Thirsty…

Her story is told, but never her name – John 4:1-42

Whatever her name was, in the town where she lived, it would not have been spoken with honour. There would have been no pet name given to express affection, rather, most likely, she was hailed by nicknames intended to ridicule or insult. Perhaps they spat her name as it left their lips! Or, in disgust, they did not even speak it! Was she nameless in her village, just as she has been nameless since in the gospels – known to us only as the Samaritan woman? 

However it was that she was addressed, she was one who carried much hurt, and everyday continued to wear the deep pain of aloneness. When spoken to, she would not have had an open bearing to receive warmth of friendship from those in her village, there was none that offered her such, rather self-protection kept her closed and her emotions guarded. You would perhaps recognise her either as the woman who crossed the street, head low, in avoidance of the scorn that usually followed her, or with an arrogant head-held-high defiance creating further contempt. 

But everyday she carried her water jar. A daily task the women of the village took up together, but this woman walked to the well to fill her jar, each day, alone, and it never once quenched her thirst. 

Everything about her was a statement of rejection –

She was a woman. “Women were to be shunned in public social contact…As long as a man engages in too much conversation with women, he causes evil to himself, for he goes idle from the study of the Torah…” (Mishna tractate Abot, 1.5)

She was a Samaritan woman – from a nation of people despised by their neighbouring country, the Jews. “Gentile women were considered even lower than a Jewish woman as she was designated an animal” (Kerithoth 6b and Berakoth 58a)

She was a woman on her own, in the heat of the day, not the usual time to collect water. Rather, the time that those ostracized and outside of the community of the other women, made their trip – alone.

She was a woman with the title sinner, having had five husbands, five failed attempts at love, and was currently with a man that was not her husband. A woman of ill-repute. 

She was alone, rejected, isolated, thirsty.

Her walk to the well each day would have been a bittersweet one. On the one-hand she walked it alone in her shame, but on the other, this walk would’ve provided relief and respite from the townsfolk – from their sideways glances and their cruel remarks.

Perhaps she thought ironically of the name of her town, Sychar, as she walked each day.  Did she take this name on as her own? Did she let the word roll off her tongue as she walked each day – Sychar – drunkard – meaning one who has an irresistible craving for liquor. Did she consider herself the town’s drunkard – habitually walking to the well each day in hope of satisfaction of her deep need, the physical thirst she had, trying to meet the spiritual and emotional need within? Always thirsty for more! Always returning to the same well to drink, but never feeling satisfied.

That Jesus talks with her John 4:7-26, was a surprising, even if an uncomfortable, beautiful act of love to her. The One who knew her name 2 Timothy 2:19, saw past her reputation to her heart 1 Samuel 16:7, goes against all the cultural practices of the day, and talks with her – His rest at the well “coinciding” with her chore that day! He allows Himself unashamedly and without reservation to be seen with this woman of disrepute! He engages her in conversation! 

How long it had been since anyone had talked with her! Yet Jesus invites her into dialogue. They talk together. The scriptures do not read, He talked at, or He talked to, which might imply a one-way conversation, instruction, or even judgment. No, it reads that He talked with her. When she sees Him walking towards the well, did she instinctively would put her walls up, take on the protective air of indifference she often carried, expecting condemnation through the turned head of judgmental silence, or the stare of condescending disapproval? 

She, was the lowest of the low, based on society’s position and status, a sinful woman, but is invited into conversation by the highest of the high, a rabbi! Jesus! Both surprised and confused by this, surely she thought, Do you not understand?  I am a woman – a Samaritan woman, here on my own – You know what that means! And here You are a Jew, a man, a Rabbi. You are not supposed to ask me for a drink. You are supposed to pretend I’m not even here. You are supposed to place judgment on me. Your silence is meant to condemn me… Later on in her story, there are those who secretly challenge His behaviour, they were deeply stooped in agreement with the culture of the day, “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?” John 4:27. He seemed to break all the understood rules.

To have someone talk with her, to ask her ideas, who engaged her in conversation, spoke value to her. Perhaps for the first time in a life-time, she found herself enjoying the talk – the words spoken to her, the words she spoke back to Him. It was significant, given that most talk – verbal and non-verbal – hurled her way, was in the nature of judgment and condemnation. What He did, spoke to her grace. He knew who and what she was, yet He spoke kindly with her. His conversation with her, the seeking of her opinion, told her that He considered her thoughts worthy of regard. It spoke respect. As a woman in her position, respect was not given. Demands, perhaps. Verbal abuse, yes! Her words, opinions, ideas, and thoughts were given no regard. But here, dignity and kind courtesy were elevated over her low unworthy position and status. How her heart must have been lonely for this.

 How she must have deeply longed for someone to see her as a person, one who had feelings                         and thoughts and opinions, rather than just a bad reputation. 

When Jesus asks, “will you give me a drink?” (verse 7), He crossed all the barriers of ethnicity, religion, gender, and social order strictly acted out in His day. But in verse 9, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” she immediately raises those barriers again. She felt threatened. This was out of normal, and her response was to take the discomfort, and to question Him with the purpose of restoring the order again – the state she was more comfortable with. And even though she no doubt loathed her social position, it was her safe place: it was what she knew. Here there were expectations and rules. She knew where she stood. Emotionally desperate, she tries to restore the order and regain control: Jews didn’t associate with Samaritans, men didn’t talk to women – especially a Samaritan woman, and one on her own – and religious men did not ever talk to a sinful woman. She was unclean. She would make Him unclean, and so she reminds Him of what He should and should not do. 

It seemed the barriers of social order meant nothing to Jesus. He did not categorize her in the way others did, but she was bound up in the rules of the social order of the day, and with self-abasement lived these out. The actions of her lifestyle are way down on the list with Him – He is in-love with her heart. In speaking to her, a Samaritan, with a shattered reputation, He invites her into love. He draws her out from what she has known of broken love, from the cruelty of racism and inequality, and He removes all the barriers that stand in the way of relationship. It’s an invitation that could satisfy her search for love and quench the longings in her soul. How this must have stirred her within!

“But whoever drinks from the water I give them will never thirst” John 1:14. Jesus knew she was thirsty. He knew she was empty, unfulfilled, dissatisfied, longing for what she didn’t have but had tried so desperately and repeatedly to find. This seemed to be the point of His visit, the reason why He “had to go that way” John 4:4. He knew she would be there. He knew who she was and what she was. He gets straight to the point – He addressed her thirst, “Go, call your husband and come back” John 4:16.

Did she recall at that point? Her arms folded, face forward, defiant, emotionless, ready for another onslaught of cruelty, “The fact was, she had had five husbands and the man she was currently with, was not her husband” John 4:18. She answers Him guarded, perhaps to avoid further hurt, “I have no husband” John 4:17.

“He told me everything I ever did” John 4:39. Jesus says only a few words about her situation, yet later that day she declares to her town that it was everything she ever did. He revealed everything that defined her life. Everything was defined by her relationships – her status, her failure, her hurt, the cultural implications that she lived out – on her own, at noon, day after day, lonely, lost, unlovable. She was thirsty for love, security, companionship, friendship, conversation, for anything that would fill the hole inside of her, and so she went from one relationship to another – five husbands! – always finding herself still thirsty, still empty.

Three times Jesus says to her, “I know you!”

1. “You are right when you say you have no husband” John 4:17 (I know you!) 

2. “The fact is, you’ve had five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband” John 4:18 (I know you!) 

3. “What you have just said is quite true” John 4:18 (I know you!) 

She didn’t want anyone to know her. She was too broken. Long ago she would have learned to put on a face, fake a smile, quickly wipe away the tears, hide, or make a joke to break the awkwardness. This day, she changed the subject. She folded her arms in defiance. When Jesus revealed her heart’s state, she skirted around to find conversation that would be more comfortable and away from this fear-filled territory. But she was being drawn in by Him, somehow sensing within that to be known fully by this man and loved fully by Him was the safest, securest place she could be, where her self- protective barriers were not needed. Perhaps they began to tumble that day. He knew her, and there was no judgment attached. Did she let out a sigh when Jesus said, “I know!” Was it a sense of relief that, “finally, someone knows and understands. I can let my guard down. I can trust this person?”

“Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water” day after day, filling my jar, with water, only to be thirsty again and again John 4:15. She did not want to make this painful trip on her own again. She was desperate for something that would fill her emptiness and satiate her thirst.

Jesus reveals to her that He is the Source of Living Water that she was looking for, that would never run out – pure and thirst quenching – and so she does something incredibly symbolic here, 

“Then leaving her water jar” John 1:28.

She leaves behind the vessel that could never satisfy her thirst. She leaves the jar that she had carried every day – the jar that represented her shame and her hurt and her thirst. That day was her very last walk of shame to the well. She put it all behind her, left it there, and she goes back to her town – the place where she is looked down upon, judged and rejected, a different woman. She has met the One who knew her thirst and had filled her with Living Water. She knew it! She knew she’d changed! They knew it! They could tell! The townsfolk who had always looked down on her suddenly now listened to her! They saw the difference. They saw life in her!

I carry a water jar, as do my girlfriends. We, all of us, are searching for satisfaction in relationships, work, anything that will quench that thirst for love, security, belonging, to be enough, to have a life that means something to someone. We carry our water jars day after day, pursuing satisfaction, wrongly believing and thinking it can be found in stuff and relationships, when it can only be found in Jesus. 

We need a symbolic leaving of our jars behind. Just as she did. The One we are thirsty for, the only One who can satisfy is Jesus. Symbolically, today could be the last day that we walk with our jar to the well – that well of other lovers. That well where we engage in the things that we think will satisfy, but never can, and never do. That well where we have to continually go back to for more in an endless pursuit for love. We are needy for love, thirsty for water, always – but only God can satisfy.

In putting down our jars, as she did, we give God permission to love us as He longs to, as she did, and we let go of our defiant stance, “Don’t you dare love me!” just as she did, and in doing so we begin to be filled with Him – the only One who can satisfy, just as she, the Samaritan woman, did that day.