Who can you tell your story too? Whose stories do you listen to? I was grateful this week for some time on the water, kayaking and talking with a friend. After getting home I thought of another woman who had an important conversation, not on the water, but where water was central to the story. I love the story in John 4 of the Samaritan woman at the well and her conversation with Jesus. It is a profound sharing of lives and the longest recorded conversation in all of the Gospels. Yes, we all need places to talk and to listen, even Jesus did.
We’ve lost those spaces or perhaps we’ve lost the time for long conversations with one another. Growing up I often spent time at my grandparent’s farm in rural western Minnesota. They worked very hard as farmers, but there was always time for coffee. We would go to the neighbors where I would sit and listen to the women talk around large kitchen tables. I also got to eat sticky cake and drink coffee, the kind where you can see the bottom of the cup even when the cup is full. But the watery coffee and good conversation sustained them in their days of hard work. We don’t actually often talk to one another like that anymore. Texting has replaced talking for many people, but so much is lost when the words aren’t heard and when we don’t look at one another, posture and tone add so much.
Jesus did take a break to talk, really talk in his travels. It had been a long journey for Jesus. He was tired and weary when he stopped to rest for awhile at Jacob’s well while the disciples went on ahead for food. When Jesus got to the well he had no skin bucket or rope, so he does the unthinkable in his time, he asks a woman for a drink. He talks with a woman who has so many strikes against her. But this is where the power of the story lies.
The Samaritan woman in the Gospel of John comes alone to the well at noon, the hottest part of the day. Most women went to the well early in the day, as a group. The gathering of water by the women was a social event, a time to be away from family and to gather the news of the village, just like my grandmother’s coffee breaks. But this woman did not join the other women. She came alone because she is an outcast and didn’t want to hear the other’s taunting. This woman was someone to gossip about, as she has had five husbands and now she is living with a man to whom she’s not married.
Alone she encounters Jesus. How strange it was for a man to speak to her. Women had no place in public life. They were not to be seen or heard, especially not by teachers or holy men, who did not speak to their own wives in public. And beyond that Jews and Samaritans had nothing do do with one another. Jesus surprises the woman by stepping across the line of ethnic hostility to approach her as a worthy human being. He actually assumes an inferior position when he asks her for a drink of water in the scorching heat. She must have paused before offering him her watery cup.
Their conversation slowly deepens from the literal to the spiritual, from well water to living water. Jesus claims, “the water I give people will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” She asks for this water so that she won’t have to come to this well again. In their conversation he reveals to her who he really is, the Messiah. It’s the first time he shares this with anyone.
One Thursday at the St. Louis County Jail where I led a weekly Bible study with the women, we talked about this story. The women as you might imagine could really identify with the Samaritan woman at the well. They too had powerful stories to share. And they talked about how in jail they actually had more time to listen, as there were no phones to text on , no computers to waste hours and hours on. They said they mostly sat around the tables drinking coffee and talking. Additionally, each night one woman would read to them all through the grates in their cells. That particular night they were starting the book of Romans.
Transformations do happen when we share our stories. Dare to share them in the context of a God who loves us and invites change in us no matter how many husbands we have had. A few years ago I received a letter from a young mom who had been a regular at the Bible study for over four months. In part she wrote, “Hello my dear, I m writing this to let you know you have been truly a God sent to me, light in my darkness. I pleaded guilty today and decided to get truthful and begin my new life with the world, despite the consequences. I will have a clear conscious and am so happy. Amazing, how can I be happy going to Shakopee Women’s Prison but I am at peace with my decision and I know God will be with me all along.“
The world is full of folks who have been waiting a long time to tell someone their story. Let us sit in our kayaks or at kitchen tables with cups of watery coffee to tell our stories and listen to another’s. We share all our stories with a man sitting by a well, thirsty and yet offering us all living water, springing up with hope.
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