Read: John 4:5-42

I remember a situation in my former husband Jon’s parish in Montana where the daughter of a parishioner (P) got pregnant out of wedlock. Nobody said anything judgy to P’s face, but the pearl-clutching and cattiness abounded in conversations where she was not present. I remember being forced to listen to it from our church treasurer (D) one day when she was holding me hostage in her quilting studio while Jon was meeting with her husband elsewhere (I wish I was kidding), and it was taking all of my self-control not to respond with a remark like “how about saying ‘congratulations on your grandchild’ and shutting your mouth, D.” When P’s grandchild was eventually born, Jon caught fire for allowing the baby to be baptized in the church because the pearl clutchers were afraid that “people” would think we condoned premarital sex. Fifteen years later, I am *STILL* rolling my eyes over this.

This and other situations made me understand why the woman at the well was out there gathering water in the heat of the noontime sun. If the women of her village were anything like the pearl clutchers in Jon’s parish, I would not want to be around them either! What I have taken away from her encounter with Jesus is how he very patiently laid out that He knew everything about her, including her multiple husbands, and he still considered her worthy of His attention. It was scandalous for a man to be speaking to a woman one-on-one in those days, and Jesus risked it to have that conversation.

One of the things the pearl clutchers did was make me very aware of the messages that were being sent to the teenage girls in the parish, and I made a concerted effort to have a good rapport with them so that they would know that they had someone who was willing to listen to them. Asking them about what they were reading and going to their sporting events meant that they started talking to me about their lives, and some of the resulting conversations were ones that they really did need to have with a trusted adult. Making the effort to know them and listen to them ended up being life-changing for them and for me.

God, we thank you for opportunities to listen without judgment and for people who make us feel safe. Amen.
-Jen McCabe

Read: John 4:5-42

There’s a reason the Samaritan woman is at the well, alone, in the hot middle of the day. Most of the women in her village would have drawn their water in the cool hours as always. While there they could be a community together, chatting and reinforcing their busy time with each other. But the woman Jesus is talking with was clearly not welcome with them. It turns out, she does have a reason she’s alone: she’s simply been too wicked and has no friends.

Out of that abusive rejection from the other women, she finds herself, astonished, talking with a Jew. A forbidden conversation. Jews and Samaritans are supposed to have nothing to do with each other. And a woman alone, talking with a man, alone? Heresy!
Jesus, like God, knows all about her, and he doesn’t hesitate to engage her in serious conversation. The usual “rules” don’t apply in his mind. He opens the door for her belonging. She rushes to her usually hostile neighborhood and asks, “This man, he cannot be the Messiah, can he?” Who can resist checking that possibility out?

“And he stayed there two days.” These were people, and all people are his people.

Can we be open to others, all others, despite the conventions that we accept as behavioral law? It might be hard for us when we deal with people whose choices violate our own sense of the limits of relationship. But if Jesus can stay two days with a forbidden community, maybe, just maybe, I can include other difficult people in my understanding that they, too, are God’s children. They need to be heard. And I need to listen.

Dear Lord, thank you for the astonishing gift of acceptance. Help us to use that gift for your purposes. Amen.
-Tom Worrell

Read: John 4:5-42

Judgment is so easy and makes us feel superior. “I may have my faults, but at least I don’t… I never …” We think it makes us feel better, while it is poisoning our spirits. Of course, we don’t like it when we are the ones being judged. We feel ashamed, and shame hurts. It takes away our humanity and makes us feel less than, apart from others.

Some behaviors must be corrected for society to function. But there is a kind of shaming that goes deeper than that, which destroys the soul, leaving little hope for rehabilitation. This shame denies the image of God present in every person. As Episcopalians, when we shame others we betray our Baptismal Covenant to respect the dignity of every human being. The one who is shamed is separated from the larger community, and both suffer because of this. The individual loses the support system of community, the community loses the gifts of the individual.

When Jesus spoke to the woman at the well, he initiated the process of reconciliation. He knew she needed a drink of life-giving water more than he did. Simply by acknowledging her, he restored her humanity. By telling her about her past, he demonstrated he truly knew her, although they had never met. He then shared with her what he hadn’t told anyone else, that he is the Messiah. It’s really not surprising that he would share this with an outcast because Jesus worked on the margins of society, where the need for hope and redemption was greatest.

Once the woman was restored, she rushed back to the very city that shunned her, forgetting her former shame and proclaiming the Messiah. The people, seeing a person refreshed and renewed, immediately left to see the Messiah for themselves. The outcast was restored to her place, the community was made whole, and the good news was heard.

Gracious God, help me to follow the example of Jesus, and see your image in every person I meet. Help me to remember that I, too, carry your image and to care for it as the precious gift it is. Amen.
-Carol Treston

Read: John 4:5-42

And at this point the disciples come to him and were astonished that he was conversing with a woman… (Excerpt translated by David Bentley Hart)

I once heard a bishop describe the collective of young men that Jesus called around him as disciples as “the duh zone.” It rings true. In the four Gospels, these disciples are typically uncomprehending, surprised and discombobulated by what Jesus does and says. You might picture Homer Simpson hitting his forehead as he utters “D’OH!”

This story of the Samaritan woman illustrates the “duh zone” in which they operated, shocked as they were by finding Jesus talking with a woman, and not only a woman, but someone outside the circle of the Jewish community! Why would Jesus be talking with her? Well, maybe because she was a human being created in God’s image, who Jesus recognized as a sister in creation? Maybe that? (cue GIF of Homer Simpson).

I can attest to an early life formed in Christian culture that looks more and more in the rearview mirror as the “duh zone.” I’ve had a lot to unlearn, chiefly the idea that some people were inside and some people were outside of the circle of God’s love.

So, the more we perceive the immeasurably wide circle of God’s love in Jesus, the less apt we are to shame people. The more apt we are to perceive that Jesus is always having a real conversation with people through the Spirit. Everyone we meet. Including those of us in the “duh zone”.

Holy One, in Christ you showed such patience with your friends when they didn’t “get it.” I know that I’m slow to “get it” too. I know I’m standing in the need of your love. Thank you that your circle of love has no limits and help me to live in that truth. Amen.
-Fr. Jonathan Weldon

Read: John 4:5-42

Back in the day when my kids were small, I had a conversation with one of them in which I reminded them to go brush their teeth. The child in question bristled at the insulting suggestion that they had dragon breath and informed me that I shouldn’t say that to them because “it’s mean.” I wondered aloud if it would be nicer to lie to them instead and let them run all over town with dragon breath, offending all their friends? Predictably, the child said: “Yes! That’s nicer!” Leave their stink alone, thankyouverymuch.

Like stinky-breath kid, truth can sometimes seem rather unappealing and rude to me. Peering into a difficult truth that God is bringing to my attention sometimes requires more humility than I’m prepared to offer at this juncture, thankyouverymuch. I have reasons. I have history. I have justifications, defenses, and shame stashes that I nurture like old friends. I recognize the argumentative woman in John 4 who demands answers but doesn’t much like the answers as they strike uncomfortably close to broken, messy places. She pushes back at least 6 times against Jesus’ requests and revelations, as he persists in loving her, not dissuaded by her defensive brokenness.

John 4 makes me fall in love with this Jesus the truth-teller, the tender friend, the persistent Savior. So much about Jesus is revealed in how he cares so beautifully for the defensive Samaritan woman. He knows “everything about her” and needs her to know that he knows it all: why she balks, every resistant thought, excuse, justification, insecurity, and historic shame. He knows it is panic-producing for her but presses in and persists in love and truth anyway because hope is just on the other side.

Thank you Lord, for persisting when I am uncooperative. Thank you for not giving up on me when I reject grace. Thank you for the complete and tender way that you love me and refuse to leave me in the lie. I do not deserve you but I sure do love you. Amen.
-Nicole Smith

Read: John 4:5-42

The theme I chose for this reflection was in the category “shame.” Perhaps I should be a bit more “reflective” in my choice of Scriptural sources, but I look for the holes in the editorial schedule and boldly go where my better angels might otherwise fear to tread, trusting in the Almighty to put the right words to digital ink when the time comes.

I think the most obvious takeaway from Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well (talk about the perfect set-up for some brilliant biblical metaphor, right?), at least from the standpoint of “shame,” is that someone (a woman, no less) from a marginalized community would see the truth of the Gospel message when all the holier-than-thou folks in Jerusalem were blind to it.

But, of course, me being me, what I couldn’t get past in this part of John 4 was the shameless beauty of verses 35-38: “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest. He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

It’s a shame that those of us here in Jerusalem have such a hard time with that concept.

Lord, may we all be like the Samaritan woman in our openness to, and trust in, your Word. Help us find the strength and courage to share the living waters with which we have been blessed with those who thirst or are in need. Let the sower and reaper rejoice together. Amen.
-Michael Boss