the unique power of radical hospitality
Lent 3A | John 4:5-42
Jesus’s disciples were baptizing people in the Jordan and the numbers they were baptizing were starting to outnumber the baptisms of John the Baptist. This is what it says in the opening verses of chapter four of John’s gospel. Isn’t it curious that this is a thing to note? That we’ve always been competitive and read too much into it. Oh my gosh, Jesus is baptizing too many. He needs to move along. But that seems to be the motive here for putting Jesus on the move. In verses three and four it says “he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria.”
Let’s note, too, this articulation of “had to.” There is a compulsion here, suggesting that Jesus had no other choice but to walk through enemy territory to get back home. But this isn’t literally true. Judeans routinely went around Samaria so as to avoid conflict. It’s like being from Michigan: we try to avoid going to Ohio. There are other ways to get there from here!
This means that this having to is not because of a lack of choice but because of a presence of something else. Jesus seems to be compelled to go there. And I think there are two worthy things to speculate on: 1) the Holy Spirit said you gotta go and he was like, sure thing, boss. Or 2) there was something he felt he needed to do there.
The Unlikely Conversation
What does Jesus find there but a well and an unlikely conversation partner. We don’t get her name. The church simply refers to her as the woman at the well. Which seems kind of odd to the modern mind. We tend to worry about identity and to render a woman nameless could be problematic. But my own observation is that few people get names in any of the gospels. It seems to be an honor reserved for disciples and historical figures. Last week, we met Nicodemus who became a secret disciple. Mary is named because of her proximity to Jesus. But here, this woman is like the demoniac in Mark: a person of faith transformed by Jesus and invited to spread that witness around her hometown. In a sense, this really could be any of us.
The evangelist also hints at the strangeness of this encounter, not the least of which because of its cultural transgression. Recall that Hebrews don’t tend to chat with people of Samaria. Nor do unwed men and women. They hadn’t yet developed a robust bar scene in first century Palestine. No campus mixers or school dances. Leave room for the Holy Spirit!
Jesus breaks cultural taboos by addressing her. Asking her to offer him water. And she, for her part, doesn’t shy away from it. She meets his transgression with a small one of her own. If I’m casting this scene, I’m hoping for Katherine Hepburn. Today, maybe Emma Stone or Amy Adams.
This is a seemingly chance encounter that isn’t supposed to happen. Except that every indication we have is that it is one that God wants to happen. The taboos that these two transgress become taboos God invites them to transgress. For a purpose. For this moment.
Transgression
I hope we’re feeling some inner conflict here. Because these taboos are there for a reason. And we don’t necessarily want them eviscerated. And this is the paradox of following Jesus in the grand scheme. The central principle of his articulated theology is countercultural — because the cultures of earth tend to place personal gain and accumulation of power over the love of God. Which means his ways seem particularly rebellious to the powerful. But when we all seek to follow his ways, we become the majority! And then that counter-cultural spirit can confuse us.
These aren’t blanket transgressions we’re reading about here, however. Jesus doesn’t flaunt the rules and expectations only. Just the ones that deprive the people of equity and vitality. This is one of the more subtle pieces of this story, then. That Jesus seeks to more fully humanize the human standing before him. He offers a dignity that others wouldn’t. Dignity that I worry the reader may forget to offer.
Look at the section toward the middle, verses sixteen to eighteen, when Jesus notes her relationship status. What happens inside you as you read this exchange? When Jesus makes a very assuming statement — that she has a husband. And she responds by saying she isn’t married. Then Jesus reveals that he knows that already. That she has been married five times and is with someone now to whom she isn’t married. What does this revelation do inside you? Do you start judging her? Or perhaps it’s more of a defensive understanding, arguing on her behalf, well, we don’t know her circumstances . . . I think we’re primed to react this way, but this isn’t a scene of judgment, but of revelation. He knows this truth about her. There is no shame or indignity here. There is compassion and intimacy instead. In other words, it isn’t about her marital status at all. It’s about her human dignity.
Jacob’s Well
And where specifically does this moment take place? Next to Jacob’s Well. This is a well that we’re told was given by Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham. A well that patriarch gave to one of his twelve sons, Joseph (the one with the amazing technicolor dreamcoat). And if you go looking for the story of the well in the Hebrew Scriptures, you will be sorely disappointed. There is no direct reference. But, there is reason to speculate, based on location, what site this well might represent in the biblical story. And one suggestion I read was that it is where Jacob meets his brother Esau after returning with Leah and Rachel and Bilhah and Zilpah after many years (and serves as a great reminder to us that, if we’re being honest, the phrase “biblical marriage” should invite some really weird conversations with those siblings in Christ who like to use it). After Jacob sends the women and children across the river and wrestles with God or an angel, we’re not entirely sure which and Jacob gets suckerpunched in the hip and is left walking with a limp, he finally gets brave enough to face his brother Esau who Jacob had wronged, stealing his brother’s birthright and blessing, leaving town to save his own skin like a coward, and then ghosts his family and responsibilities for two decades, the craven, disgusting conman Jacob reunites with his brother, expecting to get pummeled — and Esau embraces him instead. Proving once again that Esau is the better man. A truth Jacob’s descendents can never fully accept.
This well has served this community for centuries and they have preserved it. A well that proves this nameless woman and Jesus are siblings in God’s Kin-dom, regardless of religious tradition. Because they don’t just have the same ancestors: they have the same history. History that still, presently exists.
Our Shared History
The animosities between the people of Judea and Samaria were only a century old. They were once the same people. Territorialism, power, self-righteous pride, hunger for vengeance, all manner of evil makes many of us think we have a right to land “our people” once lived on. Or that we are justified in a genocide for the perceived safety of “our people” against a perceived enemy. And we all know that we can do this over the flimsiest of excuses. The geopolitical version of “he looked at me funny.”
These animosities are made worse when we pretend they have always been and will always be. Like the infamous Hatfields and McCoys — someone wronged someone else generations back, so we fight on until they surrender. But it isn’t forever. This was relatively new development in their people’s history. They were reinforcing division that wasn’t based in truth, but in being conquered by Babylonians and Romans and empires that found Judea more strategically valuable than Samaria.
The traditions that evolved during their separation led to differences in culture and religion. These different experiences led them to see themselves as fundamentally different people. But they are no less siblings, children of God. And it is our own traditions, our own obsessions with purity and being the right kind of people that hold us captive to a process of othering our siblings and rejecting what could become a common experience shared by all.
This is what Jacob’s Well reminds us. What Jesus talking to a woman many years later offers us. Connection. Connection that we don’t expect; that we don’t think is possible; that we are afraid to initiate; that we are compelled by our neighbors to shun; that we are invited by God to see as our holy work.
Like Family
There is geopolitical resonance right now, isn’t there? And it is why some of the things being said in the last two weeks by pastors and statesmen are so dangerous and unChristlike that they must not be left unchallenged. Like the US Ambassador to Israel, speaking on behalf of the United States, that Israel has a right to the land of other countries reflects both a grotesque view of statecraft and an utter rejection of the teachings of Jesus. That’s why this stuff matters.
Hear it, Friends! Jesus was compelled to travel through Samaria, not to “fix” them and change them into Judeans. It isn’t to conquer and steal the land for a more righteous cause. It was to reunite with estranged siblings. And what happens? Jesus talks with the woman and she visits with him. She tells her friends and family. And they invite Jesus to stay there for several days. Stay. He’s supposed to be passing through. Supposed to be going home. Going around Samaria, avoiding them, “the enemy,” but here he is, staying with them. Eating the food they offer him. Receiving their hospitality. Not because he is in need, but because hospitality is its own purpose.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”
— Matthew 5:9
The silver lining: the disciples don’t know what to do, either. This was new to them, too. But they roll with it. Their instincts are good. They might be thinking of the taboos and the rules and the power and all the stuff the empires of earth value. But what they invite Jesus to think about: they implore him to eat something. They don’t want him to waste away. They want to take care of him. Just like the Samaritan hosts. All of them are offering radical welcome. Like a long lost family.