Reflection - Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

From our Lent Resource:  John 4:3-42
“So, he left Judea and went back once more, to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria.”

Did he have to go there? Jesus could have skirted around this region, and a big issue, although the Jewish
historian Josephus says the most direct travel route between Judea and Galilee was through Samaria; “it was
the custom of the Galileans, when they came to the holy city at the festivals, to take their journeys through the
country of the Samaritans….” (Ant. XX. 118)

It’s easy to imagine Jesus taking the quickest way home, because that’s what we do. We want to get from A to
B, ASAP. We establish routines to increase our convenience and improve our efficiency. We resent interruptions
to the way we worship those two gods. We want convenience and efficiency in our commute, our work-life, our
study courses and even our holidays! Jesus is headed through Bethel and Shiloh, famous for their own history
with false gods.

In the preceding chapters of John’s gospel, Jesus’s cousin, John, tries to tell Jewish folk who Jesus is. Jesus
reveals his true identity to his chosen disciples, and his mum, as the one sent from above. He has a discussion
with Nicodemus and a stoush with the temple merchants. However, the first outsider with whom he shares his
true nature could not be more unlikely; this immoral, heretic, rude, outcast Samaritan woman. It reads like an
episode of ‘Undercover Messiah’.

We all know the story and the noon-day impact of this lady’s isolation and rejection. She has come to know
herself by the ways other people know her. What the community says and the way it treats her has become
how she sees and defines herself.

Sometimes, we do that to others too. Inside the Church, we have a story about ‘others’ and if we critique them
often enough and long enough, ‘non-Christians’ will know exactly what we think of them.
Now she has an opportunity to do the same thing to this lonely outsider with no mates and not even a
water bag.

It’s time for an argument, or three. She gets launched on every hot topic from gender and religion to politics and
culture wars. This could be the local pub or even some local pulpits in suburban Australia. Jesus doesn’t take the
bait on any of it.

Jesus knows all about her and doesn’t need to point out the differences. Similarly, Jesus knows all about me (and
you), and we are not defined by anything we or others think about us either.

We don’t need a winning position, a crushingly clever argument or moral superiority. We need to know,
encounter, worship and serve God in Spirit and in Truth. Jesus knows who we really are, and we can know and
walk with Jesus too.

In response to hearing the Good News, the woman went to serve, and create space for others to meet and get
to know Jesus too, “And now we believe because we have heard him ourselves and come to know who He is.”

Are we introducing others to Jesus, sharing the big story of the Bible and serving in mission? Or are we really
just sitting at the well in the heat trying to win a debate? It makes me want to pray something like this:

Jesus, I would have gone on the Maccas Run with your friends rather than meet some random at the well. Let me tell
You, when I’m tired and grumpy, I’ll bite at any provocation. You’ve seen my Facebook stuff; some loser presses my
buttons and I’ll wade in every time! Their morals outrage me. They discount my religious faith; their politics are stupid
and this rubbish about gender needs to stop right now. I’m not surprised the disciples were stunned. Tell me straight
up, why did you stop to listen to her? As I listen for your answer, may I be more like you.