The Woman at the Well
Does the traditional reading still hold water?
My interest in the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar has been aroused by the current debate on the ordination of women in the Lutheran Church of Australia. Advocates of women’s ordination have been challenged to discover a command of our Lord or one of the apostles as a foundation for the practice, a task almost as difficult as finding a mandate for the ordination of anyone at all, let alone women. Our church teaches that the public ministry, while not co-extensive with or a continuation of the apostolic office, at least continues the functions of that office. Those functions are understood primarily as preaching the gospel and administering the sacraments. A proposal has taken shape in my mind, that a close study of John 4 reveals a woman who functions in ways that match, in fact far outstrip, the functioning of the twelve disciples.
Raymond Brown has argued (1975:688-99) that John assigns ‘quasi-apostolic’ roles to a number of women, but three in particular: Martha of Bethany, sister of Mary and Lazarus; Mary Magdalene; and the Samaritan woman. Martha is described as ‘serving’ at table (12:2). At the time of the writing of John’s gospel, the verb diakonein contained clear echoes in all likelihood of the office of deacon. But Martha is far more than diakonos in John. When Jesus reveals himself to her as ‘the resurrection and the life’ (11:25), and questions her about her faith, she makes the remarkable confession:
My interest in the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar has been aroused by the current debate on the ordination of women in the Lutheran Church of Australia. Advocates of women’s ordination have been challenged to discover a command of our Lord or one of the apostles as a foundation for the practice, a task almost as difficult as finding a mandate for the ordination of anyone at all, let alone women. Our church teaches that the public ministry, while not co-extensive with or a continuation of the apostolic office, at least continues the functions of that office. Those functions are understood primarily as preaching the gospel and administering the sacraments. A proposal has taken shape in my mind, that a close study of John 4 reveals a woman who functions in ways that match, in fact far outstrip, the functioning of the twelve disciples.
Raymond Brown has argued (1975:688-99) that John assigns ‘quasi-apostolic’ roles to a number of women, but three in particular: Martha of Bethany, sister of Mary and Lazarus; Mary Magdalene; and the Samaritan woman. Martha is described as ‘serving’ at table (12:2). At the time of the writing of John’s gospel, the verb diakonein contained clear echoes in all likelihood of the office of deacon. But Martha is far more than diakonos in John. When Jesus reveals himself to her as ‘the resurrection and the life’ (11:25), and questions her about her faith, she makes the remarkable confession:
‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world’ (11:27)
Brown suggests that the Johannine community has replaced Peter with Martha as the follower of Jesus who makes the great confession concerning the person of Christ (1975:693-94).
Mary Magdalene is assigned a still more honourable role in John’s gospel. If apostleship is the first and foremost office of the early church (1 Cor 12:28; Eph 4:11), Mary of Magdala is arguably the person with the best claim to the title. According to most NT scholars the two marks of an apostle were ‘having seen the risen Lord Jesus and having been sent to proclaim him’ (Brown 1975: 692). Mary Magdalene is the one to whom the risen Lord Jesus first appears after he has risen from the dead, and she is the first one commissioned to proclaim the good news of the resurrection – to the apostles themselves (20:1-18). In fact, the early church regarded Mary Magdalene as apostola apostolorum (Brown: 693). Sad to say, in what can only be seen as an unconscious, maybe even a deliberate, attempt to diminish the role of Mary Magdalene, she has been consistently portrayed as a woman of dubious morality.
The standard interpretation of the woman at the well
(Jesus’) disciples were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ (4:27).
The disciples are thunderstruck by what they see, Jesus speaking with a woman. Even though they can’t bring themselves to say anything, their thoughts are made clear. It could even be that they think Jesus’ intentions are less than honourable (so Schneiders: 250). One of their unspoken thoughts may well be that Jesus has designs on the woman. ‘What are you looking for? or, What are you after?’ could well be equivalent to, ‘What do you have in mind, Jesus? We hope it’s not what it looks like?’ At all events, the evangelist is under no illusions that a significant portion of the official church, represented by the disciples, is highly offended by Jesus’ approach to women and consistently ignores it, trivialises it, or puts the worst possible construction on it (4:27).
But readers of John 4 have typically had far more trouble with the woman than with Jesus’ attitude towards the woman. The charges leveled against the Samaritan woman bear an uncanny resemblance to the charges laid at the door of Mary Magdalene. The shocked retreat from Jesus’ warm welcome and extended conversation extends far beyond the New Testament era. The most common form it takes is to question the integrity of the women Jesus associates with, or in the case of those with disreputable lives to make their past the main point of the story. They are portrayed as public sinners, and the stories are said to be about rebuke, confession and absolution. It is said that Jesus confronts the Samaritan woman with the truth about herself as a prelude to her repentance, forgiveness and rehabilitation.
After all, she is drawing water from the town’s well at midday when the sun beats down relentlessly. She comes alone for the simple reason that she can’t come with the other women in the cool of the evening, because they despise her and wouldn’t be seen dead in her company. Theodor Zahn speaks of her ‘immoral life, which has exhibited profligacy and unbridled passions for a long time’ (1921: 244). After all, she has had five husbands, disposing of each in turn as regularly as other people discard last season’s clothes. One critic has called her ‘a five-time loser .currently committed to an illicit affair’ (Paul Duke 1985: 102). The man she has now she has taken home on approval, to try on for a while, to see whether he’s worth marrying. She is a cheap woman, it is said, who uses men for sexual gratification or financial gain, bleeding them dry before throwing them on the scrap-heap.
The woman at the well has been portrayed as a temptress, a seductress, with long eyelashes, painted nails, low cut dress, deliberately waiting at the well for Jesus, the male catch to end all catches. She is provocatively lying in wait. She lets Jesus know she has no husband; in other words, she is available. She chatters on about trivial domestic matters as a prelude to conquest, completely failing to appreciate the profound theological significance of Jesus’ words (vv 7-15). She has mistaken the well of life-giving water springing up to eternal life, that he is offering, as some kind of self-replenishing water source akin to Norman Lindsay’s Magic Pudding. Greedily she asks for the miraculous potion, imagining that her thirst will be slaked for ever, and the drudgery of her daily walk to the well will no longer be necessary. Apparently ignoring her request, Jesus says to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back’ (v 16). To Hendriksen the connection between the woman’s request for unfailing water and Jesus’ command that she summon her husband is only too clear:
Does the woman desire living water? Then there must be a thirst for this water. This thirst will not be truly awakened unless there be a sense of guilt, a consciousness of sin. The mention of her husband is the best means of reminding the woman of her immoral life. The Lord is now addressing himself to her conscience (1954: 164).
Her response, ‘I have no husband’ (v 17) marks a profound change in her attitude. Suddenly she is smitten with a bad conscience. Her initial teasing banter gives way to a curt and clipped confession. Hendriksen says that Jesus is ‘revealing and laying bare her entire immoral present and past life’ (1954: 165). Tasker echoes the sentiment, although somewhat more poetically:
Her slumbering conscience is reawakened, and the beginning of a new birth becomes apparent. She abandons any further attempt at subterfuge. She no longer tries to escape either from herself, or from the all-seeing eye of her Maker. She speaks the truth, I have no husband (1995: 83).
By telling the woman to call her husband Jesus is said to be speaking the accusing voice of the law, forcing her to face the bare truth about herself. He is nudging to the surface things she would rather keep hidden. There is to be no more cover up, no more pretence. Instead she is to confess her sin and guilt and acknowledge her need of forgiveness. Only then will she be ready to appreciate and receive the wonderful gifts of forgiveness and peace, life and salvation. She is shocked beyond words and comes within a cat’s whisker of admitting her guilt by calling Jesus a prophet, that is, someone who can read secrets (Hendriksen: 165).
But Jesus has to overcome more resistance, it is said. The woman is not ready to change. She does not want to talk about her sordid past, her guilty secrets. She knows how to use diversionary tactics. By raising the age-old question that divided Jews and Samaritans – the proper place of worship – she is casting around desperately for a new topic of conversation, trying frantically to draw Jesus away from her Achilles’ heel.
This reading of John 4 reveals more about the theological presuppositions of the interpreter than it reveals about the text. The pattern of sin, judgment and grace always stands at the ready, waiting to be superimposed on any and every biblical text. But its ingredients are absent on this occasion. Even though Jesus knows all about the woman, he neither accuses nor condemns her. He doesn’t call on her to change her ways or reform her life. He doesn’t pronounce the absolution or tell her to go and sin no more.
The words of Sandra Schneiders provide a useful summary.
Mary Magdalene is assigned a still more honourable role in John’s gospel. If apostleship is the first and foremost office of the early church (1 Cor 12:28; Eph 4:11), Mary of Magdala is arguably the person with the best claim to the title. According to most NT scholars the two marks of an apostle were ‘having seen the risen Lord Jesus and having been sent to proclaim him’ (Brown 1975: 692). Mary Magdalene is the one to whom the risen Lord Jesus first appears after he has risen from the dead, and she is the first one commissioned to proclaim the good news of the resurrection – to the apostles themselves (20:1-18). In fact, the early church regarded Mary Magdalene as apostola apostolorum (Brown: 693). Sad to say, in what can only be seen as an unconscious, maybe even a deliberate, attempt to diminish the role of Mary Magdalene, she has been consistently portrayed as a woman of dubious morality.
The standard interpretation of the woman at the well
(Jesus’) disciples were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ (4:27).
The disciples are thunderstruck by what they see, Jesus speaking with a woman. Even though they can’t bring themselves to say anything, their thoughts are made clear. It could even be that they think Jesus’ intentions are less than honourable (so Schneiders: 250). One of their unspoken thoughts may well be that Jesus has designs on the woman. ‘What are you looking for? or, What are you after?’ could well be equivalent to, ‘What do you have in mind, Jesus? We hope it’s not what it looks like?’ At all events, the evangelist is under no illusions that a significant portion of the official church, represented by the disciples, is highly offended by Jesus’ approach to women and consistently ignores it, trivialises it, or puts the worst possible construction on it (4:27).
But readers of John 4 have typically had far more trouble with the woman than with Jesus’ attitude towards the woman. The charges leveled against the Samaritan woman bear an uncanny resemblance to the charges laid at the door of Mary Magdalene. The shocked retreat from Jesus’ warm welcome and extended conversation extends far beyond the New Testament era. The most common form it takes is to question the integrity of the women Jesus associates with, or in the case of those with disreputable lives to make their past the main point of the story. They are portrayed as public sinners, and the stories are said to be about rebuke, confession and absolution. It is said that Jesus confronts the Samaritan woman with the truth about herself as a prelude to her repentance, forgiveness and rehabilitation.
After all, she is drawing water from the town’s well at midday when the sun beats down relentlessly. She comes alone for the simple reason that she can’t come with the other women in the cool of the evening, because they despise her and wouldn’t be seen dead in her company. Theodor Zahn speaks of her ‘immoral life, which has exhibited profligacy and unbridled passions for a long time’ (1921: 244). After all, she has had five husbands, disposing of each in turn as regularly as other people discard last season’s clothes. One critic has called her ‘a five-time loser .currently committed to an illicit affair’ (Paul Duke 1985: 102). The man she has now she has taken home on approval, to try on for a while, to see whether he’s worth marrying. She is a cheap woman, it is said, who uses men for sexual gratification or financial gain, bleeding them dry before throwing them on the scrap-heap.
The woman at the well has been portrayed as a temptress, a seductress, with long eyelashes, painted nails, low cut dress, deliberately waiting at the well for Jesus, the male catch to end all catches. She is provocatively lying in wait. She lets Jesus know she has no husband; in other words, she is available. She chatters on about trivial domestic matters as a prelude to conquest, completely failing to appreciate the profound theological significance of Jesus’ words (vv 7-15). She has mistaken the well of life-giving water springing up to eternal life, that he is offering, as some kind of self-replenishing water source akin to Norman Lindsay’s Magic Pudding. Greedily she asks for the miraculous potion, imagining that her thirst will be slaked for ever, and the drudgery of her daily walk to the well will no longer be necessary. Apparently ignoring her request, Jesus says to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back’ (v 16). To Hendriksen the connection between the woman’s request for unfailing water and Jesus’ command that she summon her husband is only too clear:
Does the woman desire living water? Then there must be a thirst for this water. This thirst will not be truly awakened unless there be a sense of guilt, a consciousness of sin. The mention of her husband is the best means of reminding the woman of her immoral life. The Lord is now addressing himself to her conscience (1954: 164).
Her response, ‘I have no husband’ (v 17) marks a profound change in her attitude. Suddenly she is smitten with a bad conscience. Her initial teasing banter gives way to a curt and clipped confession. Hendriksen says that Jesus is ‘revealing and laying bare her entire immoral present and past life’ (1954: 165). Tasker echoes the sentiment, although somewhat more poetically:
Her slumbering conscience is reawakened, and the beginning of a new birth becomes apparent. She abandons any further attempt at subterfuge. She no longer tries to escape either from herself, or from the all-seeing eye of her Maker. She speaks the truth, I have no husband (1995: 83).
By telling the woman to call her husband Jesus is said to be speaking the accusing voice of the law, forcing her to face the bare truth about herself. He is nudging to the surface things she would rather keep hidden. There is to be no more cover up, no more pretence. Instead she is to confess her sin and guilt and acknowledge her need of forgiveness. Only then will she be ready to appreciate and receive the wonderful gifts of forgiveness and peace, life and salvation. She is shocked beyond words and comes within a cat’s whisker of admitting her guilt by calling Jesus a prophet, that is, someone who can read secrets (Hendriksen: 165).
But Jesus has to overcome more resistance, it is said. The woman is not ready to change. She does not want to talk about her sordid past, her guilty secrets. She knows how to use diversionary tactics. By raising the age-old question that divided Jews and Samaritans – the proper place of worship – she is casting around desperately for a new topic of conversation, trying frantically to draw Jesus away from her Achilles’ heel.
This reading of John 4 reveals more about the theological presuppositions of the interpreter than it reveals about the text. The pattern of sin, judgment and grace always stands at the ready, waiting to be superimposed on any and every biblical text. But its ingredients are absent on this occasion. Even though Jesus knows all about the woman, he neither accuses nor condemns her. He doesn’t call on her to change her ways or reform her life. He doesn’t pronounce the absolution or tell her to go and sin no more.
The words of Sandra Schneiders provide a useful summary.
As anyone familiar with the major commentaries on the Fourth Gospel knows, the treatment of the Samaritan Woman in the history of interpretation is a textbook case of the trivialization, marginalization, and even sexual demonization of biblical women, which reflects and promotes the parallel treatment of real women in the church (1997: 245).
Stephen Moore claims (283) that an exclusively literal reading of the five husbands is to lapse into the very literalism, or crass materialism, that the woman gradually outgrows as the conversation with Jesus continues. To read Jesus’ words about the woman’s five husbands and her current partner literally, as a history of immorality, is to read as simplistically as she does at the start of her conversation with Jesus. She learns to think laterally, or at two levels. Those who construe Jesus’ words about her one-dimensionally thereby virtually place themselves among the men who throw stones at the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11).
Arguably Schneiders and Moore have erred in the opposite direction. Ruling out the literal reading of Jesus’ words, and the historicity of the account, they overlook for the moment John’s consistent use of deliberate ambiguity. So also here, the woman has a troubled marital story, and it provides a window into Samaria’s troubled political and religious story.
Jesus’ disciple ‘Scarlet lady’ readings of the Samaritan woman deflect the reader’s attention from the true import of the story. The conversation with the woman at the well is the longest that Jesus holds with any individual in the gospels (so Craddock 1990: 243). He is the teacher, she the disciple. Jesus’ progressive self-revelation is met by progressive growth in insight and understanding, faith and commitment.
If not public outcast, what then?
The story contains no clear indication (a) that the Samaritan woman has romantic designs on Jesus, or (b) that her past has been especially immoral or sordid. For all the reader knows, she could well be the victim of a series of tragic circumstances. Her husband may have died, leaving her under obligation to marry his brother, according to the law of levirate marriage (Dt 25:5-10). Maybe this man also died, and then three more brothers, until finally the last brother, thinking that marriage to the woman brought bad luck, agreed to live with her but refused to marry her. At all events, the woman gives no hint of being ashamed of her past. She doesn’t try to avoid her fellow Samaritans. After all she does go and invite them to come and see the man who has told her everything she has ever done. If her past was a public scandal, she was hardly likely to have been so eager to raise the topic once more in the market place.
The possibility has been widely canvassed that the story is to be read symbolically rather than literally. Like Nicodemus, the royal official, the man born blind, the beloved disciple, and Mary the Lord’s mother, she is a representative figure (Collins 1976). She represents the gentiles who come to faith in Jesus, the Samaritans in particular. Christ is the bridegroom; they the bride, the new Israel. Possibly the evangelist is at pains to honour the Samaritan component in the Johannine community. Given the evangelist’s penchant for working at two levels, the literal and the symbolical or metaphorical (temple, birth, living water, food, sight, washing) it is totally conceivable that the woman’s marital history is a vehicle used to carry her people’s national history. The woman constantly alternates between speaking of herself and her people, between first person singular and plural. The five husbands could well refer to the ancient tradition that Samaria was reputed to worship five gods, brought to the northern kingdom by five foreign cities following the Assyrian conquest of 722 BCE (2 Kgs 17:27-31); Josephus, Antiquities 9:288). The woman’s previous five husbands (Samaria’s five gods) represent Samaria’s past. Craig Koester tells us that ‘the issue of intermarriage continued to cloud relations between Jews and Samaritans in the first century’ (49). Koester goes on to explain:
Herod the Great continued the pattern of colonization that began under the Assyrians by settling thousands of foreigners in the Samaritan capital. The Samaritans lived alongside the foreigners but did not intermarry with them as extensively as before (my emphasis). The woman’s personal history of marriage to five husbands and cohabitation with a fifth parallels the colonial history of Samaria (49).
Samaria’s troubled political history has had a detrimental effect on its worship practices. Immediately after Jesus tells the woman, ‘The man you are living with is not your husband’, she responds with the words, ‘Sir, I see you are a prophet’, and asks him to give his opinion in relation to the standing dispute between Jews and Samaritans over Gerizim and Jerusalem (vv 19,20). Hendriksen says: ‘Here, as it seems probable to us, we see a woman who in her anxiety to drop a painful subject proposes a question about which she has heard much and in which she has developed a certain interest’ (166). Beasley-Murray says the woman ‘evades the issue’ of her sordid past (61). On the contrary, the woman speaks of Jesus as a prophet because he has just spoken as a prophet by declaring that she has no husband. He has employed the terminology of Hosea, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who denounce Israel for its apostasy by calling it harlotry, and its idolatry by calling it adultery (Hos 2:2, Jer 2:20. Ezek 16:23).
Far from trying to get Jesus to drop a hot topic, the woman has captured the drift of the conversation precisely by observing that Jesus must be a prophet. Francis Moloney may say, ‘there is no need to read the five husbands symbolically’ (127), but the woman quickly understands that Jesus is operating at two levels, the personal and the national.
Some critics go so far as to claim that the story is purely symbolic; it is not to be read as an historical incident at all (Schneiders; Moore). Schneiders points out that the synoptics rule out any ministry by Jesus in Samaria. Jesus instructed the twelve apostles to ‘go nowhere among the gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt 10:5,6; see also Lk 9:52,53). In fact, the Samaritan mission is a movement of the post-resurrection community; it is spearheaded by Philip following the stoning of Stephen and the first widespread persecution of the early church (Acts 8).
Stephen Moore claims (283) that an exclusively literal reading of the five husbands is to lapse into the very literalism, or crass materialism, that the woman gradually outgrows as the conversation with Jesus continues. To read Jesus’ words about the woman’s five husbands and her current partner literally, as a history of immorality, is to read as simplistically as she does at the start of her conversation with Jesus. She learns to think laterally, or at two levels. Those who construe Jesus’ words about her one-dimensionally thereby virtually place themselves among the men who throw stones at the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11).
Arguably Schneiders and Moore have erred in the opposite direction. Ruling out the literal reading of Jesus’ words, and the historicity of the account, they overlook for the moment John’s consistent use of deliberate ambiguity. So also here, the woman has a troubled marital story, and it provides a window into Samaria’s troubled political and religious story.
Jesus’ disciple ‘Scarlet lady’ readings of the Samaritan woman deflect the reader’s attention from the true import of the story. The conversation with the woman at the well is the longest that Jesus holds with any individual in the gospels (so Craddock 1990: 243). He is the teacher, she the disciple. Jesus’ progressive self-revelation is met by progressive growth in insight and understanding, faith and commitment.
The reader is shown a woman whose responses to the remarkable events of that day indicate an energetic, truth-seeking, life-affirming woman. She is depicted neither as a woman of dubious morality nor of feigned piety. Her reactions to Jesus are as one would expect, in turn surprised that as a Jewish male he should deign to talk with her (v 9), and then excited by the prospect of the gift of a potion that replenishes itself as if by magic. She is sick of the daily grind of the walk out to the well to draw water (v 15).
Misunderstandings have to be cleared away. Jesus makes it clear that he is not talking about a self-replenishing water fountain but himself as the source of eternal life (v 14). He also wants the woman to know that he knows every detail of her life (vv 17,18), not the way a Nosy Parker has to know everything, or a condemning judge, but as one who is interested in and concerned about all the highs and lows of her life. He agonises with her in times of heartache and celebrates with her in times of joy. He comforts her in times of anguish and knows how much she is hurting. She has had to endure many trials in her life. Jesus’ profound knowledge of her life’s journey gives the woman cause for joy and excitement, not guilt and fear of punishment.
The encounter between the woman and Jesus is characterised by openness and honesty, concern and compassion. There is a refreshing candour about the exchange between the two. It is another meeting of two people ‘in whom there is no deceit’ (1:47). The disciples, on the other hand, are not so capable of saying what is on their hearts and minds (v 27), and the contrast is not to be missed.
The woman’s appreciation of Jesus progresses from Jew (v 9), to Sir (vv 11,15,19), prophet (v 19), Messiah (v 29), and finally, with her fellow Samaritans, saviour of the world (v 42).
In terms of its subject matter the conversation ranks amongst the most profound in the NT. According to the OT, God is the source of life-giving water (Jer 2:13; 17:13; Ezek 47:1-12; Ps 36:8,9), and the days are foreshadowed when God will reappear in the Jerusalem temple to pour out that life-giving water on all flesh (Zech 14:8). The prophet of the exile depicts God as a generous host, inviting and urging people to come to him to drink and live (Isa 55:1). The seer gives the reader a glimpse into heaven itself where the river of the water of life flows from the throne of God and gives abundant life forever (Rev 22:1,2). This biblical theme achieves full expression in the gospel of John. In yielding his life on the cross Jesus pours forth the water that will give life to the world (19:34; see also 2:7,9) wherever his sacrificial death is received by baptism (3:5) and in the thirst of faith (7:37-39). God, Jerusalem, and temple as sources of life culminate in Jesus himself. He is the promised Messiah of God; indeed Jesus is one with the great ‘I am’ of the Old Testament (v 26). In Jesus all God’s promises are fulfilled.
And the woman at the well is the one to whom Jesus chooses to reveal these remarkable truths. Jesus’ radical self-disclosure of his divine nature and public office places the woman of Sychar in a remarkably privileged position. In fact, in telling her story John tells the story of one who in the normal course of daily life hears and responds to God’s gracious invitation to the thirsty to come to him and drink (Isa 55:1,2), to come to his Son Jesus and believe and live (4:13-15; 7:37,38).
The bride of Christ The early chapters of John’s gospel are replete with marital imagery. At the wedding at Cana, Jesus is revealed as the true bridegroom who provides wine in abundance for the nuptial festivities (2:9,10). It is frequently argued (eg Cahill: 44-47; Beck: 42; Schneiders: 244) that the evangelist casts the Samaritan woman, and her community, in the role of Christ’s bride. In chapter 4 the newly revealed bridegroom, in the words of Schneiders, ‘comes to claim Samaria as an integral part of the New Israel, namely, the Christian community and specifically the Johannine community’ (244). The Jewish scholar Robert Alter was first to categorise the stories of men and women meeting at wells as conventional ‘type scenes’ (1981: 47-62). The connections between John 4 and the stories at Genesis 24:1-61, 29:1-14, and Exodus 2:15-22 are extensive. ‘The basic elements identified by Robert Alter are present here. A man traveling in a foreign land meets a woman at a well and is given water; the woman runs home to tell; the man is invited to stay; and the betrothal occurs’ (Beck: 72).
Further, the encounter of Jesus and the woman takes place at Jacob’s well, connecting it with the initial meeting between Jacob and Rachel. And like that ancient meeting it occurs at midday (Gen 29:7; Jn 4:6). Are such allusions far from our account? It is hard to deny, especially in light of what has preceded. John the Baptist has just portrayed himself as a matchmaking bestman:
Arguably Schneiders and Moore have erred in the opposite direction. Ruling out the literal reading of Jesus’ words, and the historicity of the account, they overlook for the moment John’s consistent use of deliberate ambiguity. So also here, the woman has a troubled marital story, and it provides a window into Samaria’s troubled political and religious story.
Jesus’ disciple ‘Scarlet lady’ readings of the Samaritan woman deflect the reader’s attention from the true import of the story. The conversation with the woman at the well is the longest that Jesus holds with any individual in the gospels (so Craddock 1990: 243). He is the teacher, she the disciple. Jesus’ progressive self-revelation is met by progressive growth in insight and understanding, faith and commitment.
If not public outcast, what then?
The story contains no clear indication (a) that the Samaritan woman has romantic designs on Jesus, or (b) that her past has been especially immoral or sordid. For all the reader knows, she could well be the victim of a series of tragic circumstances. Her husband may have died, leaving her under obligation to marry his brother, according to the law of levirate marriage (Dt 25:5-10). Maybe this man also died, and then three more brothers, until finally the last brother, thinking that marriage to the woman brought bad luck, agreed to live with her but refused to marry her. At all events, the woman gives no hint of being ashamed of her past. She doesn’t try to avoid her fellow Samaritans. After all she does go and invite them to come and see the man who has told her everything she has ever done. If her past was a public scandal, she was hardly likely to have been so eager to raise the topic once more in the market place.
The possibility has been widely canvassed that the story is to be read symbolically rather than literally. Like Nicodemus, the royal official, the man born blind, the beloved disciple, and Mary the Lord’s mother, she is a representative figure (Collins 1976). She represents the gentiles who come to faith in Jesus, the Samaritans in particular. Christ is the bridegroom; they the bride, the new Israel. Possibly the evangelist is at pains to honour the Samaritan component in the Johannine community. Given the evangelist’s penchant for working at two levels, the literal and the symbolical or metaphorical (temple, birth, living water, food, sight, washing) it is totally conceivable that the woman’s marital history is a vehicle used to carry her people’s national history. The woman constantly alternates between speaking of herself and her people, between first person singular and plural. The five husbands could well refer to the ancient tradition that Samaria was reputed to worship five gods, brought to the northern kingdom by five foreign cities following the Assyrian conquest of 722 BCE (2 Kgs 17:27-31); Josephus, Antiquities 9:288). The woman’s previous five husbands (Samaria’s five gods) represent Samaria’s past. Craig Koester tells us that ‘the issue of intermarriage continued to cloud relations between Jews and Samaritans in the first century’ (49). Koester goes on to explain:
Herod the Great continued the pattern of colonization that began under the Assyrians by settling thousands of foreigners in the Samaritan capital. The Samaritans lived alongside the foreigners but did not intermarry with them as extensively as before (my emphasis). The woman’s personal history of marriage to five husbands and cohabitation with a fifth parallels the colonial history of Samaria (49).
Samaria’s troubled political history has had a detrimental effect on its worship practices. Immediately after Jesus tells the woman, ‘The man you are living with is not your husband’, she responds with the words, ‘Sir, I see you are a prophet’, and asks him to give his opinion in relation to the standing dispute between Jews and Samaritans over Gerizim and Jerusalem (vv 19,20). Hendriksen says: ‘Here, as it seems probable to us, we see a woman who in her anxiety to drop a painful subject proposes a question about which she has heard much and in which she has developed a certain interest’ (166). Beasley-Murray says the woman ‘evades the issue’ of her sordid past (61). On the contrary, the woman speaks of Jesus as a prophet because he has just spoken as a prophet by declaring that she has no husband. He has employed the terminology of Hosea, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who denounce Israel for its apostasy by calling it harlotry, and its idolatry by calling it adultery (Hos 2:2, Jer 2:20. Ezek 16:23).
Far from trying to get Jesus to drop a hot topic, the woman has captured the drift of the conversation precisely by observing that Jesus must be a prophet. Francis Moloney may say, ‘there is no need to read the five husbands symbolically’ (127), but the woman quickly understands that Jesus is operating at two levels, the personal and the national.
Some critics go so far as to claim that the story is purely symbolic; it is not to be read as an historical incident at all (Schneiders; Moore). Schneiders points out that the synoptics rule out any ministry by Jesus in Samaria. Jesus instructed the twelve apostles to ‘go nowhere among the gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt 10:5,6; see also Lk 9:52,53). In fact, the Samaritan mission is a movement of the post-resurrection community; it is spearheaded by Philip following the stoning of Stephen and the first widespread persecution of the early church (Acts 8).
Stephen Moore claims (283) that an exclusively literal reading of the five husbands is to lapse into the very literalism, or crass materialism, that the woman gradually outgrows as the conversation with Jesus continues. To read Jesus’ words about the woman’s five husbands and her current partner literally, as a history of immorality, is to read as simplistically as she does at the start of her conversation with Jesus. She learns to think laterally, or at two levels. Those who construe Jesus’ words about her one-dimensionally thereby virtually place themselves among the men who throw stones at the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11).
Arguably Schneiders and Moore have erred in the opposite direction. Ruling out the literal reading of Jesus’ words, and the historicity of the account, they overlook for the moment John’s consistent use of deliberate ambiguity. So also here, the woman has a troubled marital story, and it provides a window into Samaria’s troubled political and religious story.
Jesus’ disciple ‘Scarlet lady’ readings of the Samaritan woman deflect the reader’s attention from the true import of the story. The conversation with the woman at the well is the longest that Jesus holds with any individual in the gospels (so Craddock 1990: 243). He is the teacher, she the disciple. Jesus’ progressive self-revelation is met by progressive growth in insight and understanding, faith and commitment.
The reader is shown a woman whose responses to the remarkable events of that day indicate an energetic, truth-seeking, life-affirming woman. She is depicted neither as a woman of dubious morality nor of feigned piety. Her reactions to Jesus are as one would expect, in turn surprised that as a Jewish male he should deign to talk with her (v 9), and then excited by the prospect of the gift of a potion that replenishes itself as if by magic. She is sick of the daily grind of the walk out to the well to draw water (v 15).
Misunderstandings have to be cleared away. Jesus makes it clear that he is not talking about a self-replenishing water fountain but himself as the source of eternal life (v 14). He also wants the woman to know that he knows every detail of her life (vv 17,18), not the way a Nosy Parker has to know everything, or a condemning judge, but as one who is interested in and concerned about all the highs and lows of her life. He agonises with her in times of heartache and celebrates with her in times of joy. He comforts her in times of anguish and knows how much she is hurting. She has had to endure many trials in her life. Jesus’ profound knowledge of her life’s journey gives the woman cause for joy and excitement, not guilt and fear of punishment.
The encounter between the woman and Jesus is characterised by openness and honesty, concern and compassion. There is a refreshing candour about the exchange between the two. It is another meeting of two people ‘in whom there is no deceit’ (1:47). The disciples, on the other hand, are not so capable of saying what is on their hearts and minds (v 27), and the contrast is not to be missed.
The woman’s appreciation of Jesus progresses from Jew (v 9), to Sir (vv 11,15,19), prophet (v 19), Messiah (v 29), and finally, with her fellow Samaritans, saviour of the world (v 42).
In terms of its subject matter the conversation ranks amongst the most profound in the NT. According to the OT, God is the source of life-giving water (Jer 2:13; 17:13; Ezek 47:1-12; Ps 36:8,9), and the days are foreshadowed when God will reappear in the Jerusalem temple to pour out that life-giving water on all flesh (Zech 14:8). The prophet of the exile depicts God as a generous host, inviting and urging people to come to him to drink and live (Isa 55:1). The seer gives the reader a glimpse into heaven itself where the river of the water of life flows from the throne of God and gives abundant life forever (Rev 22:1,2). This biblical theme achieves full expression in the gospel of John. In yielding his life on the cross Jesus pours forth the water that will give life to the world (19:34; see also 2:7,9) wherever his sacrificial death is received by baptism (3:5) and in the thirst of faith (7:37-39). God, Jerusalem, and temple as sources of life culminate in Jesus himself. He is the promised Messiah of God; indeed Jesus is one with the great ‘I am’ of the Old Testament (v 26). In Jesus all God’s promises are fulfilled.
And the woman at the well is the one to whom Jesus chooses to reveal these remarkable truths. Jesus’ radical self-disclosure of his divine nature and public office places the woman of Sychar in a remarkably privileged position. In fact, in telling her story John tells the story of one who in the normal course of daily life hears and responds to God’s gracious invitation to the thirsty to come to him and drink (Isa 55:1,2), to come to his Son Jesus and believe and live (4:13-15; 7:37,38).
The bride of Christ The early chapters of John’s gospel are replete with marital imagery. At the wedding at Cana, Jesus is revealed as the true bridegroom who provides wine in abundance for the nuptial festivities (2:9,10). It is frequently argued (eg Cahill: 44-47; Beck: 42; Schneiders: 244) that the evangelist casts the Samaritan woman, and her community, in the role of Christ’s bride. In chapter 4 the newly revealed bridegroom, in the words of Schneiders, ‘comes to claim Samaria as an integral part of the New Israel, namely, the Christian community and specifically the Johannine community’ (244). The Jewish scholar Robert Alter was first to categorise the stories of men and women meeting at wells as conventional ‘type scenes’ (1981: 47-62). The connections between John 4 and the stories at Genesis 24:1-61, 29:1-14, and Exodus 2:15-22 are extensive. ‘The basic elements identified by Robert Alter are present here. A man traveling in a foreign land meets a woman at a well and is given water; the woman runs home to tell; the man is invited to stay; and the betrothal occurs’ (Beck: 72).
Further, the encounter of Jesus and the woman takes place at Jacob’s well, connecting it with the initial meeting between Jacob and Rachel. And like that ancient meeting it occurs at midday (Gen 29:7; Jn 4:6). Are such allusions far from our account? It is hard to deny, especially in light of what has preceded. John the Baptist has just portrayed himself as a matchmaking bestman:
He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease (3:29,30).
One of the traditional images of the church is ‘the bride of Christ’ (Rev 21:2). The writer of John’s gospel seems to be hinting at an initial courtship scene taking place at the well outside the town of Sychar. The Baptist has joyfully stepped aside to allow the groom to claim his bride. The woman at the well is portrayed as having no husband. The text remains delightfully suggestive, tantalisingly open-ended. Given the themes associated with well-side meetings in the OT and the copious marital imagery in the early chapters of John, it is reasonable to conjecture that John is at least alluding to the figure of the bride of Christ in his portrait of the Samaritan woman. As a result, her position of status and privilege increases insurmountably.
The Samaritan woman is an exemplary evangelist
How does the woman respond to her encounter with Jesus? Jesus has revealed himself as omniscient (vv 17,18), as the source of the waters of eternal life (v 14), as the Messiah (v 26), as the Lord God incarnate (v 26), and as the one in whom and through whom God the Father is properly worshipped (vv 23,24). Now she is called by Jesus into service. Terminology reminiscent of the call of the twelve is employed. She leaves her water jar (v 28), just as Simon Peter and Andrew left their nets (Matt 4:20) and James and John left their father’s boat (4:22) to follow Jesus. Moloney puts a somewhat different spin on her departure from the well by saying, ‘The woman flees, leaving her water jar behind’ (130). Any notion of flight is absent from the text. Front and centre stands the woman’s instant response to Jesus’ call to discipleship.
How does she perform as a disciple? Instructed, she now bears witness. But she is not gullible. She is not taken in immediately, as spiritually thirsty as she undoubtedly is. Jesus has awakened deep longings within her, and in the hope that what he says is true she sets out to invite her fellow Samaritans to join her on the voyage of discovery.
The Samaritan woman makes a remarkable witness. She doesn’t threaten people with fire and brimstone if they don’t come to Jesus. She isn’t one of those over confident people who are so sure that they are right and everyone else is wrong. It is not as if she knows the truth about God, and no one else does. Nor does she go about promising eternal bliss and happiness. And her words hardly amount to the most profound confession of faith in the Bible. Her witness to Jesus is simply an invitation. ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ (v 29).
She is amazed about Jesus, not only for what he has revealed about his identity, but equally – possibly mostly – for his knowledge of her, his concern about her, his interest in her. He has aroused in her a sense of her thirst for God. Initially the encounter with Jesus is too good to be true; it is beyond the realm of possibility that she should have stumbled onto the path of the Messiah. ‘He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ she asks, hoping against hope that the long awaited day has arrived (v 29). The Samaritan expectation concerning the Messiah, that he would reveal everything that God commanded (Deut 18:18), may well be echoed in her words, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! (v 29; see also vv 25,39). If what she longs to believe about him is true she wants her fellow townspeople to share in the good news.
The woman’s excited invitation to the villagers of Sychar to join her spiritual quest is highly infectious. In terms of the enterprise of winning others for Christ, she virtually gets everything just right, and her townspeople respond en masse.
The Samaritan woman outranks the disciples
The evangelist structures the story of the Samaritan woman and chooses his words in such a way as to compare and contrast the twelve and the woman. The account is bracketed at the beginning with Jesus and his disciples making disciples by means of baptism (vv 1,2), and at the end with Jesus and his new found woman disciple making disciples by means of proclamation (vv 39-42). The twelve and the woman are placed in matching positions in the story, performing disciple-making tasks.
After the resurrection Jesus commissions his disciples to do the work of evangelism (20:19-23), conferring on them the power of the Spirit to forgive and retain sins. He sets in train a process of sending people out to invite others to come and see Jesus; that is come to Jesus, believe in Jesus, and live. The witness of John the Baptist leads some of his disciples to Jesus (1:29-37), and the circle of disciples rapidly grows as those who have seen and heard Jesus for themselves go and tell others the good news (1:40-49). The woman is called to play a major role in that vital process (4:16,29,39). As for word selection, John places the woman among the ranks of a vast array of witnesses, including the disciples, who testify that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world (4:39; 15:27).
The woman is shown performing the precise role that the disciples are commissioned to perform. In his high priestly prayer Jesus prays for ‘those who will believe in (him) through (the disciples’) word’ (17:20). However, the reader catches no glimpse of people coming to faith in Jesus through the word of the twelve disciples. On the other hand, John states explicitly that ‘many Samaritans from that city believed in him through the word (dia ton logon) of the woman who bore witness’ (v 39). Jesus has prayed that the Father would empower the disciples to proclaim the gospel in such a way that people, drawn from north, south, east and west, would be led to place their faith in Jesus. The story of the Samaritan woman provides the most outstanding example in John’s gospel of a person doing precisely that which the disciples are commissioned to do, and doing so with amazing results.
The twelve, on the other hand, are off stage for the major part of the story. They are preoccupied with their search for food (vv 8,31). They are astounded by Jesus and silently critical of him for speaking with a woman. They think his intentions are less than honourable (v 27). They do not hear Jesus’ words about living water and the proper locus of worship; so their instruction does not progress one iota. And when they are instructed, on the food that truly interests and satisfies Jesus (v 34), they proceed by way of total incomprehension (v 33) down the path to total silence. They fail to ask questions, to prod and push the way the woman does; they fail to give Jesus the opportunity to say more and reveal more of himself and his mission. Vast is the gulf between the woman and the twelve.
Jesus’ co-worker
Jesus employs the analogy of sowing and reaping a wheat harvest for the task of evangelism (vv 35-38; see also Matt 9:37,38). The disciples have been sent (apostellein) by Jesus to harvest a crop that they did not sow (v 38). It is others who perform the back-breaking toil of ploughing and sowing. The disciples are merely sent out to play their part in the process after all the hard work has been done. Their task is to harvest the ripe crop, to carry out what amounts to little more than a mopping up operation (v 38). The heavy work in the story is performed first and foremost by Jesus, and then by the woman.
Even though the technical term for commissioning evangelists, apostellein, is not used of the woman, Jesus does tell her to leave her water jar and go (v 16), and the story is told in such a way as to make it quite clear that it is her tilling and sowing, her proclaiming and inviting, her excitement about Jesus and her labour for the gospel, that lead to the rich harvest of Samaritan villagers. The woman stands with Jesus at the beginning of the process, toiling, ploughing, sowing; the disciples stand at the end, entering into the labour of others by reaping that for which they did not labour (v 38).
The verb kopian, ‘to toil’, refers to the toil of farm work and by extension to the toil of proclaiming the gospel (v 38). The word is ‘almost a technical term for missionary work in Paul’s letters’ (Pfitzner 1988: 96). Jesus and the Samaritan woman end up being engaged in the same enterprise. Early in the story Jesus is said to be weary (kekopiakos) because of his journey (v 6). Then the woman complains about the tiresomeness of her repeated trips to the well (v 15). Both Jesus and the woman are toilers. Both Jesus and the woman are travellers. Both Jesus and the woman are weary from their toil and their travel.
But the point and purpose of the toil and travel undertaken by Jesus and the woman is the proclamation of the gospel. John has structured the last verses of the account (vv 39-42) in such a way as to highlight the parallel between the word and witness of the woman that leads the Samaritans to faith (v 39), and the word of Jesus that leads still other Samaritans to faith (v 41) and confirms the faith of those already converted by the woman’s testimony (v 42). With breathtaking speed Jesus has drawn the Samaritan woman into a remarkably collaborative role alongside himself in the most important work that is done in the kingdom of God. The two are vigorously engaged in the same enterprise, doing all they can to lead people to place their faith in Jesus.
The process culminates in Jesus coming to take up residence in hearts and homes and communities. It is highly appropriate, then, that John should fasten together the preaching of the woman and the preaching of Jesus with a note about Jesus’ ready response to the Samaritans’ invitation to come and stay (menein) in their midst (v 40; see also 1:38,39).
Conclusion
It is frequently argued that the public ministry should be reserved for males because Jesus only called men to be his disciples. It is worth noting in John’s gospel how faintly the line of demarcation is drawn between the band of 12 and the wider circle called to follow Jesus. Jesus prayed for those who would come to faith through the word of the disciples (17:20), but there is only one person – the Samaritan woman – through whose word a specific group of people are actually said to come to faith (4:39). John appears to be intimating that the 12 and all who proclaim the name of Jesus and spread the gospel are co-extensive. There is no room for any kind of arbitrary distinction.
Similarly, the expression ‘his own’, which appears at first to signify the 12 disciples (13:1; 17:6-19), quickly broadens out to include all of Jesus’ sheep and lambs whom he knows most affectionately and calls by name (10:3,4,14; 20:16). In John the disciples are representative of all followers of Jesus, male and female, rather than a unique class of people. Just as the 12 disciples enjoy no status and privilege not shared by succeeding generations of disciples, so also their ranks are not closed by features such as race or gender. In fact, not only is the woman of our story depicted as an exemplary evangelist, she is also portrayed virtually as a figure of the bride of Christ, working alongside him, rolling up her sleeves, ploughing the field, scattering the seed, and eagerly anticipating a bountiful harvest.
No-one disputes that women were included among the wider circle of Jesus’ disciples. Mary sat at Jesus’ feet (Lk 10:39), the posture of a disciple, and in his account of the crucifixion Mark speaks about the women ‘looking on from a distance’ who ‘used to follow’ Jesus during his earthly ministry (15:40). A discipleship of women was unheard of previously and represents a remarkable elevation in their status. But the disciples of Jesus were never only disciples. Their tuition was preparation. Discipleship led to commissioning to bear witness (or evangelism), delightfully encapsulated in the story of the Samaritan woman. She was instructed in the word of God. In fact she was taught by the Word of God himself. And then she was sent to bear witness to that word of life. At the same time, Jesus’ disciples always remained disciples their whole life long. Those whom Jesus taught he also sent, and their training continued after their sending. The discipling task was never finished; but it was always purposeful, goal oriented. The Lord issued no mandate for the ordination of women. But women were involved in the first rank of service to Jesus at the time of his earthly ministry. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that no lesser role should be open to them today.
Works consulted
The Samaritan woman is an exemplary evangelist
How does the woman respond to her encounter with Jesus? Jesus has revealed himself as omniscient (vv 17,18), as the source of the waters of eternal life (v 14), as the Messiah (v 26), as the Lord God incarnate (v 26), and as the one in whom and through whom God the Father is properly worshipped (vv 23,24). Now she is called by Jesus into service. Terminology reminiscent of the call of the twelve is employed. She leaves her water jar (v 28), just as Simon Peter and Andrew left their nets (Matt 4:20) and James and John left their father’s boat (4:22) to follow Jesus. Moloney puts a somewhat different spin on her departure from the well by saying, ‘The woman flees, leaving her water jar behind’ (130). Any notion of flight is absent from the text. Front and centre stands the woman’s instant response to Jesus’ call to discipleship.
How does she perform as a disciple? Instructed, she now bears witness. But she is not gullible. She is not taken in immediately, as spiritually thirsty as she undoubtedly is. Jesus has awakened deep longings within her, and in the hope that what he says is true she sets out to invite her fellow Samaritans to join her on the voyage of discovery.
The Samaritan woman makes a remarkable witness. She doesn’t threaten people with fire and brimstone if they don’t come to Jesus. She isn’t one of those over confident people who are so sure that they are right and everyone else is wrong. It is not as if she knows the truth about God, and no one else does. Nor does she go about promising eternal bliss and happiness. And her words hardly amount to the most profound confession of faith in the Bible. Her witness to Jesus is simply an invitation. ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ (v 29).
She is amazed about Jesus, not only for what he has revealed about his identity, but equally – possibly mostly – for his knowledge of her, his concern about her, his interest in her. He has aroused in her a sense of her thirst for God. Initially the encounter with Jesus is too good to be true; it is beyond the realm of possibility that she should have stumbled onto the path of the Messiah. ‘He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ she asks, hoping against hope that the long awaited day has arrived (v 29). The Samaritan expectation concerning the Messiah, that he would reveal everything that God commanded (Deut 18:18), may well be echoed in her words, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! (v 29; see also vv 25,39). If what she longs to believe about him is true she wants her fellow townspeople to share in the good news.
The woman’s excited invitation to the villagers of Sychar to join her spiritual quest is highly infectious. In terms of the enterprise of winning others for Christ, she virtually gets everything just right, and her townspeople respond en masse.
The Samaritan woman outranks the disciples
The evangelist structures the story of the Samaritan woman and chooses his words in such a way as to compare and contrast the twelve and the woman. The account is bracketed at the beginning with Jesus and his disciples making disciples by means of baptism (vv 1,2), and at the end with Jesus and his new found woman disciple making disciples by means of proclamation (vv 39-42). The twelve and the woman are placed in matching positions in the story, performing disciple-making tasks.
After the resurrection Jesus commissions his disciples to do the work of evangelism (20:19-23), conferring on them the power of the Spirit to forgive and retain sins. He sets in train a process of sending people out to invite others to come and see Jesus; that is come to Jesus, believe in Jesus, and live. The witness of John the Baptist leads some of his disciples to Jesus (1:29-37), and the circle of disciples rapidly grows as those who have seen and heard Jesus for themselves go and tell others the good news (1:40-49). The woman is called to play a major role in that vital process (4:16,29,39). As for word selection, John places the woman among the ranks of a vast array of witnesses, including the disciples, who testify that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world (4:39; 15:27).
The woman is shown performing the precise role that the disciples are commissioned to perform. In his high priestly prayer Jesus prays for ‘those who will believe in (him) through (the disciples’) word’ (17:20). However, the reader catches no glimpse of people coming to faith in Jesus through the word of the twelve disciples. On the other hand, John states explicitly that ‘many Samaritans from that city believed in him through the word (dia ton logon) of the woman who bore witness’ (v 39). Jesus has prayed that the Father would empower the disciples to proclaim the gospel in such a way that people, drawn from north, south, east and west, would be led to place their faith in Jesus. The story of the Samaritan woman provides the most outstanding example in John’s gospel of a person doing precisely that which the disciples are commissioned to do, and doing so with amazing results.
The twelve, on the other hand, are off stage for the major part of the story. They are preoccupied with their search for food (vv 8,31). They are astounded by Jesus and silently critical of him for speaking with a woman. They think his intentions are less than honourable (v 27). They do not hear Jesus’ words about living water and the proper locus of worship; so their instruction does not progress one iota. And when they are instructed, on the food that truly interests and satisfies Jesus (v 34), they proceed by way of total incomprehension (v 33) down the path to total silence. They fail to ask questions, to prod and push the way the woman does; they fail to give Jesus the opportunity to say more and reveal more of himself and his mission. Vast is the gulf between the woman and the twelve.
Jesus’ co-worker
Jesus employs the analogy of sowing and reaping a wheat harvest for the task of evangelism (vv 35-38; see also Matt 9:37,38). The disciples have been sent (apostellein) by Jesus to harvest a crop that they did not sow (v 38). It is others who perform the back-breaking toil of ploughing and sowing. The disciples are merely sent out to play their part in the process after all the hard work has been done. Their task is to harvest the ripe crop, to carry out what amounts to little more than a mopping up operation (v 38). The heavy work in the story is performed first and foremost by Jesus, and then by the woman.
Even though the technical term for commissioning evangelists, apostellein, is not used of the woman, Jesus does tell her to leave her water jar and go (v 16), and the story is told in such a way as to make it quite clear that it is her tilling and sowing, her proclaiming and inviting, her excitement about Jesus and her labour for the gospel, that lead to the rich harvest of Samaritan villagers. The woman stands with Jesus at the beginning of the process, toiling, ploughing, sowing; the disciples stand at the end, entering into the labour of others by reaping that for which they did not labour (v 38).
The verb kopian, ‘to toil’, refers to the toil of farm work and by extension to the toil of proclaiming the gospel (v 38). The word is ‘almost a technical term for missionary work in Paul’s letters’ (Pfitzner 1988: 96). Jesus and the Samaritan woman end up being engaged in the same enterprise. Early in the story Jesus is said to be weary (kekopiakos) because of his journey (v 6). Then the woman complains about the tiresomeness of her repeated trips to the well (v 15). Both Jesus and the woman are toilers. Both Jesus and the woman are travellers. Both Jesus and the woman are weary from their toil and their travel.
But the point and purpose of the toil and travel undertaken by Jesus and the woman is the proclamation of the gospel. John has structured the last verses of the account (vv 39-42) in such a way as to highlight the parallel between the word and witness of the woman that leads the Samaritans to faith (v 39), and the word of Jesus that leads still other Samaritans to faith (v 41) and confirms the faith of those already converted by the woman’s testimony (v 42). With breathtaking speed Jesus has drawn the Samaritan woman into a remarkably collaborative role alongside himself in the most important work that is done in the kingdom of God. The two are vigorously engaged in the same enterprise, doing all they can to lead people to place their faith in Jesus.
The process culminates in Jesus coming to take up residence in hearts and homes and communities. It is highly appropriate, then, that John should fasten together the preaching of the woman and the preaching of Jesus with a note about Jesus’ ready response to the Samaritans’ invitation to come and stay (menein) in their midst (v 40; see also 1:38,39).
Conclusion
It is frequently argued that the public ministry should be reserved for males because Jesus only called men to be his disciples. It is worth noting in John’s gospel how faintly the line of demarcation is drawn between the band of 12 and the wider circle called to follow Jesus. Jesus prayed for those who would come to faith through the word of the disciples (17:20), but there is only one person – the Samaritan woman – through whose word a specific group of people are actually said to come to faith (4:39). John appears to be intimating that the 12 and all who proclaim the name of Jesus and spread the gospel are co-extensive. There is no room for any kind of arbitrary distinction.
Similarly, the expression ‘his own’, which appears at first to signify the 12 disciples (13:1; 17:6-19), quickly broadens out to include all of Jesus’ sheep and lambs whom he knows most affectionately and calls by name (10:3,4,14; 20:16). In John the disciples are representative of all followers of Jesus, male and female, rather than a unique class of people. Just as the 12 disciples enjoy no status and privilege not shared by succeeding generations of disciples, so also their ranks are not closed by features such as race or gender. In fact, not only is the woman of our story depicted as an exemplary evangelist, she is also portrayed virtually as a figure of the bride of Christ, working alongside him, rolling up her sleeves, ploughing the field, scattering the seed, and eagerly anticipating a bountiful harvest.
No-one disputes that women were included among the wider circle of Jesus’ disciples. Mary sat at Jesus’ feet (Lk 10:39), the posture of a disciple, and in his account of the crucifixion Mark speaks about the women ‘looking on from a distance’ who ‘used to follow’ Jesus during his earthly ministry (15:40). A discipleship of women was unheard of previously and represents a remarkable elevation in their status. But the disciples of Jesus were never only disciples. Their tuition was preparation. Discipleship led to commissioning to bear witness (or evangelism), delightfully encapsulated in the story of the Samaritan woman. She was instructed in the word of God. In fact she was taught by the Word of God himself. And then she was sent to bear witness to that word of life. At the same time, Jesus’ disciples always remained disciples their whole life long. Those whom Jesus taught he also sent, and their training continued after their sending. The discipling task was never finished; but it was always purposeful, goal oriented. The Lord issued no mandate for the ordination of women. But women were involved in the first rank of service to Jesus at the time of his earthly ministry. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that no lesser role should be open to them today.
Works consulted
- Alter, Robert 1985 - The art of biblical narrative, New York, Basic Books.
- Barrett, C K 1955 - The gospel according to St John, London, SPCK.
- Beasley-Murray, George R 1987 - John, Word biblical commentary 36, Waco TX, Word Books.
- Beck, David R 1997 - The discipleship paradigm: readers and anonymous characters in the fourth gospel, New York, Brill.
- Brown, Raymond E 1975 - ‘Roles of women in the fourth gospel’, Theological Studies 36, 688-99.
- 1966 and 1970 - The gospel according to John, 2 vols, Anchor Bible, New York, Doubleday.
- Cahill, P Joseph 1982 - ‘Narrative art in John IV’, Religious studies bulletin 2 (April) 44-47.
- Collins, Raymond F 1976 - ‘The representative figures in the fourth gospel’, Downside Review 94 (January) 26-46 and (April) 118-132.
- Craddock, Fred B 1990 - ‘The witness at the well’, Evangelical Times (March) 243.
- Duke, P D 1985 - Irony in the fourth gospel, Atlanta.
- Hendriksen, William 1954 - The gospel of John, New Testament Commentary, Edinburgh, Banner of Truth.
- Koester, Craig R 1995 - Symbolism in the fourth gospel: meaning, mystery, community, Minneapolis, Fortress.
- Kysar, Robert 1986 - John, Augsburg commentary on the New Testament, Minneapolis MN, Augsburg.
- Moloney, Francis J 1998 - The gospel of John, Sacra Pagina series 4, Collegeville MN, The Liturgical Press.
- Moore, Stephen D 1996 - ‘Are there impurities in the living water that the Johannine Jesus dispenses? Deconstruction, feminism, and the Samaritan woman’, in John Ashton, ed, The interpretation of John, Edinburgh, T and T Clark, 279-299
- Morris, Leon 1995 - The gospel according to John, revised edition, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans.
- Pfitzner, V C 1980 - The gospel according to St John, Chi Rho Commentary, Adelaide, LPH.
- Schnackenburg, Rudolf 1980 - The gospel according to St John, volume 1, London, Burns and Oates.
- Schneiders, Sandra M 1997 - ‘A case study: a feminist interpretation of John 4:1-42′ (1991), in John Ashton, ed, The Interpretation of John, Edinburgh, T and T Clark, 235-59.
- Tasker, R V G 1995 - John, Tyndale New Testament commentaries, Leicester, IVP.
- Zahn, Theodor 1921 - Das evangelium des Johannes ausgelegt, Leipzig.
Prof Peter Lockwood, April 1999
Peter is a lecturer at Luther Seminary (now Australian Lutheran College),
North Adelaide, South Australia
Peter is a lecturer at Luther Seminary (now Australian Lutheran College),
North Adelaide, South Australia
