Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Happy Pi Day!

John 4:11-19

The Woman of Samaria

Here we go.

THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA

No bucket. Just a two-bit wise man about make up some clever metaphor. Or about to do some oh-so-clever trick to outwit the Samarian bumpkin. I disliked being played around with under any circumstances - I had had enough of that in my life, and it was one of the few things I still appreciated about my current man, for lack of a better word. But the real thing that got me going was that it felt like a betrayal, because of the way he looked at me. That feeling, that finally-seen feeling, had been just another tool in a petty confidence man's belt.

"Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this 'living water'? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and livestock."

Let him take the last as he would. If this Jewish man thought us all fools, thought me an ignorant woman who did not know even her own town's history, then he had sadly misjudged me. But it was still crueler that he had made me misjudge him.

I felt a bit like crying, but I let it fuel my anger. I almost glared back at him, so I saw this his eyes still met mine, dead serious. Accepting my anger, my scorn, and above all my presence. It felt wonderful, wonderful to stand before him, defiant. Demanding better treatment. Perhaps I could only do it because he was a stranger. I had been worn down fighting the town to give me the same respect.

"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I will give them will never thirst."

I nearly started back. It was as if he had heard me. Had heard my thoughts. How thirsty I had been for everything but stale, stagnant, tepid water.

"Indeed, the water that I will give them will become a spring in them welling up to eternal life."

He didn't mean water. He had known my thoughts. I was certain of it, although I had no idea how it was possible. Had God forgiven me then? Had God sent this man here today to give me strength? To give me not only a drink of human kindness but to fill me with his love? Love, not the grasping, fading, dying kind I had known for so long. Not the love of community that I had been denied. Just love. Just because.

"Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water." So I would never have to face hate and rejection again.

He looked me steadily in the eye, his jaw set, and I felt as if I could not move an eyelash.

"Go, call your husband and come back."

I blinked. He was no prophet. Not even a very good trickster, not to notice the town whore she she stood before him. He had never looked into my soul.