Based on John 4: 1- 14 The Woman at the Well
(http://illuminelectio.blogspot.ca/2014/03/john-4-5-14-march-7-2014.html)
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| The Well is Deep (soul card) |
Where is he?
The first time I read of this story I was struck by how Jesus didn’t even say please when he asks for a drink. In my head he seemed brash and a bit arrogant –“if you knew the glory of God” “if you knew who I was” – This arrogance challenged me. This is not the Jesus that I know.
Other elements in the story, the Samaritan woman, the well, the hot dry desert, none of these things I related too. I live in a rain forest, there’s water everywhere. I know rivers and streams, not wells. For I while I didn’t know how I was going to speak about this passage at all.
When this happens to me, I try to imagine myself back in time; experiencing the gospel as a person for whom it was written. So let’s imagine that to start, so we can all get to know this story better.
The book of John is the last of the gospels to be written. It was likely written about 90 – 100 ce or Common era.
Knowing this is important. General consensus places Jesus’ death around 30ce. John was written 60 - 70 years after all the events in his story happened.
That’s like someone in the 1990’s writing about the Great Depression – without the benefit of written or visual material from the time – no newspapers, newsreels, photos or books. Just stories past down the generations.
I feel that it is important to note that length of time between the events that occur in the Book of John and when they were recorded because a lot happened in the world during those 60 years.
And I believe that changes how the stories get told.
In 66 ce the Jewish people in Judea rebelled against Roman Rule. Jerusalem was surrounded by Roman forces and held in siege for 4 years. The rebels held Jerusalem until 70 ce when the Roman army breached the walls and destroyed the city, including the Temple – the house of God, which had stood on the Temple Mount for the last 500 years. From the end of the Babylonian captivity.
Pause to let that sink in. This was the Roman Army, mercy and compassion -not their strong suits. When they destroy something they destroy it. Everyone was slaughtered or taken into slavery.
What was going on for Christians at this time? Christianity was still relatively new and very misunderstood. Many scholars believe that just prior to the siege of Jerusalem the Christians fled the city and took refuge in Pella, a city in the north, on the Jordan river.
Christianity was in a very precarious situation. The Jewish people had distanced themselves from Christians because Roman’s held it in contempt. An example of this contempt --is in 64ce a fire broke out in Rome destroying much of the city. Nero, the Emperor at the time, blamed the Christians. He had many of them rounded up and then fed to lions in the Amphitheatre.
As a Christian at this time; this time of John’s Gospel, some of us have been witness to horrific atrocities. Some of us have had to flee our homes or be killed. We’ve heard stories of fellow Christians being killed for sport. We are fearful and unsure. Perhaps questioning our beliefs and feeling very lost.
What we need is a message that is powerful.
We, the readers of John need a leader, someone who is strong, certain and can provide assurance.
What I read as arrogance in the way Jesus spoke becomes confidence. His message is clear, he doesn’t have time for parables; rather he’s straightforward with his words to the Samaritan woman, recognizing her as a person needing a positive message.
Jew’s and Samaritans had a long history of animosity. Samaritans were a sect of Judaism ostracised by the Jewish priests for worshiping God on a mountain, not at the Temple in Jerusalem.
The woman at the well is an outcast.
At this time, being a Christian would have made you an outcast. The Jewish people did not like you because they did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah.
Believing in Jesus challenged Roman authority; Christians used words for Jesus that were reserved only for the Emperor – Son of God, Light of the World, Prince of Peace, Lord. Any talk of Jesus’ coming Kingdom was treason.
I see the woman at the well as a frightened doubting young Christian terrified of persecution and very unsure of the future. She comes to the well during the heat of the day, because as an outcast it’s the only time left for her. Those who belong can come in the morning, when it is cool. This women, who is insecure cannot.
They meet at a well. An old well to be sure, but a mundane place, an everyday place one goes to as a chore. Not a place that is Holy.
There are no Holy Places during John’s time. The temple is destroyed, God’s home is gone. There are no churches, Christians meet in secret, in private homes and very carefully. The only place to meet Jesus is somewhere outside. In the heat; in a place that is hot and dry and knows thirst.
So then this message of Living Water, of Eternal Life is comforting and very reassuring. It is a message of hope and of life given to a person who does not belong, doesn’t have a holy place to pray and thirsts for something sacred and something sustaining during a time of uncertainty.
It’s a wonderful story then. This message of Living Water, free for the asking, free of the taking, anyone who thirsts and drinks this will never be thirsty again. In the hot dry desert water is life, water is everything. If I were a person in that position I would drink and drink until I burst.
But I am not a woman in John’s time. I am me. I am neither an outcast, nor fearful of persecution from my beliefs.
We read this story in The Lectio Divina Group two Fridays ago. If you are unfamiliar with Lectio Divina I will give a very brief summary. Lectio Divina means ‘divine word’.
During Lectio we read a passage of scripture listening for a word or a phrase that stands out from the rest and we focus on it during silent meditation. For me, the phrase the stood out that day was “The Well is Very Deep.”
I found this to be a very comforting thought; nothing more. Just the comfort of knowing that there was an abundance of water down in the well was enough.
Another member of the group also focused on this phrase and for her it meant that the surface of the water was very far away and hard to reach sometimes.
While for me it wasn’t about how far away the surface of the water was, but that once reached there was more than enough of it. Lectio is like that.
Shortly after Lectio Divina ended two Fridays ago I found out that the little boy who drowned in a nearby creek was a child that I knew. And after that, none of this mattered for a time. (Breathe)
Water is sacred. We are born out of water; we use it in our baptisms. It sustains us and without it life on our planet could not exist.
Water is powerful. It shaped our coastlines and mountains. It weaves it way through canyons, carving out gullies and ravines. It tumbles on the shore, wearing away at the beach, rubbing rocks and shells together making them smooth and round. It creeps into cracks, where, if it freezes can fracture the strongest stones.
Water is destructive. It can submerge, overflow, overwhelm and while we need it for life it can also destroy. Rivers flood, tsunamis turn cities into flotsam and jetsam. Hurricanes, cyclones and storms change the face of the planet.
Water is taken for grated when we have it in abundance and we just buy more when it’s not.
I have come to love water for being soothing on a hot day, for being cleansing both physically and emotionally. My most sacred places in the world are places where I am surrounded by water.
I understand this concept of living water; the feeling of spirit bubbling up inside me like a fountain; the feeling of God’s presence like a cooling mist across my face; going down to the river to be cleansed.
But not today. Not this week. Not right now. I do not like water today because as much as it sustains me it has also hurt me. As I grieve for a child who should still be here playing with his friends that living water in the well is very, very far away. The well is very deep and I do not have a bucket.
So where is he? Where is the presence when I need the most? I stand at the well, lost, displaced, looking down into the darkness. I am the woman at the well parched, dry and hot. I thirst.
Where is he? Where is this living water? I know that deep down in the darkness there is an abundance of water, more than enough - for me - waiting.
The well is very deep and I do not have a bucket.
Selah.
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