Loading...Did you know that what you just heard was the longest recorded conversation Jesus had with anyone in the Bible?
Now, consider this: Jesus is not talking to one of his friends, or teaching in the Temple, or engaged in a theological discussion with other teachers.
No. Jesus is talking with a woman. And not just any woman, but a Samaritan woman. And he’s alone with her. In a public place. Where anyone could see them. On top of all those things, she’s a woman who has been married FIVE times and is now living with a different man! Scandalous!
How many of you were taught that this woman was trouble with a capital T? A woman with a bad reputation, someone who had to avoid the public well when the other women came to fill their jugs because they all thought she didn’t belong. And because they felt that way, they probably weren’t very kind or friendly towards her. They might have even been cruel. In their minds, it seems, she was a tarnished woman with a very messy past. A pariah, an outcast.
It’s easy to judge her for her circumstances, without knowing her story, right? We might have been taught these things about this woman because it was easier to label her in all kinds of inappropriate ways, shaming her, blaming her, ridiculing her, for her life choices.
Perhaps this is a cautionary tale for girls. Maybe it’s a way to shed some light on what can happen if a girl doesn’t act appropriately. It might even be used to express to girls what happens if they don’t follow the rules. A reminder of how NOT to behave when they grow up.
The thing is … the people who were teaching us bible stories might not have been taught themselves about historical context or cultural or religious norms from that time. If we were to teach this story to our children today, with a little historical context … with some cultural and religious norms sprinkled in, the story could be interpreted much differently.
Sometimes it seems easy to make someone the enemy or villain in a story. To use them as an example based on today’s context or cultural or religious norms. We might decide that we “know” this character because we think we’ve seen her before or someone else might have labeled people who might look or behave a little like her, and it is easier to let someone else define and describe them in unsavory terms, so we don’t have to. How often do any of us allow someone to influence our opinions about another person or subset of society?
When we know the cultural circumstances of this woman’s life, at this time in history, we know that she, simply because she was a woman, had no rights. It might be hard to believe now, especially on this International Women’s Day, that at that time, women were property. Owned and sold by their fathers or their husbands.
A woman could not end a marriage. That was a man’s decision. He could divorce her for the simplest things: a burned meal, a messy living space, a broken dish. Or for things she could not control, like, infertility or the inability to carry a living child to full-term or for not giving him a son. Or because he tired of her.
She could be dismissed easily. Tossed out onto the street. Or if she became a widow, she could be passed along to the dead man’s brothers.
You see? She had no choice about her marital status.
So why do we see her as a pariah, a harlot, and not as a victim?
Why has her marital status become a part of this story at all?
Why indeed?
This is not the only part of the story that requires some historical and cultural context.
Samaritans and Jews did not get along. In fact, they were practically enemies. Through wars and territory changes, Samaritans came to be through generations of intermarriage between Jews and Gentiles. It was likely a matter of survival, but ultimately it meant that these intermarriages meant no one was “pure” enough to be either. Many of us might remember a time when it was considered taboo to marry someone from a different denomination or culture or race.
We can be a bit rigid in our ways, judgmental even, when we don’t have direct experience about how someone else lives. It was no different then. In this story, we get a glimpse of how the Samaritans believed that to worship God, they were to go to Mount Gerizim. The Jews believed they needed to go to the Jerusalem Temple. Very different places to meet God.
Today, we might consider the differences between an Episcopal worship service and a non-denominational or Baptist or Catholic worship service to better understand the divide between the Jews and the Samaritans. Even though our focus is on the same God, we make other theological, traditional and cultural choices about how to be in relationship with God and humanity.
We might see it most significantly in the ways we worship, choosing levels of orthodoxy, tradition, and music. We can be thankful to have such choice, but we can sometimes feel a divide based on biblical interpretation.
What I find relevant is that if we don’t know the history of the time, we tend to place our own experience and context into it. It isn’t so simple.
While we might not have deep knowledge of historical societal norms or of religious practices, this story represents many examples of why this conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman is vitally important. Important enough for it to be Jesus’s longest recorded conversation in all the Gospels.
Jesus chose to go to Samaria, where religious practices were different than his own. He chose to speak to a woman, alone, in view of anyone who wanted to see them. Others may have believed, because it happened for others in the Hebrew stories, that this meeting at the well would result in the marriage between Jesus and this woman. It was the Rom-Com trope in those days.
Observers may not have heard this banter between the Jewish teacher and woman. They may not have listened to the theological, spiritual, and historically based conversation between them.
If they had, they might have seen and heard that this woman was wise.
I’d like to think she was at that point in her life where she had come into herself and was not going to be belittled or bamboozled by anyone any longer. She had found her voice and was not afraid to use it!
And use it, she did.
She questioned Jesus in ways that let him know she was wise about civil laws—that while she had been married to five men and this last one had not made a commitment to her; she had no rights or agency around her own autonomy. Men held all the power.
She expressed awareness about where to worship, a descendant of Jews and Gentiles whose lineage determined for her and others, where to find God. She would not have been welcome in the Jewish Temple. Jesus might not have been welcome at Mount Gerizim. An ancient separation caused by Babylonians and Assyrians. A situation not unlike the Hatfields and the McCoys. She was stuck in an adversarial historical loop that was not likely to be broken anytime soon.
The woman was both skeptical and curious about Jesus’s claim about living water. She recognized that he was unprepared to get water from the well. And yet, she was willing to draw water for him to drink, not understanding his offer of living water. She wanted it. She wanted to understand it. She heard the invitation, from a man, a stranger from an adversarial community, to think for herself, to decide for herself, about her future.
As the disciples returned with food for Jesus, they found him talking with this woman. They cautiously reminded Jesus that he was breaking cultural norms, breaking the rules, as he and the woman talked.
The disciples could not have understood the purpose even had they been present from the beginning. They would have tried to draw Jesus away to protect him, and possibly the woman, from the authorities. They would have been concerned about the optics, what it looked like, and they were worried.
What no one could have predicted, except Jesus, was that this woman would be so transformed and motivated by what she learned about herself and God in the noonday sun that she would run through her village and excitedly share her experience. Not quietly, but exuberantly. She invited anyone who would listen to come and meet this man, this, Messiah, this Savior.
She was, in that moment, an influencer, an evangelist, a disciple, changed and motivated to share her experience so others could do the same.
And people in her village listened.
That might have been the miracle they all experienced that day. They listened to a woman they had mistreated, ridiculed, abused, judged, and shunned. They recognized the living water she had received through Jesus and when she invited them to “Come and see,” they did.
Even if they said her testimony wasn’t enough and that they needed to see and hear Jesus to believe her testimony was true, they were transformed because the woman they had pushed aside showed them the way.
It is International Women’s Day today. Who are the women you have read about or who impacted you so much that you were transformed? Women from the bible whose stories of strength and ingenuity and independence gave you permission of sorts to be strong and courageous in your own life?
Women may not have the spotlight as often as men in the Bible, but the stories that were included in what we read there were placed there for a reason. This story, the longest recorded conversation Jesus had with anyone in all of scripture, might be so poignant because it represents the broad embrace of God’s love.
Through a marginalized person, with multiple barriers created by historical traditions, norms, expectations and beliefs, Jesus transforms a whole community.
If someone like this Samaritan woman at the well can transform her community by telling everyone about Jesus, just imagine what any one of us could do if we told our own stories about the meaning of Jesus in our own lives!
Let us pray this prayer found on the St. James Presbyterian Church in Canada’s website:
Gracious God,
On this International Women’s Day,
we celebrate the goodness you have brought into the world
in and through women since the beginning of time.
We give thanks for the women who have nurtured our very being,
showed us how to live, taught us skills, soothed our souls with music,
enriched our knowledge, passed on traditions,
celebrated our scribbles and dirt creations as masterpieces,
helped shape our identity, inspired us in faith, fed our faith,
filled our hearts with joy, comforted us in grief,
steadied us when our world was crumbling, sheltered us from harm,
protected us in times of danger,
served as peacemakers in times of war and conflict,
advocated, fought for, and defended the rights of women,
broke glass ceilings, stigmas and stereotypes,
stood up against injustice and oppression,
shaped our economy and community with their
entrepreneurial spirit and heart for service,
empowered us to be more, led by example,
taught us that celebrating women is more
than celebrating motherhood and marriage,
inspired us to dream, motivated us to reach those dreams,
believed when we were unbelieving, met us with grace in all circumstances.
In the beginning, you created women in your image.
And you blessed women. Creating, redeeming, and sustaining God,
Continue to bless women, shaping them according to your will.
May wholeness be found in the role you gave them first
before any other role – beloved child of God.
Where there is inequality, help women be valued.
Where women are silenced and oppressed, give women a voice
and show us all again how to relate to one another in love.
Where women feel alone, surround them with community and support.
Where women are feeling overwhelmed by all the hats they wear,
help them find balance, strength, and rest in you.
May all the gifts you have knitted into their design
shine in and on creation, to your glory. Amen.[1]
Copyright: Wendy MacWilliams
Prayer may be shared with others.
[1] https://pccweb.ca/stjameshanwell/2022/03/08/a-prayer-for-international-womens-day/ St. James Presbyterian Church, Hanwell, NB, Canada. Retrieved 10:20 a.m. 3/7/2026.
