knows her in her mistakes. “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.”

They are six. Again, returns the symbolism of five. That woman of Samaria, a woman who had the story of marital instability and stormy marriage, but she is above all an image of the Samaritan people, of humanity, religiously mistaken, with a diversity of idols, of divinities. The image of the husband recalls God as the spouse of the people. The six tends to seven. Jesus is presented as the seventh, as the fullness of the spousal encounter.

The true bridegroom by the well, arranged marriage, and here a new spousal relationship of Christ with humanity is taking shape. That sinful woman, the image of humanity religiously wrong, is corrected and redeemed by Christ. The woman is amazed, struck in the sign of her human vulnerability, deepens the religious discourse: “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet.” ‘So, tell me: Where is the place that we should adore?’ “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” ‘You that know, tell me where is the place?’

And Jesus answered her with a splendid formula of trinitarian nature. “The Father must be adored in spirit and truth.” Many times, this phrase is explained incorrectly. The Spirit is not the opposite of matter, and therefore no reference is made to a cult without ritual concreteness, simply linked to the conscience of the individual. In the same way, ‘truth’ does not mean without hypocrisy, in an inconsistent way. The Spirit is the Holy Spirit, and the truth is Jesus in person.

In the Johannine language, ‘truth’ corresponds to ‘revelation.’ Jesus is the truth because he is the revelator of the Father. Therefore, the Father wants to be and must be worshiped in the Spirit given by Jesus, who is the truth. The Father seeks such worshipers. And the woman has ignited the theme. At the center of this episode of the Samaritan, there is the place of worship. Where can God be worshipped? Jesus says: ‘Neither on the mountain nor in the temple, but in the Holy Spirit given by me who am the revelation.’ It is the overcoming of a cult linked to nature, the mountain, or a cult linked to the religious structure, the temple. Christian worship takes place in the Holy Spirit, which is a gift of Jesus Christ who makes us children and puts us in communion with God the Father.

This is the novelty that Christ brings to the religiously wrong woman. And she abandons the jar and runs to the city to call the people. An important detail: She leaves that container with which she came to draw water. Nothing happened; she did not take water; she did not give water; she did not materially receive water from Jesus. They talked to each other, but a change took place in her. That woman who went to draw water, when there was no one around so as not to meet anyone, calls the villagers and gathers them to come and see Jesus. She says, “I found a man who told me everything I did.” Most probably, the people of the village knew what she had done. They must have told her too. She avoided meeting them precisely so as not to be blamed or insulted for what she had done.

In Jesus, she found a person who, even knowing her errors offered her a new possibility. And she becomes an evangelizer. Her life has changed since the encounter with Jesus. And she gathers her fellow citizens so that they too may encounter Jesus. The Samaritans rush to see Jesus.

In the meantime, his disciples have arrived and the second part of the encounter begins. The disciples bought something to eat, and they tell Jesus to eat, and Jesus begins a strange discourse. “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” The disciples reason down to earth, like the Samaritan woman, imagine that someone must have brought him something to eat. Jesus raises the level of his discourse starting from materials elements.

They are always symbols with which Jesus wants to show a higher, more theological reality. “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me… Look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest.” He is showing the fields with his hand. We must imagine that the Samaritans are coming and Jesus shows the Samaritans as ripe harvest the arrival of the Samaritans.

At this point, he specifies: ‘I have labored, and you have to take over my work. I labored to sow, so that a harvest may be born. You, my disciples, are sent to gather for which I labored.’ Remember that at the beginning, Jesus was presented as tired and seated by the well. That attitude of fatigue of Jesus that leads him to sit down is the image of his passion. Jesus will be seated again in the praetorium of Pilate, at the sixth hour, when he will be presented in a contemptuous way as the king of the Jews. The fatigue of Jesus is his life and his missionary work and is his passion and death.

That is the fatigue that gives birth to the harvest and the disciples in their time will gather them. The Acts of the Apostles tell that first Philip, one of the seven, then Peter and John go down to Samaria, and many Samaritans receive the Gospel. When did Jesus pass through Samaria? When the disciples Philip, Peter, and John evangelized that territory, many Christians depicted as the woman of Samaria, who were previously scattered worshipers of idols in many cults adhere to Jesus recognizing him as the truth and receiving from him the Holy Spirit that keeps them in full communion with God the Father, making them authentic worshipers of the Father in Spirit and truth.

The journey ends in Galilee, again in Cana. And the circle closes. In Cana of Galilee, where everything started, Jesus returns and performs there the second sign concerning a healed man who does not die but lives. The first part ends, and the second is inaugurated.