Well, Maddie has found her circle. The group of folks who know her best, who call her by name and meet her in her need. We all need to find where we belong, don’t we? The problem here is that this circle is made up of folks who work in the Emergency Room of the hospital in Springfield, Ohio.
OK, she has other friends, college friends, she is really doing well on that front. But he has made multiple trips to the ER and now they know her by name. The latest occasion was for what was self-diagnosed strep that turned out to be tonsillitis. A pack of college girls and the internet can be a dangerous thing, just sayin’.
But she is fine, got some medication, took some time to rest and now is back at it. The phone calls continue, however. See, Maddie likes to talk. When she is nervous, when she is excited, when she is anxious or hopeful or just plain Maddie, she likes to talk. Sometimes when I got pick her up, I don’t have to say anything for a couple of hours of the drive back home, she will gladly fill the space with the sound of her own voice.
Now we have a new description of when Maddie likes to talk - when she is on drugs. Now, hold on there, that’s not what I mean. After one of her visits to the ER, she came away with a prescription or two; one of which sent her just a little out of phase with reality. She called and chattered away to both La Donna and me and neither of us had a clue what she was talking about most of the time. And when we did know, we had no idea what that subject had to do with anything else we might have been saying at the time. It was hard to follow, and yet entertaining at the same time. And it made me feel like I was in a conversation in the Gospel of John.
There is a surreal quality to most of the conversations that take place in John. Especially these early ones. Like if you were listening in your expected response would be along the lines of “huh?” Sometimes it seems to be Jesus who is off track, at least that was last week’s experience. Jesus comments kept coming out of left field and Nicodemus’ head was spinning trying to keep up.
This time, however, Jesus seems to be a little more focused in the moment, it is his conversation partner who keeps coming in from somewhere else. Almost like they were trying to avoid talking about the issues at hand. Take a look and see what you think.
John 4:5-26 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." 11 The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" 13 Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." 15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water." 16 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." 17 The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" 19 The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." 21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." 25 The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." 26 Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."
John likes pairs – dark and light, spirit and flesh, Kingdom and world. Some scholars argue that this conversation is supposed to be a pair with the one in the previous chapter. In chapter 3, we have Nicodemus, the named, leader of the Jews, a male in a male dominated society, but wealthy and powerful who comes to Jesus at night. Here we have an unnamed woman (it is troubling how many unnamed women there are in the bible - so many that we can’t help but notice and pledge to not overlook those our society deems unimportant), who is an outsider with the troubled history who encounters Jesus at high noon.
But she is far more than just a cipher, a symbol with no ultimate value, a zero. She is the object of Jesus’ love, though she tries her best to avoid it. That is what is going on here. Jesus wants to love her, to heal her and save her. But just when he gets closer she moves away. She distracts him with questions designed to change the subject. Designed, we might assume, to protect herself from unwanted attention.
What do we know about her? Not a lot. She was a Samaritan, hated by the Jews for polluting the bloodline and for worshiping in the wrong place. She was at the well at the wrong time, which turned out to be the right time. Water drawing time was morning. The women of the village would gather together and visit and catch up, the social intercourse that made small town life so wonderful and so painful at times. And, oh yes, they would draw the water needed for the day. But this woman chose to avoid all of that social interaction. To come at the wrong time so that she could avoid the conversation. And what did she find? Conversation. A frighteningly intimate conversation. A troublingly informed intimate conversation.
That’s what else we know, she is not very good at marriage. Centuries of tradition tell us that she was a woman of low morals, running from man to man, not taking wedding vows very seriously, she was a bad person in need of redemption. Recent thinking wonders if perhaps she was a victim, treated as property, tossed away when she no longer entertained, or the consequence of bad luck passed from brother to brother until the latest refused to do his statutory duty and marry her, thus forcing her to live in shame, the object of gossip and disdain; a broken person in need of redemption.
Does it matter? Well, in one sense, no. Jesus was here to love her regardless of her past. She needed a new start, she needed transformation, she needed to be convinced that she was capable of being loved. She needed someone to listen deeply enough and persistently enough to not be distracted by her words and to hear her heart.
And that’s what she got. The story continues, as you know. The disciples come back and are shocked by the scene - just as the woman was shocked at the beginning, and they interrupt while she slips away. But she doesn’t go and hide. After this exposed encounter she goes to the very ones she was avoiding and invites them to come and see him. “He told me everything I had ever done! Can he be the messiah?”
Now what are you talking about?
Shalom,
Derek
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