Well, Well, Well

Today's gospel, the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, is from John. I struggle with this gospel, where Jesus speaks in highly symbolic language and makes barely veiled references to his divine nature and his identity as the savior of the world. That's not how I envision Jesus of Nazareth conducting his ministry. I identify much more with the synoptic gospels, where Jesus is a man following God's call and slowly realizing the divine power that lies within him.

Regardless, the symbolic nature of this particular passage (along with the Old Testament reading about Moses and the Israelites in the desert) speaks directly to the Lenten experience of hungering and thirsting for God. Here's this Samaritan woman who just wants some water. She meets up with a mysterious teacher/prophet who pretty much blows her mind. She's astounded he's talking to her at all—it was unheard of for Jews and Samaritans at the time—and he tells her he can make it so that she never thirsts again.

She's persistent and quite literal: Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water. Jesus demonstrates his power by calling upon her history—she's had five husbands and the man she currently lives with is not one of them. Whether she's ashamed or not, the gospel doesn't say, but she recognizes that he is someone special, and their conversation immediately goes beyond the subject of water to the differences between Samaritan and Jewish worship. Eventually, she abandons her water jar and goes to tell her countrymen about this prophet, who she thinks just might be the long-awaited messiah.

The whole story is pretty remarkable, but I'm particularly struck that she left her water jar behind. Where originally, this woman had been all about getting her water, quenching her physical thirst and serving her household, she sets aside the practical stuff and goes to spread the word. It's a moment of conversion and a moment where spiritual matters trump practical ones.

That's a battle I fight every day. Life's daily demands often crowd out my pursuit of spiritual wholeness. But there's got to be room for both. I doubt that the Samaritan woman stopped drinking water altogether. I'm sure a trip to the well remained part of her daily routine. But it sounds like her encounter convinced her that there was an answer to her spiritual thirst, and it would seem she made it her business to find that answer, and share it with others.