Woman at the Well Reflections

Jesus is staring into the eyes of the Woman at the Well, and he’s seen her before. In hundreds of blank stares and dead eyes, he’s seen her stare back. Hurt, pain, despair … feelings of unworthiness and inability to reach an impossible standard that the people around them are propping up as “God’s way.”

She’s Samaritan, which means that Jesus’ instinct should be to turn his back and scoff because of his own lineage. Jews would even cross through the River Jordan to avoid having to go there. Through it, not even around it. She is at the well at the sixth hour, and she is there alone, which shows us that her own people didn’t even want to be around her.

Jesus later reveals that the reason that she is an outcast is that her life is unusually chaotic. She has allowed herself to be discarded by men over and over again. I heard one pastor speculate recently that she was probably barren because that would diminish her cultural value and cause men to abandon her over and over again. She must feel worthless.

Here is Jesus dealing in an interpersonal way with someone that nobody else sees fit to talk to. She is astonished when he asks her to share a drink from the well with him. Maybe she’s afraid that’s she’s on some early version of a reality show – Jesus is setting her up to draw a drink so that he can refuse it to the delight of a hidden audience. Surely a Jewish man won’t risk becoming unclean to have a drink from Jacob’s Well.

Jesus has been walking all day. We know he’s thirsty, we know he’s hungry, as his disciples have been sent for food. But he’s not too tired or parched to tell the woman about the Living Water, the true life that God offers, and the way he describes it rules. “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
To a woman who is beaten, broken, abandoned, hurting, dying right where she is … refreshing life that will not only cure all that ails her, but will spring out from within her to change the lives of those that are around her, too. A rejected woman, not only by the religious elite, but by her own people becomes a healing force for others. And it’s even better because she doesn’t get it. Jesus, it seems to me, would have gotten tired of people not getting it, but he doesn’t. He presses forward instead, seeking to bridge the misunderstanding.

Even after recounting her tough relationship past (and present), Jesus still invites her to realize God’s love. He tells her what worship will look like in the immediate future (“when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth”), and he leaves her with a piece of information that he tells nobody else until his trial before his death. He declares himself as the Messiah – not to crowds of thousands or to important leaders that can wield influence, but to a lonely, beaten, outcast woman in the “wrong” people group.

Maybe it’s significant that they are sitting at the Well of Jacob, famous for being the one who overcame his past as a deceiver to grab a hold of God’s best for his life, and subsequently the generations to come. The Samaritan woman is afforded this same opportunity by Jesus’ willingness to sit down and talk to her even when the constructs of society said not to. He didn’t see a Samaritan, a woman, a shady past, a sexual sinner, a poor person, an outcast, a mission field, a charity case, a beaten down shell … he saw a child that God loved and wanted to redeem no matter what the story of her shortcoming may be.

And I’m challenged by that idea. The Christian movement of today is more interested in bickering over who’s version of the truth is the best, or whether having too many candles lit means you’re a Emergent. Or if being granted the gift of tongues makes you Pentecostal or weird or a fake or more holy. And we are famous for things that would absolutely repulse the man who sat on that well and drew a drink of water from a marginalized person.
More than eight of ten people see us as a people of hate – gay haters, liberal haters, movie haters, some kind of haters. And the age-old rhetoric about being a person who loves the sinner and hates the sin doesn’t fly for me. It’s an excuse. Maybe someone actually believes that motto and lives by it, but I doubt it. I haven’t seen it anyway.

Jesus is doing something fascinating here in my opinion, though. He has sent his friends off that probably need to see this interaction so that their won behavior can be redeemed. But Jesus isn’t preoccupied with a teaching moment, he’s intent on embracing a life and changing it in a meaningful and lasting way.

When his friends get back they offer him the food that they brought, and he says, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” And I’m thinking, how mad would I be? Jesus sends me to get food after a full day of walking around and now he doesn’t want it? But the braintrust instead wonder what he ate. Maybe they even blamed the Samaritan woman in their minds for wasting their time.

But Jesus ends the suspense, explaining, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”

He is fed spiritually by serving.

Not by a great sermon series, the best worship leader, or the most polished program. He is fed by serving those who are most in need of God’s touch. By discovering God’s will and seeking to fulfill it. He fed himself with action instead of waiting for a rabbi to fill him up with the latest series of teaching.

If we were more obsessed with getting out and serving people than with arguing over who’s version of the truth is best, we would change the world. If we spent a few extra hours talking to hurting people instead of trying to get them saved, we’d change the world. If we actually loved people that we defined as children of God instead of sinners, we’d change the world.

Since Jesus never saw a sinner, but instead saw God’s precious child, loving a sinner and hating a sin is not a task for a little Jesus (Christian) to undertake. It doesn’t make any sense. As Paul said, he himself is the chief sinner. I am the greatest sinner out here, and I certainly don’t want others to identify me that way. I want to be identified the way that Jesus identifies me – as his possession, bought and paid for with his blood. Imperfect, but perfecting. Broken but mending. Unlovable but loved. Hateful but loved anyway in the most powerful, mind-bending, limb-numbing way possible.

Many Samaritans believed that Jesus was the Savior of the world by his act of love and by words that spoke the same love to them over the next two days. Not a scathing assault on lives of sinners. Jesus loved the sinner and never even saw the sin. What will I do?

I'd Build You An Empire

Two posts in a row about meeting a hero - I met Angels & Airwaves last Monday night before their show in Denver. I've been a huge fan of Tom Delonge since I was 16, which is going on 14 years now. After seeing him play live in three different bands (blink-182, Boxcar Racer, and Angels), I finally scored a chance to meet him and the rest of the band. In November 06 I was supposed to be able to meet them in Salt Lake City, but stuff got messed up and I missed out after driving 18 hours in two days to see them. (It was still worth it, by the way).

This time, I showed up right on time to meet the band, but was ticked off to find that the meet and greet had actually met before the e-mail I got told me. Since the e-mail said that one wouldn't be allowed in if they tried before 6, I didn't dare miss it again. After a few minutes I found the girl in charge of stuff and she told me that I had missed it. I begged her to let me go in since I had received bad information, and for some reason, she sympathized with me and I was following her backstage in a few seconds.

It was absolutely surreal to walk into the basement room that houses the band that night. Nobody was down there except for the four guys in the band. Tom was sitting in the right corner as I walked down, drawing on a cereal box, which sounds weird but is real. David, Atom, and Matt were talking straight in fromt of me. Walking down was awkward, but the guys were awesome. Atom and I talked about Rocket From the Crypt, one of his old bands that I love, and about San Diego - where three of the four guys are from. Atom was just cool - really warm and real down to earth kind of guy. David told Tom to quit coloring and come meet me, and he came over and shook my hand. I told him that I've listened to blink since before the "182" and he seemed genuinely thankful for that. We talked for a few more minutes about San Diego and other junk, and I was on my way.

It's funny because I think that all of us have a natural inclination to look up to people and really put them on a pedestal, and in some wyas that's weird and in some ways it's OK until it gets unhealthy. But I've met a bunch of influential people in the Christian community that are "Christian celebrities" that haven't been cool at all. Some are great, but for the most part I have felt like the majority are of the opinion that there is something special about them that the rest of us don't have. These guys were awesome and showed a ton of respect and humility for someone that admires their work.

The funny thing is that I have gained a ton of insight from all kinds of "secular" bands over the years that I haven't found in the shallow work of Christian artists. I think it's unfortunate that so many of the Christian artists are shallow and musically uninspired. I guess my point is that we tend to devalue things in Christendom that aren't on the "approved list," so to speak - but that is really shortsighted and lame. U2 aren't necessarily living any cleaner of a lifestyle than the majority of the bands out there, and the only one that I've heard profess faith in any kind of way (and it feels somewhat universalist to me) is Bono. But for some reason we are good with U2 and not other bands. I think it's time to open our minds up to the fact that people of other viewpoints and faiths have plenty to add to the spiritual conversation. While it may wind up being theologically off, maybe even flat-out wrong, if it points us to our redeemer, I see great value in all art. In the meantime, let's challenge Christian artists to be inspired by more than covering each others' songs over and over until they become a resounding gong, making my ears bleed.