On Line Bible Study - For the Week January 16-22, 2012

Lesson 519

The Conversation between Jesus and a Samaritan Woman.

After the first three verses of John 4 which serve as transitional material (not without its own interest or exegetical challenges), we find this lengthy conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. It is one of the most intricately set conversations in the Gospel tradition and merits more than one lesson.

For this study let's consider John 4:4-10:

⁴ Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

⁷ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ⁸ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

Two textual points of interest. First, your translation probably reads "Sychar" as does the translation above. Raymond Brown situates the conversation at Shechem, as there is no Sychar in the vicinity of the well. The other point of interest is the well itself. There is no specific reference to Jacob's Well in the Hebrew Bible. Jacob does meet Rachel for the first time at a well in Paddan Aram - we presume this is the well referred to here.

Now to the issue of 'water' and Jesus' thirst. It's unusual that the woman would be at the well at the noon hour. Is John telescoping a later event on Calvary when Jesus is once again 'thirsty'?

Raymond Brown suggests the woman's response to Jesus is derisive - that he would have let himself become so in need as to violate the social mores of his day. Again, the idea of Jesus being mocked has a sense of the prophetic to it. Has the mocking ceased? I read a passage earlier today from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in which he speaks of both the power and the need for us to love our enemies. Dr. King anticipates the reaction of some of his listeners, for the claim of the 'need to be practical' is often used to discredit what is described as an idealistic and naive approach to life. Dr. King will have none of it. "Practicality hasn't worked so well," he points out.

Can it be that Jesus' need on the physical level is the metaphor for the great gift he has to offer us? For the mocking to cease and the relationship to begin we have to start with a willingness to recognize who Jesus is. If you knew ... One can't help but wonder if there doesn't need to be some emotion behind this line of Christ's. If only we knew ... how different things would be for us! How much better the world would be!

This gets us into the conversation. There is more to come ...