John 4:1-42 NIV - Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman - Bible Gateway
border spirituality
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.). The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) John 4:7-9
I love Gus’s idea of Jesus as trespasser. This idea is apt when we look at the John 4 story of the Samaritan woman at the well.
Jesus crosses Judah’s border with Samaria, taking a less commonly travelled route, to get back to Galilee following undue or untimely attention from the Pharisees (4:1-3). He goes from conflict to conflict entering another dangerous territory, trespassing. The antagonism between Samaritans and Jews cut both ways, exacerbated by Hyrcanus’s conquering of the Samaritan capital city and destroying the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerazim in 128 BCE. A wall has been constructed between siblings of very similar heritage and beliefs and the Samaritans in particular have to eek out their own monotheistic identity alone.
My son drew my attention to Freud’s ‘narcissism of small or minor differences’ where groups close to each other, bearing it seems similar values and traditions, are more venomous towards each other than against other groups that, on the face of it share very different traits and share little in the way of common ground. Boundary crossing need not involve long distances then, sometimes being close to home!
The scene is a unique historical location, the land Jacob gave to Joseph, specifically Jacob’s well. Would Jesus be welcome? I suspect not and he would know it. I ask myself whether Jesus respected boundaries, whether his enthusiasm to reach out was paramount? I guess crossing heaven and earth twice in different directions suggests a certain confidence as well as porosity, much as walking through walls (John 20)!
In this account Jesus crosses ritual purity lines (a really big deal), religious lines and gender relationship lines (spouses or family members only speaking please!). Is he acting like a bull in a china shop? Jesus and the woman share the same ground around the well, the same water, the same utensil too and both do so willingly and knowingly. It's not just Jesus crossing borders but the woman too. She engages and jousts and stays in the conversation. This ultimately results in a stunning and rarely made confession from Jesus ,‘I am the Messiah’ and a village comes to faith.
Jesus and the woman hold and stay in this deepening evolving space, exploring edges and reach. Perhaps Richard Rohr’s term ‘border spirituality’ applies here. I hear Jesus saying “Let’s explore this line you’ve drawn”. This passage is the longest recorded conversation of Jesus with anyone in the gospels and includes the first occurrence of Jesus’s ‘I am’ statements. The overt nature of this disclosure and to this recipient is a singularly bold, clear and important message from Jesus to any who would follow him. Let’s cross, trespass borders that define rigid belongings and describe and enter another way of life, on radically different terms*.
a spirit birth into a new family
“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me. John 4:34
What, I keep asking myself, motivated Jesus? What compelled him to cross the many tangible, conscious barriers even before we get on to the subconscious and intangible barriers? Curiosity, sure. Compassion, yes. This passage however suggests it's obedience or harmony with his father and that some energy or propulsion is connected with this. It is perhaps simply what Jesus sees in His Father and what we, with the words ‘Follow me’ ringing in our ears, may discern in Jesus too. An additional motivation may derive from the conviction that a spirit birth into a new family is what is needed and advocated (see too the John 4 story of Nicodemus, Jennifer Garcia Bashaw).
I hadn't thought I'd be reflecting on obedience and the will of God. I think Jesus realises the supreme drive or desire of the father to give, to reach out, to care, to joust and play. It's indigenous, needs no second thought or guessing. There is little in the way of cost benefit calculation or risk assessment. It's simple and clean. I belong to everyone.
St Bonaventure‘s line “God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere” bears repeating here and is well illustrated in this story, especially because it seems to capture Jesus motivation, being one with the Father in outlook, intent and action.
Andrew Hook
* Strong echoes of Pauls writing in Galatians 3:28 ‘There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus’.