I think of her as the Elizabeth Taylor of her time. Granted, she only had five husbands, not eight, but she must have had the same tenacity, the same resilience. To be a woman who had managed to marry that many times, and then to be living with another man who was not her husband…Well, let’s just say that this was not the normal course of events for most women in Biblical times. Most women were much too frightened to ever divorce, let alone convince another man to marry them. She must have been strong, but also deeply troubled. And lonely. She must have led a life of hopes dashed and dreams broken.
She must also have been strong because she goes out to the well at noon. During the height of the sun, most people stay inside. The sun is simply too bright, too scorching hot. She must have been really thirsty. Or maybe the man who she lived with ordered her to fetch the water. Whatever the reason, she came, carrying a large earthenware jug, to draw water at the well. No doubt her mind was consumed with the heat. She probably ignored the Jewish man sitting there by the well. All she wanted was water and the chance to get back under cover. And then he spoke.
“Get me some water.” Did she believe that she might be mistaken at first, that he must be talking to someone else? Men did not address women that they did not know. Jews did not address Samaritans. Ever since King Solomon’s death, when the Northern Kingdom split from the Southern Kingdom of Judea, the Samaritans of the North and the Jews of the South did not speak. They did not consider each other to be human or to be loved by God. So why was this Jewish man addressing her?
With the boldness and bravery of someone beyond her time, the Samaritan woman addresses Jesus right back. And she asks him a question. She gets right to the point.
“Why are you speaking to me, a woman of Samaria?”
What is it that you are thinking, talking to a woman, an enemy, a non-person? Her question is direct and speaks of the truth. Jesus was breaking all social codes. Why?
He does not answer directly, but tells her that if she knew who he was she would be asking him to draw water for her. This really gets her curious. Jesus tries to tell her that he has water that wells up to eternal life and that she would never have to be thirsty again. Though she does not understand him fully, she asks him for this water. And he tells her to get her husband.
She tells the truth again. “I have no husband,” she says.
Jesus confirms her truth and tells her that she has had five husbands and that the man with whom she lives is not her husband. And she is overwhelmed, not by his promise of living water, but by the fact that he knew all about her. She is blown away by Jesus for the simple fact that he knows her.
When the disciples arrive, they are stunned to find Jesus talking with the Samaritan woman. When she leaves, they beg him to eat, but he keeps talking about the food of eternal life and they cannot grasp his words. They keep thinking that maybe the woman fed him. The woman goes to the village where she tells everyone what has happened to her. She was a woman who knew exactly who to tell and how to get news passed around quickly. The villagers listened to her, just as well all listened to Elizabeth Taylor when she told us to fight AIDS. The village listened when she told them that she had met the Messiah. They trusted her enough to usher an invitation. As a result, Jesus is invited to spend the night in Samaria in the homes of the sworn enemies of his people. And he accepts. In fact, he stays two nights. And the people of the village believe that he is the Messiah.
The story of the Samaritan woman is one of the longest stories in the gospels. The conversation that Jesus has with this woman is one of the longest conversations that he has with any one person in the gospels. And yet, she is not someone who you would expect to model the Christian life or become a great evangelist. She is by all accounts a moral failure and an outcast on many levels. Why did Jesus choose her?
In many Christian denominations today, the divorced are looked upon as people who have failed, who have broken the covenant of marriage. And certainly numerous divorces equal numerous failures. In the Roman Catholic tradition, divorced people are not allowed to receive communion. In many denominations, someone who is divorced cannot be ordained a pastor or priest. And yet Jesus chose to reveal his true nature to a woman who was on her sixth man. Why did he choose her? Or was it that she chose him?
I believe that Jesus saw in her not what she had done but what she could become. He saw the makings of a great evangelist, someone who would naturally tell others about him. He saw someone who was searching for the truth in a very broken world. He saw a person of hope and character. He saw far more of her than she could see of herself. And he marked her as his own forever.
I went to the beach this week on spring break with my kids. Like always, I tried on my bathing suit in front of the mirror. JD walked in and suggested that I go off looking in the mirror for Lent. What a good idea, I thought. How much time do I waste wishing that I could look like Kate Middleton or Nicole Kidman? Sometimes I think that women can’t even see themselves clearly anyway, we are so critical of our bodies. I should hang an icon in my bathroom instead and look at that. Or at least put a quote from the Psalms above my mirror, the one from Psalm 139 that reads, I knit you together in your mother’s womb…you are wonderful and marvelously made.
When Christ looks at you, he does not see what you see in the mirror. He does not see the wrinkles or the sagging thighs. He does not see fat or thin or ugly or beautiful. He does not see your past or define you by your race or ethnicity. Jesus sees with the eyes of God. Don’t you know what God sees?
I believe that God sees not what we have been or what we look like now, but God sees all that we can become. God sees all that we could be in a flash, beyond time. Our very best selves. God sees the very fullness of who we can be.
Do you remember what the parents and godparents of a child vow at a baptism? The Celebrant asks Will you, by your prayers and witness, help this child to grow into the full stature of Christ? And they answer We will.
I believe that God already knows who that child can become, what the fullness of Christ might look like for that precious human soul.
Both Luke and Jacob, my two older sons, have had growth spurts this year. We have marks on a wall in our kitchen where we record their growth. I am watching as their faces emerge from boyhood and it is like watching someone become the person that God always intended for them to be. When they were babies, they were just a fraction of themselves. But from the moment they were born, God knew what they would become. I am just watching, trying to catch up. It is like their faces are revealed gradually to me every day, just a little bit more.
When Jesus looked on that woman, he saw something more than anyone else could see. He saw more than her history of divorces, her strong will or her propensity to gossip. He saw a woman of courage and of truth. He saw someone who had the potential to really grasp who he was and to share that with others. Maybe it was her misfortune that made her able to see him as the Son of God. Maybe it was her brokenness that made her capable of being saved.
I think that we are going about it all wrong when we claim to know who God would accept and who God would reject. We cannot see what God sees. We cannot know the depths and the strength of those who seem to have lost everything. How can we judge one another? We cannot even seem to see our own selves clearly.
Now we see in a glass dimly, St. Paul once wrote. Then we will see face to face. Then I will know even as I am fully known.
It is not just God who is unknown to us. It is not just God who is a great and powerful mystery. It is us. We do not understand ourselves. We do not know all that we can be, all that God hopes and dreams for us to become. God wants us to grow into the full stature of Christ.
When the world tears you down, do not believe it. They do not know you. Only God can see who you really are.
Amen.
