A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “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!” The woman said to him, “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 in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “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.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.” John 4:1-42 (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior, the Messiah, who is Christ, the Lord. Amen.
I first experienced “it” when I was nine years old. I was a young girl, growing up on a ranch, pretty accustomed to hard work. Carrying five-gallon pails of feed and bales of hay. I was pretty strong for my age.
So, in fourth grade, after I’d already been playing piano for five years and the clarinet for one, and after I noticed a big double bass violin sitting in our music room at the public school I attended, I was kind of surprised at my music teacher’s response when I asked if I could learn how to play this big, beautifully carved instrument. “No,” he said. “Girls can’t play the double bass. Their fingers are too weak for the heavy strings.”
You see, I’d never experienced it before. That “being a girl” limited me in any way. I lived on a ranch where everyone simply had to do whatever was needed to make sure things got done. There was no difference between what I could do or what my brother could do.
I didn’t really know at that time what “it” was. But, I knew it felt very unfair. And that it just wasn’t right. I was a strong girl and a very musical girl. After all these years, I still believe I could have learned the double bass in no time flat and with no fingering difficulties.
As I got older, “it” happened more and more. And “it” took on different forms. Sometimes, “it” was just a little slight. Something I could brush off easily. Like getting served second after a boy in the dining hall when I’d been there first. Or silly things boys would say--”Girls are weak, but guys are strong!”
At other times, “it” wasn’t so slight. Often “it” was frustrating. Like at work, when I’d put forward a new idea or raise an issue over and over again with a male superior with no response. And then see an immediate response to a male colleague who would put forward my idea or raise my issue and immediately be heard. Or the time when a deputy sheriff I worked with, said to me, “You know, you’d get more dates if you’d act more stupid.”
Sometimes “it” was frightening. Like the time in my early twenties when I went to my usual laundromat, as I did weekly, and walked in the door to see a man sitting on a washing machine exposing himself to me. I walked to the far end and, when I turned around, everything was magically normal and it was as though I’d imagined the entire experience.
Sometimes “it” was appalling. Like the time, when, as the present of my local union at the courts in Los Angeles, I sat with colleagues and listened as they told me the stories of how, when women were first hired there in the 1970’s, there was an unspoken rule for female court clerks. That, in their case, they were expected to serve the judge in every way he required. And that some of them did. Because they needed the job to support their families.
Over time, I’ve kept telling myself “it” is getting better. That there have been continuous gains in overcoming “it.” That since I started working in the 1980’s, “it” has diminished. But then another wave washes over our society. Another movement of rising up. More women sharing their stories. Vast numbers of women posting #metoo on Twitter or on Facebook . On my page alone, many. From my 16-year-old cousin, to friends in their 40’s and 50’s and from the oldest--my aunt who is 92 years old. Over and over and over again, it seems, we fight to change “it”. Over and over and over again, it seems, we fail. We cannot seem to fully eliminate “it.” We can not seem to fully erase the sexism that continues to reign in our world today.
How did we get here? How did reach a point where sexism is so deeply embedded in our society that it seems impossible to overcome?
To answer that question, we need to go back centuries. Millenia, to be exact. If we’re reading Scripture, to Genesis, chapter 3, after the fall, where God says to Eve: “I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Sexism comes from our own brokenness. Patriarchy has reigned in our world for thousands and thousands of years. Over and over and over again, men have created structures that have sought to keep women in their place. Or at least the place where men believed women should be. It has resulted in deeply embedded biases that continue to exist today. Biases that are often implicit, hidden, unseen. Yet, still there. In men. And in women.
Yes, I said “and in women.” Because, ladies, we have learned patriarchy well. Often we are our own worst enemies. Tearing each other apart. Just as in a conversation I heard one day in my home church in Pasadena between two women. As they were talking about our pastor--a female pastor--one of them said to the other, “Oh, it would be so refreshing to hear a man’s voice from the pulpit.”
It is bias...it is sexism...it is patriarchy that for centuries has also caused the misinterpretation of the story that is our focus today. How often have we heard this story of the Samaritan woman characterized as “the woman caught in adultery!” Yet, if we read it carefully and we understand its context, both culturally and as it is placed in the Gospel of John, there is nowhere in this story that this conclusion can be reached. There is nothing in it that reflects that she is an adulteress. It is not there. Just as, in her story, there is NO condemnation from Jesus there. Either.
So, what do we have in our story? We have a woman. First problem. If you haven’t figured it out from our Old Testament readings over these past few months, Israel was a deeply patriarchal society. Women were property. Good for bearing children. Not good if one was unable to bear children. A man could divorce a woman for the most minor of reasons simply by saying the words, “I divorce you.” She would then be homeless. And penniless. This was why producing a child--particularly, a male child--ensured her security into old age. And why being barren was terrifying.
Next, she was a Samaritan woman. Second problem. The Jewish and Samaritan people hated each other. Even though they confessed the same God, there was long-standing hostility between them that was centered around where God should be worshipped. If Jesus, as a Jew, had received a drink of water from her, he would have immediately been unclean. This is why, when he asks her for a drink, she challenges him: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”
Next, they met at a well. Third problem. If you recall, wells were the places where you went to meet the opposite sex. To find a wife. Or a husband. And this well--well, it wasn’t just any old well. It was Jacob’s well--a place where Jacob and Rachel were engaged and, where Jacob’s son, Isaac, and Rebekkah were betrothed. Engagements happened at wells. They were places of intimacy. Intimacy experienced as sexual tension. Places where a man and a woman were not supposed to be alone together.
Next, and finally, they met at the sixth hour. At noon. Another problem. Or at least, that’s how it's been interpreted for us these past 2,000 years. That, instead of going to the well early in the morning like all of the other women did, she went in the middle of the day, when the sun was bright and it was hot. Just so she could escape the shame and mockery of the other women. This interpretation completely ignores that this was also the time of day with the light. Light, which, in John, signifies belief and faith.
When we lay this problematic story, as the Gospel writer has, beside last week’s story of Nicodemus, and we compare and contrast them, here is what we have: An unnamed woman from a despised people at the well in broad daylight, compared to a named Jewish leader coming to Jesus in the middle of the night.
What is the author of John doing?
Do you remember our passage from last week--John 3:16? “For God so loved the world…?”
By putting these two stories side-by-side, John is showing us who exactly is included in that world that God loved. Nicodemus should have been the one who got it, rather than this unnamed woman at the well. Instead, John places her here to show us just who God has invited into abundant life--into the living water.
You see it is not only for those on the inside. But, it is, particularly, for those on the outside. For those who finally say, “I have no husband,” with all of the pain and suffering that is behind those words. That, in her case, comes from the likely reality that she has either been widowed. Or divorced. Or both. Because she was barren. And because she is likely now suffering the humiliation of a Levirate marriage, a type of marriage prescribed in Scripture. Where her husband has died and she has been passed from brother to brother, finally reaching the youngest who can refuse to marry her, but must still take her into his home to care for her.
When Jesus asks her to go get her husband, it all comes pouring out. All the pain and heartache. All the loneliness and shame. Everything that she has experienced comes pouring out.
What does Jesus do? Jesus hears her. He listens. And he does not condemn her. Not once.
This is what we must do to overcome “it.” To overcome sexism. Or racism. Or class-ism. Or any other “ism” that is out there. We. Must. Listen. We must hear the stories and we must believe them. We must listen to the pain and suffering, the loneliness and shame. And we must not condemn. So often, we recite the words of John 3:16, yet we overlook those of John 3:17. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Jesus did not condemn her. And, unlike Nicodemus, this unnamed Samaritan woman became a witness to him. “Many Samaritans from that city believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony,” our story tells us. Many Samaritans. All because of her witness.
So, let us also be like her, this unnamed Samaritan woman, who shows us what is to be Jesus’ disciple. Let us be witnesses to Jesus and to a God who loved all the world so much that God gave God’s only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but will have living water. Abundant life. Here and now. And for all time.
May God grant it. Amen.
Preached February 4, 2018, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY
Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
Readings: Psalm 42:1-3, 5; John 4:1-42
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