John4:4 - 6 Now he had to go through
Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground
Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as
he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
What does he want? She must have asked
herself. This strange man sitting there
asking her for a drink of water. I have always
pictured the story of Jesus with the woman at the well happening in heat of the
day. She was the town slut; she’d been
married five times and the focus of gossip, none of it nice. She was also a Samaritan - think - African
American in the Deep South before the civil rights movement, you get the
stereotype. She came to the well in the
middle of the day when all others would have been escaping the heat.
What is he doing here? What did he want with her? Those would have
been the questions running through her mind.
He probably knew she would put out, have sex with him. There was no virtue in being divorced five
times, and now shacked up and she probably did sexual favours for cash, food,
to avoid being beaten. But this man was
Jewish - she was Samaritan - was he that desperate? Or was his interest more
sinister - rape and murder are not modern day inventions.
I like this story, The Woman at the Well. The subplot always seems to be missed though. Jesus was being creepy, I mean stalker
creepy. No man of morals, or of sense
would have been at the well at that time of the day. I believe he went there on purpose, he knew
she would be there, he was stalking her.
It is just like Jesus to be doing something utterly strange.
She would have been suspicious before she
even got close to the well. But as she
drew nearer she really got how peculiar this man was. His gaze and smile were
more than unsettling. She was used to
men leering at her, but this man made her more than uncomfortable - it was if
he could see inside her life, inside her heart that he knew her darkness.
I like to think Jesus saw her as the mother
of the kids of her five marriages, as someone's daughter, as the sister of
someone, as the daughter of God. He also
knew all the other crap - but he saw her for who she was.
As they talked Jesus spoke to her cutting
through that crap - her shame - her guilt - her fear. I like this woman, she is as messed up as I
have been, and still am at times. Jesus
is being harsh, allowing her no shred of self appointed dignity. She just wants
to get her fucking water and go home. He
wants her to slack the thirst of her soul.
She just wants to get what she wants and slink out of there. He wants her to know that she can approach
the throne of God with confidence.
Jesus is not an easy gig. Take his comment, “Go call your husband and
come back.” It is not a polite
comment. While I don’t see Jesus
taunting her, he is not mean spirited, it is a pointed comment. He wants us to know that he knows, he wants
us to end our pretense, with him, with each other.
If you are reading this I have
question. Do you have your “woman at the
well” moments? Those moments when you
just really want to fly under the radar, do what you came to do and not be
bothered.
My “Woman at the Well Moment” is often
church. I want to get in there, sing the
songs, get the lesson, snatch the chunk of bread and the sip of wine and get
the hell out. Gone are the extremes of my
struggles, I wasn’t drunk and stoned last night, I am not a mess, I don’t smell
like a barroom floor or vomit and my clothes are clean. These days the sin
seems to be more subtle, the self-centredness more cleverly disguised. Not that I am a psychopath waiting to pounce
on some unsuspecting church goer to get the last donut.
But I don’t want to lay bare my struggles,
let you know that at times I wonder if all the Christian nonsense is just an
indication that I need to go on different medication. That this week that I have been rude to the woman
I love and cherish and have hurt her feelings.
I don’t want you to know that I lusted after the woman standing by the
coffee pot.
Church is one of my “Woman at The Well”
moments. I know Jesus waits there for
me, and I wonder what does he want?
The story of the woman at the well can be
found in the Gospel of John, chapter four.
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