i“I was once very pretty,” she said. Her eyes, white with cataracts, gazed unseeing at her guest. “It was nearly my undoing. You see, men liked me. I was pretty and learned young that I could get what I wanted by acting pretty.”
She sipped water from a bowl on the table beside her. Dipping her finger into the bowl and touching it to her lips, she smiled.
“Water; it was water that saved me.” She smiled, and shook her head. “No, not water, it was Him.” She paused, sipped again. “Have I told you the story?” she asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, said, “Yes, it was him, a man; A man like no other.” Her face softened as she remembered. She roused herself, then, forming into words, the images of memory.
“It was hot at noon. I hated being out in the heat of the day. By the time I walked down the hill, fetched the water, and climbed back to the top again I was exhausted. The sun seemed to suck the energy from me. My neck and shoulders shook like a leaf in a winter wind from the weight of the water jar on my head.” She sat straighter, seeming to gather strength in the memory, holding her head high as if balancing the heavy weight once again.
“It was a hot noon sun, so much like so many before and like so many I knew would be my future. It was hot, but I preferred the heat to the other women’s stares and smirks. They gathered in the cool of the day chatting as they walked down the hill. They gossiped at the well as each filled her jar in turn from the deep well. I envied them their camaraderie. I longed for the voice of a woman, someone to talk to, someone who understood. But I needed a man more. So I bore the heat of the day, avoiding their stares, knowing I was the subject of much of their contempt and ugly words. Their disdain was heavier than the weight of the water jar. Women need other women, you know.” She paused, waiting her visitor’s response.
“that day was like any other day. Heat and the knife-edged stares in my back as I left the city gate. A woman gathered her skirts around her and pulled her children against her I walked and straight and proud. ‘At least,’ I thought, ‘I can make them cringe to avoid me.’ Sun burned from above and reflected from the hard packed dirt of the path.”
“Grass, withered and dried a month ago, crumbled to dust as I stepped from the path to avoid a single file of twelve men. Jews. They pushed past me, unseeing, or pretending not to see. Their glances, though, told me they had seen. I stood, waiting for them to pass, playing the coquette, knowing I could make them look at me. It was an automatic game, something I’d done since childhood, catching the eye of a man, making him pay attention to me. These men were no different though they were Jews. Their clothing betrayed them, their attitude betrayed them. They were passing through Samaria, no doubt, on their way north or south, taking the shortest route from Jerusalem to Galilee. They risked pollution at our hands, but sometimes did it for expediency’s sake. I spat on the shadow of the last in the row. This one lagged behind and I heard the clink of a money bag beneath his robe. He turned and glared at me. I smiled and watched the hatred melt into something else.”
She coughed, a hollow sound, from deep in her chest. It wracked her body, seeming to absorb every energy of her being. It took minutes for her to regain her breath. When she resumed, there was a raspy edge in her voice.
“The heat and silence pressed in on me as I walked the last few yards to the well. Jacob’s well; deep and cold and ancient. The only joy of the daily trip was the cold of the water on my face and neck and arms. I always dipped a little of the water and spread it to cool me on my return trip. He startled me. I had not noticed him as I approached the well.”
“’May I have a drink of water when you’ve drawn it?’ He asked.”
“Turning to him, I saw he too was a Jew. Strange. A Jew does not ask anything of a Samaritan. They will buy, but not ask. It seems the ultimate insult. But he asked.”
“In my surprise, I asked him why he asked of me, a Samaritan. He replied in a riddle. I thought he was playing a game with me. He said if I knew who he was and what the gift of God was, that I would have asked him for water. I was confused. He had no jug or jar and the well is deep. I told him so. Just in case he thought I was an ignorant Samaritan woman, I tossed in the history of the well. ‘Are you greater than our father, Jacob?’ I asked him, putting just a bit of an edge in my voice to keep it interesting.”
“Again, he answered in a riddle. ‘Whoever drinks this water,’ he said, pointing to my jar, ‘will thirst again, but whoever drinks the water I will give him will never thirst again.’”
“I will say this was a temptation to me. Not ever having to climb down and back up that hill made me dream. Sort of one of those dreams you dream about discovering a treasure buried in a cave or field, you know?”
Her voice became stronger, seeming to gain energy from the very telling of the tale. She held the bowl in her hands, almost an offering. Concentric circles formed on its surface from the tremors of her aged hands.
“I said, ‘Give me this water so I don’t have to come here to draw water every day.’ I tell you, he was drawing me in. I thought maybe he was one of those traveling magicians you hear about sometimes. I wondered what the price of his magic would be. I knew I couldn’t afford it.”
“He changed subjects, just as I thought I might capture this eternal water. ‘Go call your husband,’ he said.”
“This put me back on familiar ground. I parried his question. ‘I have no husband.’ I smiled that smile and looked him right in the eye. I waited for the subtle flicker of eyelid, the widening of the pupil of his eyes that signaled that he understood. Then, for the first time, I felt his eyes. I realized he had not looked at me as other men did, he did not appraise me, did not look me up and down. His eyes had always been on my face, seeming to search my face, seeking my soul. When I said that, playing the game, his eyes seemed to break through into my soul. It felt as if a wave of pure water was sweeping through my heart.”
“Then he told me my history. ‘It is true you have no husband, you have had five and the one you now have is not your husband.’ I was astonished. But, I knew how to deal with this, too. I tried to engage him in theological discussion and flattery.”
“‘You must be a prophet,’ I said. And said something about where we were to worship this would distract any Jew, I thought. They’re always so certain in their arrogance. He’ll spend the next hour defending the correctness of the Jews. It would be an entertaining hour, a distraction from the heat and from household duties.”
She sipped from the bowl,
“But he didn’t take the bait. His words fell into my heart like pebbles cast in Jacob’s well. ‘Worship in spirit and truth’ he said. Somehow, though the words were a puzzle, my heart understood. Some long-ago memory stirred in me. ‘The Messiah is to come and tell us all things, someday,’ I said.”
“’I who speak to you, am He.’ He said.”
“I knew. An irresistible excitement welled up in me. I knew the water of life he was talking about. I felt it rise, bubbling and living within me. It filled my heart and I knew it overflowed into everlasting life. Without a word I turned and ran up the hill. Heat no longer bothered me. I felt light as a feather, felt as if I was flying. I cried to the men who lolled at the city gate in the noon time heat. I shouted through the street of the village. None would come but the men, but when they did come, they too heard and believed. We are, I am, the first of the Gentiles to believe Him to be the Son of God. He stayed with us for two days and we drank in His words. Most of the village believed. My life has been different since that day. He who did not love me left me and I have lived here alone ever since. Yet, I have not been alone. He who truly loves me lives within me and I in Him. His water of life still rises in me a living, flowing stream. I am truly happy, truly free, truly loved.”
She tilted the bowl to her lips and swallowed the last of the water.
“I still thirst, still must drink water from Jacob’s well. But within I have never thirsted again. I no longer see, but the next face I see will be that of He who is my Water and my Bread, my true Husband and Lover.”
This unnamed woman is one of the women in Jesus’ life. Taken together, they are Woman, the composite who open just a bit to our wonder the Bride of Christ. Others include Mary, the mother of Jesus; Mary Magdalene; Mary of Bethel; Mary of Emmaus-Cleophas’s wife; two unnamed women who washed and anointed His body for burial. The woman of Sychar is unique in that she is a Gentile-the very first Gentile to believe. Jesus singles her out and gently leads her to the revelation: “I who speak to you am He.”
Once, reading those words, my hair stood on end (all three of them). Suddenly the impact on one living in the first century struck me. The culmination of centuries was standing in front of her and she knew it, she knew Him. No wonder she ran away; no wonder she came back dragging the men of the town with her; no wonder they listened and believed Him. My heart still skips a beat when my imagination conjures the scene and most of all, the words “I Who speak to you am He.”
