The Samaritan Woman

The Samaritan Woman

Jn 4: 5 – 42

Third Sunday of Lent

Introduction

Today’s Gospel is about the Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at a well. As Jesus begins a dialogue with her, he gradually reveals her secrets which she does not disclose but which greatly burdens her. Eventually, Jesus too, reveals himself to her as the Messiah. These disclosures result in the conversion and transformation of the Samaritan woman who in the end, becomes Jesus’ witness to the people of Samaria.  

The Gospel

⁵ So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
⁷ A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸ (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) ⁹ 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.) ¹⁰ 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.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹² Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” ¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ 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.” ¹⁵ 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.”
¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” ¹⁷ The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” ¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ 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. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ 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.” ²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
²⁷ 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?” ²⁸ Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ²⁹ “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” ³⁰ They left the city and were on their way to him.
³¹ Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” ³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” ³³ So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” ³⁴ Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. ³⁵ 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. ³⁶ The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. ³⁷ For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
³⁹ Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. ⁴¹ And many more believed because of his word. ⁴² 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.”

Reflection

Today’s Gospel is about a Samaritan woman who had an encounter with the Lord at a well. First, it is important to take note of the setting of this narrative. The place is in Samaria, a place hostile to Jews. Second, it is at a well. Wells, at that time, were usually natural communal meeting places where everyone in a village went to get their daily supply of water. 

There is however, something unusual in our narrative. Instead of seeing the usual daily gatherings at this well, we find only two people here, namely Jesus and the Samaritan woman. The evangelist John tells us why: it was already noon. By noontime, people would have already drawn water from the well and would have been unusual for anyone to get water from the well at this time of day. Later in the narrative, we get to understand why. The Samaritan woman seemingly wanted to avoid the crowd who perhaps knew of her unfortunate and immoral relationships with a number of men from the village. This is perhaps why she avoided the crowd and intentionally fetched water at a time when no one was around. 

While she might have avoided the crowd who perhaps looked at her with contempt, she finds the Lord at the well, who knew much more about her. At first, the Lord requested her for a drink and said: “ Give me a drink.” But as their conversation went on, it was the Samaritan woman, in the end, who was begging the Lord to give her water, saying: “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” 

But the real turning point of this narrative was when Jesus began to disclose to the Samaritan woman her life story and all the embarrassing truths that she kept hidden from people and from Jesus himself. As Jesus disclosed the truth about her, the Samaritan woman recognized Jesus as a prophet. And as the story unfolded, Jesus eventually revealed himself to her not as a prophet, but as the Messiah, saying: “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” 

It was the Lord’s disclosure of the Samaritan woman’s life and her secrets that perhaps stunned her. This had a profound effect on her. As Jesus confronted her with the truth, this truth has set and made her free. The Lord has unburdened and liberated her. And as one who has been set free, she hurriedly ran back to the people in the village, leaving her water jar behind, telling the people about Jesus who had told her about “everything that she had done.” This liberating truth made her ran hurriedly to the very people she had always been avoiding all this time. 

What is also interesting in this story is that Jesus and the Samaritan woman who both were looking for water at the beginning of the story, never really drank or took water by the end of the story. The physical water, somehow, simply symbolized their profound thirst for something. The Samaritan woman, who somehow felt empty and dissatisfied with her life, was thirsting for something which could fulfill her. None of her sinful relationships apparently did this. Jesus, on the other hand, was thirsting for the people who have long been estranged from God’s embrace especially the Samaritans but more particularly the Samaritan woman. The evangelist John would later use the same words Jesus uttered at the well, “ I thirst,” in the crucifixion scene as an indication of the Lord’s thirst for mankind. St. Augustine had once said: “ Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God’s desire for us. God thirsts that we may thirst for him.”  

The Samaritan woman’s thirst is also mankind’s own thirst. We seek to satisfy and quench our thirst. Unfortunately, our thirst never really gets satisfied. We end up empty ourselves and fill our emptiness with the inordinate desires of our hearts that only lead us into further emptiness. But God’s gift does not run empty and dry. Jesus says that those who drink of the water that he gives will never be thirsty again and that the water he gives will become like a spring of water deep inside of us, gushing up to eternal life. 

During this Lenten Season, just like the Samaritan woman, let us tell Jesus our own life story. Let’s speak to him about the ups and downs, the highs and lows, the twists and turns of our life. Let’s tell him of the times when we feel empty inside, even as we pursue things and goals that never really seem to satisfy our deepest longings. Let us tell him of our own misadventures with sin, our own shameful past, and even the embarrassing things that we still do in the present. Let us candidly tell him all these so that his liberating love may set us free. So that just like the Samaritan woman, we may no longer hide from anyone in shame, nor be bothered by the past or by the misdeeds of our life, but witness, instead, to a life liberated and set free by God who deeply thirsts for us. 

Prayer

Jesus, I thirst and long for so many things only to find myself empty and thirsting for more. Let me long for you Jesus, so I may drink from the living waters that you offer. Then will I thirst no more, for you alone satisfy the yearnings of the heart. Amen.

“ As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.

 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?” – Psalm 42: 1 - 2