27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town… John 4:27-28 NIV

A “Telling Narrative”

John’s recollection of  “The Samaritan Woman at the Well” is quite telling, because he was telling on himself.

A young disciple-in-training, John was not particularly enlightened.   According to Luke 9:54,  John and brother James had actually recommended the destruction of another Samaritan village — a suggestion which Jesus strongly rebuked.  Their racism was obvious.

Yet Jesus’ first disciples also reflected the sexism of Jesus’ day when they “were surprised to find him talking with a woman.” Her ethnicity seems not the issue so much as her gender.

In these memoirs, the older John  would draw a contrast between his former (dare we say) clueless, sexist self and the more seasoned  “disciple of love” directed by a mature understanding of Jesus’ life and teachings.  John remembers details, such as the abandoned water jar —  which undoubtedly symbolized the conversation between Jesus and the woman.  Through the aged apostle’s memory,  we join the amazed young John who quietly watches as “the woman went back to the town.”

Speaking of the Unspoken

They said nothing. Not to the woman. Not to Jesus. But they wanted to!  But what might they have said ? 

The older John articulates the two unasked questions.  But why?  Likely, the two questions were voiced privately among the disciples as they arrived from town.   John’s transparency  is striking as he chronicles their own prejudices.

1. What do you want?
   The “gatekeepers” had left their post, having gone to town for food.  She never wanted to speak to Jesus.  She would have  “kept her place”, and tried to be invisible, the worth -less servant in the background, hardly seen and never heard.  I mean, really! What contribution to the narrative could this solitary Samaritan woman possibly make?  The seasoned apostle makes it clear that she wanted nothing from this Jewish interloper using her neighborhood as a shortcut between the two provinces inhabited by a people who would degrade her.
2.  Why are you speaking with her?
   How inconsiderate of her to take up his valuable time.  “Move along now!” Why did Jesus not cut the conversation short, now they they had returned.  Wasn’t he hungry?  Surely she had not offered him any  Samaritan food, for Jews simply do not share table with her kind.

The visiting Rabbi had initiated this interaction. Who had ever heard of such a thing?  Besides, Jesus chose men, not women.  Men were disciples; women were well, women!

Fully aware of her culture, she was the one to ask Jesus, “How is it that you a Jewish man are speaking to me, a Samaritan woman?”

“Because I am the Christ!”   Never before had a man treated her with such dignity.  They spoke of contemporary religious issues.  They spoke of her difficult life. He affirmed her equal access to the God that she wanted to know better.  The travelling Jewish Rabbi who had sought an audience with her was the Christ!  She shared her water jar, and he offered her  the “living water of hope, and the possibility of a life beyond mere survival. He was now her Rabbi, and she was his disciple.

Assuming that  this “inconvenient and unconventional” encounter had finally ended, the disciples were eager to share the meal they had brought for him, if not their questions and dismissive attitudes.

Whatever the disciples thought of her simply did not matter!  She had encountered the Christ at the well.

Just what was John saying?

The older John’s account unashamedly targets both racism and sexism,  challenging that desire to otherize those who are not like us, whether in ethnicity or in gender.

With that in view, let’s take a fresh look at what this woman did after she returned to the village.

• She gathered the people of the city together, somehow, and shared her encounter with the Jewish Rabbi who had “told me everything I have ever done.”
• She was apparently experiencing (modeling?) Jesus’ “living water, bubbling up to life eternal”, as she transparently and courageously embraced her own failings, but also the abuse that a vulnerable survivor of five marriages would have experienced in her male-dominated world.
• Empowered by her encounter with the Christ,  she declares to the citizens she had assembled, “Could this be the Christ?”
• She was responsible for the faith of many who would say “We believed on Jesus because of her word!” echoing a similar phrase used by Jesus in John 17:20.
• While Jesus was still at the well, she led the villagers out to him. They saw for themselves the Stranger who had obviously changed her life, and they credited her with their opportunity to meet the Messiah for themselves.

With impressive candor, the older John recalled Jesus’ words to the disciples — his younger self included — who had been surprised that Jesus had been “speaking with a woman.”

Refusing food, Jesus spoke of sustenance of which they knew nothing. “You just don’t get it,” Jesus seems to say, “and you wonder what value she is to the kingdom of God.  So just watch and learn.”

Jesus was postponing his lunch, in anticipation of something yet unseen by the disciples. “You think we are months away from harvest,” Jesus challenged them, “but I tell you, my fields are ready for harvest.” With that the disciples’ collective gaze was directed toward the city from which, to their amazement, the inhabitants of the city were coming out to meet Jesus.

For Jesus,  THIS WAS HARVEST-TIME!  And leading the way was, you guessed it, the woman they had dismissively viewed as an inconvenience.

But Wait, There’s More!

John’s narrative of this event was not over.

Annoyed that Jesus would not eat the food brought from town, they were eager to move on toward Galilee, only to find that they would return to the town of Sychar at the invitation of the delegation from the city.

There is one sense in which this woman was “the other”. “I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”(John 4:38 NASB)   Jesus would invite the disciples to join her work of evangelism! It was then that Jesus and his disciples went into the city where even more people would believe on him.

Could she be stopped?

It’s hard to know what prejudices she perceived from these Jewish disciples,  With  Jesus’ unambiguous affirmation of her value, she might have expected his disciples to have imbibed more of his heart.

Whatever she might have perceived would have been irrelevant. She was on a mission for Jesus, the Christ.

______

Years ago I participated in a Bible Studies extension program offered by an out-of-state accredited Christian University which had agreed to send professors to us. The program, designed for Church of Christ ministers who desired to upgrade their formal education, was administered locally by an adjunct professor who was a minister in our area.

Our administrator received a call from someone on behalf of a potential participant. “Is it OK for someone not from the Churches of Christ to take classes? “Of course! All are welcome!”, our administrator responded, only to later discover that our new class member would be an African American woman.

Reflecting my traditionalist background, I later asked her “How do you understand those Pauline passages which seem to be restricting preaching to men?” With an expression and tone that was neither defensive nor aggressive, she kindly replied, “Yes, I am very familiar with all those passages, but I see nothing there that will stop me from carrying out the call of God on my heart.”

I later asked our administrator if this was going to be a problem. With a larger view of the kingdom of God he very wisely replied, “She is undoubtedly going to be a teacher of many. My job is to help her to be the very best teacher she can be.”

She was a dedicated disciple of Jesus, and somehow, in spite of my then traditionalist position which restricted a woman’s role, I was delighted that she was there.  She brought perspective and insight that we were lacking. Clearly she was doing ministry already among male disciples who were rather clueless about the power of an encounter with Jesus.

She, not unlike the woman from Sychar, was an unstoppable force!