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Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." The woman answered and said, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You have well said, 'I have no husband,' for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly." The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When He comes, He will tell us all things." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He."
- John 4:16-26
Yesterday, we read that when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples), He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. But He needed to go through Samaria. So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give Me a drink." For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." The woman said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?" Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life." The woman said to Him, "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw."
Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." The woman answered and said, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You have well said, 'I have no husband,' for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly." The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet." The woman believes Jesus is a prophet, as He sees into her life. She's had several husbands, and at this point is living with a man to whom she isn't married. My study bible says that the Samaritans accepted no prophets after Moses, but awaited the Prophet -- the expected Messiah whom Moses foretold (Deuteronomy 18:15-18). God is the "knower-of-hearts" (see Acts 1:24, 15:8; also Psalm 17:3, 44:21). This quality of Christ, already on display earlier in John's Gospel (1:48, 2:24-25), underscores His divine nature.
"Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship." The historical dispute between the Samaritans and the Jews focused on the proper place of the temple -- where worship was to take place. The Samaritans' temple on Mt. Gerizim had been destroyed by the Jews in the 2nd century BC.
Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." Jesus settles this dispute by focusing on the true manner in which people must worship, and turns her attention to the true nature of God. The is worshiped in spirit -- in the Holy Spirit, and in truth -- in Christ Himself and according to His revelation. By teaching that God is Spirit, Jesus confirms, in fact, that God cannot be confined to any particular location. My study bible says, "Those who receive the Holy Spirit and believe in Jesus Christ can worship God the Father with purity of heart." To teach that salvation is of the Jews affirms the context and lineage of Jewish spiritual heritage. My study bible quotes St. Athanasius: "The commonwealth of Israel was the school of the knowledge of God for all the nations." What is happening here is that Jesus is testifying that the Messiah, as prophesied among the Jews, has risen from among the Jews. The gift of salvation is for the world, but it has come to all nations from within Judaism. The hour that is coming refers in John's Gospel to the death and Resurrection of Christ, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This inaugurates the worship of the new covenant.
The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When He comes, He will tell us all things." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He." In the Greek, Jesus says, "I AM [ego eimi], who speak to you." This is the I AM of the Old Testament, the name of the Lord, the One who is (see Exodus 3:14). It is the divine Name of God. My study bible says that its use here indicates a theophany, a revelation of God Himself. The use of this Name, it says, by a "mere man" was considered blasphemy and also punishable by death (see John 8:58, Mark 14:62). In Jesus' divinity, the use of this Name reveals unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit; Christ is God Incarnate.
We may remark to ourselves that it is as "remarkable" as anything else in this text that Jesus reveals Himself as Christ to this Samaritan woman! She's a woman, in the first place. She's not Jewish in the second (but from among the traditional and despised enemies of the Jews). And she's not a very "holy" woman either, having had many husbands and now living with another who's not her husband! What's going on here? (In our following reading, the disciples will be too dumbstruck to even ask.) This example in itself is a teaching about salvation coming to the whole world, all the nations, and also about the One who is the heart-knower. "Heart-knower" is the word used in the Greek, kardiognostes. It's a good word to know. As we will see in tomorrow's reading, she will bring others to Christ. (She will also become a saint and martyr of the Church by tradition.) But the revelation here should be astounding for all of us. Every barrier is broken by Christ, and in it is a picture of liberation. That is, true liberation, via spirit and truth, for all of us. The One who sees into the heart, who knows everything about us, is not bound by time, either. He sees into our potentials and our future. In the Old Testament, the Lord tells Samuel, as he's searching for the one who will be made king: "Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7). That's a refusal based on the heart; in today's reading, Jesus' revelation of Himself to this woman is an emphatic bestowal of grace, an opening. Earlier we've been told that although many believed in His name at the Passover festival, having seen His signs, He did not commit Himself to any of them. Here, He "commits" -- He entrusts His identity to this woman, far away from the misunderstanding and strife that will happen later in Jerusalem. The importance of the heart really can't be overestimated. In Scripture, the heart means the center of our being, the real place of all that we are. It holds everything about us, and therein the Lord can read us like a book, knowing who we truly are and all that is within us. It is also the basic place where we truly worship and pray, with the "mind in the heart" as the Orthodox say. It's the place where we wrestle and struggle with God, with our own failings in the sight of God, with our reconciliation to God, to others, to ourselves. All this goes to say that as we worship in spirit and in truth, so the heart is the place of the mediation of God for all that we do and choose to be. It may be strange to consider, but in this way the heart becomes the location not only for what and how we think and feel and believe, but also for the relatedness we have to the world, and to the Kingdom, including the whole host of the communion of saints, the "great cloud of witnesses," as St. Paul will put it. The revelation Jesus gives to the woman at the well teaches even more deeply than all the Scripture before it that God is truly with us at all times, the One by our side when called, the knower-of-hearts, who may help us through all things in so many ways. Let us consider what it is to have a heart hardened to all of that, to be blinded to the reality of this Presence, to live as if there is no God who sees. Let us consider what grace is and does in us and for us, and all the ways in which we may be missing out on what is offered.
