Day 11: John 4:1-42

This interaction between Jesus and the Samaritan woman has always been presented as Jesus reaching out to this sinful woman who has been divorced five different times and is living in sin with another man. And yet Jesus still loves on her. But there were certain things about this interaction when viewed through the lens of the sinful woman narrative that never added up to me. First off, a woman in that culture had very few rights. The idea that she would have been able to divorce five different men does not fit with the culture of that time. A wife was almost viewed as the property of her husband during that time, so she would not have been able to divorce her husbands. Also, if she would have cheated on five different husbands, they would not have divorced her, according to the laws and customs the punishment for adultery was death, not divorce. Jesus' response to her is also at odds with how he responds to every other person he comes in contact with that is living in sin. It’s seems to me to be very condemning in verses 17-18. And we don’t see that anywhere else in the Gospels. She was also someone who knew Scripture. She talked about the coming Messiah, and whether it was right to worship there in Samaria or if they should have to go to Jerusalem. She was not just some unlearned heathen.

So let me present a different view of this interaction. My theory is that this woman had not been divorced five times, she had been widowed five times. Five different times she had married, and all five of her husbands had died. So no, she didn’t want to get married again, I’m sure she would have been so afraid that something else would happen. And no, she didn’t want to go to the well at the same time as all the other women in the village, because she was so tired of the questions and the looks of pity. She kept to herself because her pain was so great that she didn’t know how to interact with other people anymore. And Jesus looks at her and says, “I know.” 

He knows your hurt. He knows your pain. He sees the wounds that you have been trying to hide from everyone else. And he showed up at the well, in Samaria, at noon, when he knew that hurting woman was going to be there to give her a drink from the living water. He still shows up.