Justice Lessons at the Well

Our reading this week is from the gospel of John:

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

Welcome Readers! Please subscribe to Social Jesus Here.

This is Part 1 of the series Justice Lessons at the Well

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 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.)  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.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 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.” 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 . . . 

 . . . Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”  (John 4:5-42)

Our reading this week is a small story in the gospel of John, and it is charged with radical social meaning when we read it through the cultural norms of its time. Jesus Christ, a Jewish man, asks a Samaritan woman for a drink. She is someone who that society defined with overlapping boundaries of exclusion based on gender, ethnicity, religious tradition, and social reputation. First, Jews and Samaritans did not share vessels. Second, men did not publicly engage women in theological conversation. Jesus’ simple request crosses these lines and more before he ever speaks a word of teaching. Jesus’ transgression of these both of these boundaries and speaks to our justice work today.

Jesus begins with his own vulnerability. He does not approach the woman as a benefactor dispensing charity, but quite the opposite. We’ll pick up here in Part 2.  

Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, justice and action. Free.

Sign up at HERE.