April 6, 2021 John 4: 16-18
11The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep.
Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who
gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ 13Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this
water will be thirsty again, 14but 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.’ 15The 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.’ 17The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to
her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you
have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ 19The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are
a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in
Jerusalem.’ 21Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming
when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
Now
we come to the point in the story where it is revealed why this woman comes to
the well at noon, in the heat of the day.
Jesus is stepping toward proper behavior when he tells her to go and
call her husband. The appropriate behavior
for a man who wishes to speak to a woman is through the intercession of the man
responsible for her. This would be her
husband or, if she is not married, her father.
Such is the ‘ownership’ principle presupposed in the gender relationships
of the time. But Jesus has another point
that he is making.
She
says she has no husband. Jesus acknowledges
the correctness of her statement, so far as it goes. We are finally coming to a place in current
society where the stigma of divorce is normalized. I believe that says a whole lot more on how
we prepare for marriage than anything else, but understanding how divorce is a
normal part of our culture helps to understand the incredible contrast to the
woman at the well. She has been married
five times, and is currently living out of wedlock with another man. That last piece could carry the penalty for
adultery (death by stoning).
In a
society where the highest aspiration for a woman is in the success of her marriage,
being married five times (NOT being widowed five times-these are by divorce)
casts deep aspersions on the moral character of this woman. She has been rejected from ‘good culture’, as
when the women of the community come out before the heat of the day to draw
water from the well. It is also hinted
at with the woman even responding to Jesus’ request for water. A woman of ‘proper morals’ might be expected
to withdraw from the situation without ever actually replying to him.
If
you are ever able to watch an interview with Dolly Parton, find one when she talks about
growing up. The pattern of her make up,
how she likes to wear it, was in the more liberally applied techniques of the
woman in town of a ‘certain moral character’.
Kids, if you are reading this and do not understand, go ask your folks. This is the woman, of all the residents of
Sychar, that Jesus has made contact with.
In other words, he is setting himself up for a moral scandal.
There
are male Christian leaders today who will not have a meal in public with a woman
alone unless it is their wife or immediate family member.
There are male Christian leaders who will not have a meeting with a
woman except in the presence of witnesses.
The fear of the stigma of morally improper suspicions (much less
behavior) drives these choices. It is a
misogynist view of the moral character of women reinforced in our current ‘open’
culture. That is not what Jesus is
doing.
He
uses his divine knowledge to reveal to her that he knows the background of this
woman. By saying it twice, Jesus is
emphasizing the reality that she has spoken the truth to him, as far as it
goes. But Jesus has not singled her out
to condemn her. He has come to offer the
waters of eternal life. More tomorrow.
Peace, Pastor Pete
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