The Woman at the Well

by Steve Houghton, lay preacher

​Lord we ask you to open our minds and open our  hearts to recognize your message in what we hear  and share. Amen 
​
Good Morning. Please be seated 

If you were raising children or if you were a child in  the 1980’s you might remember a Jim Henson  muppet television show called Fraggle Rock. I will confess that it was one of my favorite television  shows and I could be found watching it in rapt  attention even if the kids were not in the room. 

One of the characters of Fraggle Rock was Marjorie  the Trash Heap. Marjorie was in fact a sentient  trash heap who had great wisdom. Whenever the  Fraggles found themselves in need of words of  wisdom they headed off to Marjorie in spite of the  danger from the Groggs who farmed the land where  she was located. A trash heap with great wisdom.  An interesting image to hold in mind. Not  everything is as it might appear. 

So what the heck does Marjorie have to do with the  woman at the well? One of the things I do when I  am reading scripture and I reach a place where  there is an important character without a name is to  give the character a name to allow me to  personalize the message God might be trying to  send me. Sometimes there are several unnamed  characters so naming them gives me an opportunity  to better identify the actions and attributes of the  people in the story. 

So I am going to name the woman at the well  Marjorie. I hope you will understand why I chose that name by the time I finish. Bear with me. 

One other side track I’d like to take as I begin is to  call your attention to astronomy. If you have done  any star gazing you will know that when looking for the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, or Subaru depending  on how you recognize the star cluster, you can best  see them with the naked eye by gazing to the side  of the location of the cluster. When you do that the  cluster becomes clear and the individual stars stand  out. It’s a neat trick and one I have found helpful on  many occasions for various reasons. 

Okay, back to a more obvious treatment of this morning’s gospel. We most often hear of Marjorie being disparaged as being a sex worker or at the  very least a woman of loose morals. Five husbands  and the current one is not her husband. Dr. Lucy  Peppiat, theologian and pastor in England, has a  different view of who Marjorie was. In Marjorie’s  day, women could not get a divorce, only men could  ask for and be granted a divorce. So it is not  unreasonable to conclude that Marjorie could have  originally been married first to a less than honorable  man who decided that he could find better else  where in town and divorced her. If this happened  more than once the next man to marry Marjorie  would likely be lower on the social ladder. By the time she was heading into her fourth and fifth marriage she would be pretty well marked as too  old, barren or just not fit for marriage. Her sixth  benefactor likely didn’t marry her but just took her  on as a concubine with no rights and certainly no  standing. That would certainly be consistent with  Jesus’ assessment that she had been married five  times and was now living with a man who was not  her husband. 

Marjorie’s social standing was further marked by the  fact that she was coming to the well at mid-day, the  hottest part of the day, and a time when only she  was likely to be at the well. At this time of day she would not have to endure the stares and comments of the other women of town who went out for water  early, in the cool of the day. The half mile walk  between the village and the well carrying a jug of  water in the heat of the day was not a trek most  people would undertake willingly. 

I think it is fair to say that Marjorie was toughened  by the experiences of her life. Her early  conversation with Jesus shows this. Marjorie sees  Jesus at the well as she approaches but expects he  will not bother with her because she is only a  woman. Hoping he will just ignore her she reaches  the well. “Give me a drink of water” Jesus seemingly orders. At his words and his accent, Marjorie recognizes he is not from the area and is a  Jew. Now the chip on her shoulder grows a little  larger and she responds “How is it that you, a Jew,  ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” Pretty  defiant for a woman who has no husband. 

Jesus then lets Marjorie know that if she knew who  she was talking to he would give her living water. I  am sure Marjorie looked around the well and seeing  no other water source asks Jesus what the heck he  is talking about since he has nothing to draw water with, the well is very deep and is he claiming to be  greater than Jacob who discovered and passed down this well. Jesus replies that the water he has to offer will quench her thirst forever. I am sure that  Marjorie made a cynical face and said in essence,  well give me that water so I don’t have to come  back here. See all this time Marjorie is looking at  Jesus straight on and can’t see God’s light shining  faintly from him. 

Jesus now goes on with his ability to see her past  life. Marjorie is surprised but at that time, in that  region, there were many who claimed to be  prophets and would use tricks of pretending to  know people’s past in order to secure credibility.  She fires back a religious challenge that goes to the root of one of the sore spots between the Jewish tradition and the Samaritan tradition; that the  Jewish tradition believes a person must worship at  the temple in Jerusalem whereas the Samaritan  tradition believes the place to worship is in Samaria.  When Jesus responds with a foretelling of the role  of the Messiah, Marjorie begins to look at him  slightly to the side so that she begins to see God’s  light shining from him. You see at this point she  understands that not only is Jesus a Jew who would  normally look down on her as a Samaritan but he  understands that she is low in the eyes of even the  Samaritans and still he is willing to engage with her  on even footing. Now her wisdom begins to step forward and she asks if Jesus is in fact the Messiah  to which he replies that he is. 

The disciples arrive back at this point and engage  with Jesus but Marjorie drops her water jug and  heads back to town where she describes her  encounter with him. Now I think the text implies  that folks gave credence to her report because of  the prophecy of her life but I am not so sure. I think  that the townsfolk see Marjorie, who normally will  not engage with anyone, now is running through the  town engaging with everyone to tell them her  discovery. There has to be something to what she says to have caused such an incredible change in  her. She has confidence and is engaging with  people who could and in the past would criticize  and demean her. They rush out to the well to see for  themselves and invite Jesus to stay with them for  awhile. You see it is not the prophecy that  convinces folk but the change in Marjorie that  brings them to believe that it is possible that the  Messiah is waiting at Jacob’s well. 

I think it is the same with us. If we look dead on in  our encounters with God, with Jesus, with faith, we  can miss the light of God shining through the  encounter. But if we trust and look a little to side that light might become visible to us. 

About seven years ago when we first started  Emmaus Companions, Charlie and I made the  acquaintance of black woman who was living quite  literally in the streets of Greenfield. We became  friends with Maria but at first she was reluctant to  engage with us. Most people passed her by and  muttered unkind comments in her direction. It was  easy to see her as other being both a woman of  color and usually dressed in clean but outlandish  clothing. She also did not think very much of  herself. When Charlie and I continued to greet her  and engage with her she finally let down her guard and we became friends looking forward to each meeting. They were warm and caring encounters  that said without words, you are important and I  care about you. Maria was like Marjorie in that she  had built up an armor to ward people off if they  came too close in order to protect herself. When  Charlie and I reached out to her no matter how little  she thought of herself Maria could accept that she  had value in the world. She let down that armor  when we showed that we loved her. I suspect that  Jesus gave Marjorie love in the same way as he was  offering her eternal water. Quite amazing what  changes we can effect when we care for others. 

I believe we have to use our sidelong vision when  we encounter one another. We have to seek God’s  light shining out of even the most prickly individuals  we meet. Lent is a good time to practice this and  get good at looking for God’s light everywhere and  in everybody. You just don’t know when one of  God’s messengers might cross your path and offer  a chance to spread good news, hope and love to  this crazy world. 
Amen 

---