Third Sunday in Lent (Year A)
John 4.5-42 (TIB[1]; adapted):
[Jesus] stopped at Sychar, a town in Samaria, near the tract of land Jacob had given to his son Joseph, 6and Jacob’s Well was there. Jesus, weary from the journey, came and sat by the well. It was around noon.
7When [Photini], a Samaritan woman, came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8The disciples had gone off to the town to buy provisions.
9[Photini] replied, “You’re a Jew. How can you ask me, a Samaritan, for a drink?” — since Jews had nothing to do with Samaritans.
10Jesus answered, “If only you recognized God’s gift, and who it is that’s asking you for a drink, you would have asked him for a drink instead, and he would have given you living water.”
11“If you please,” [Photini] challenged Jesus, “you don’t have a bucket and this well is deep. Where do you expect to get this ‘living water’? 12Surely you don’t pretend to be greater than our ancestors Leah and Rachel and Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it with their descendants and flocks?”
13Jesus replied, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. 14But those who drink the water I give them will never be thirsty; no, the water I give will become fountains within them, springing up to provide [the Life of the Ages].”
15[Photini] said to Jesus, “Give me this water, so that I won’t grow thirsty and have to keep coming all the way here to draw water.”
16Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband and then come back here.”
17“I don’t have a husband,” replied [Photini].
“You’re right — you don’t have a husband!” Jesus exclaimed. 18“The fact is, you’ve had five, and the man you’re living with now is not your husband. So what you’ve said is quite true.”
19“I can see you’re a prophet,” [Photini] answered. 20“Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you people claim that Jerusalem is the place where God ought to be worshiped.”
21Jesus told her, “Believe me, the hour is coming when you’ll worship Abba God neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You people worship what you don’t understand; we worship what we do understand — after all, salvation is from the Jewish people. 23Yet the hour is coming — and is already here — when real worshipers will worship Abba God in Spirit and truth. Indeed, it is just such worshipers whom Abba God seeks. 24God is Spirit, and those who worship God must worship in spirit and truth.”
25[Photini] said to Jesus, “I know that the Messiah — the Anointed One — is coming and will tell us everything.”
26Jesus replied, “I who speak to you am the Messiah.”
27The disciples, returning at this point, were shocked to find Jesus having a private conversation with a woman. But no one dared to ask, “What do you want of him?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
28[Photini] then left her water jar and went off into the town. She said to the people, 29“Come and see someone who told me everything I have ever done! Could this be the Messiah?” 30At that, everyone set out from town to meet Jesus.
31Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32But Jesus told them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33At this, the disciples said to one another, “Do you think someone has brought him something to eat?”
34Jesus explained to them, “Doing the will of the One who sent me and bringing this work to completion is my food. 35Don’t you have a saying, ‘Four months more and it will be harvest time’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields — they’re ripe and ready for harvest! 36Reapers are already collecting their wages; they’re gathering fruit for [the Life of the Ages], and sower and reaper will rejoice together. 37So the saying is true: ‘One person sows; another reaps.’ 38I have sent you to reap what you haven’t worked for. Others have done the work, and you’ve come upon the fruits of their labor.”
39Many Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus on the strength of the [Photini’s] testimony — that “he told me everything I ever did.” 40The result was that, when these Samaritans came to Jesus, they begged him to stay with them awhile. So Jesus stayed there two days, 41and through his own spoken word many more came to faith. 42They told [Photini], “No longer does our faith depend on your story. We’ve heard for ourselves, and we know that this really is the savior of the world.”
Other Readings: Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-11
Abba God, as Photini drank with great and ardent longing of the waters Christ the Savior gave to her: Grant us so to drink of this living water, that we may in this life be faithful in proclaiming him who is the Messiah, and in the life to come gain the Life of the Ages and glory; through Jesus the Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.
“To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman.”
That’s how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle opens A Scandal in Bohemia, the first of 56 short stories featuring the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson.[2] Of course, “the woman” in the story is Irene Adler. I always think of the opening lines of A Scandal in Bohemia when I read the story of “the woman at the well.” At least Doyle had the decency to give us a name!
In our Lesson today, the astute reader will notice that I substituted “the woman” with the name given to her by tradition — Photini (aka, Photine, Photina, Svetlana). For those of us who don’t know who Photini is, here’s a very brief summary:
According to Orthodox tradition, after her encounter with Jesus at the well, the Samaritan woman was baptized by the apostles and given the name “Photini” which means “enlightened one.” Because she went and told the whole community about the Messiah, Photini is sometimes called the first one to proclaim the Gospel. She’s also called “Equal to the Apostles.”
Later she converted her family to the faith — five sisters (Anatole, Photo, Photis, Paraskeve, and Kyriake) and two sons (Photinos, formerly known as Victor, and Joses). All of them were ministers for Christ.
After the Apostles Peter and Paul were killed, St Photini and her family left Samaria and moved to Carthage (modern day Tunis in Tunisia) to spread the Gospel. Eventually, they were summoned to Rome (or they arrived on their own accord) to appear before Nero where they were ordered to denounce their faith. They refused and were tortured and killed by the Romans. It’s reported that when Nero asked Photini to renounce her faith once and for all, she replied, “O most impious of the blind, you profligate and stupid man! Do you think me so deluded that I would consent to renounce my Lord Christ and instead offer sacrifice to idols as blind as you?” Upon hearing this, Nero had Photini thrown down a well where she died in 66 CE.
Photini has the longest recorded conversation with Jesus in the Bible. As to how accurate it is, no one can know for certain since the disciples had gone into the town to buy supplies (verse 8). Perhaps this is Photini’s account of her conversation with Jesus. However we got this exchange, a lot of us would be quick to discount her story or place in history. Others would be quick to point the finger at patriarchy and misogyny for removing any mention of her. However, I would point out that she hasn’t been erased. She’s considered a saint in the Eastern church, both Catholic and Orthodox, and is commemorated on February 26 (Greek), March 20 (Slavic), and the Fifth Sunday of Pascha.
There are so many great points in this story but I want to grasp onto a theme that I’ve seen in this Lenten season — that of “the other.” It crops up a couple of times in our Lesson today, most notably in verses 9 and 19-22.
In verse 9, Photini asks Jesus, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan, for a drink?” to which John adds, “Jews had nothing to do with Samaritans.” That is, Jews saw Samaritans as “those people.” The rift between these two groups goes way back to the time of the divided kingdom — Israel in the North and Judah in the South.[3]
The capital city of Israel moved from Shechem to Samaria around 880 BCE, where it continued until it was conquered by Assyria in 721 BCE (see 2 Kings 18.9-10). The people of Israel dispersed throughout Assyria while others were sent in to take over, including Babylonians, Cutheons, Avatites, etc. Each of these groups brought with them their own gods. An exiled Israelite priest had returned and started teaching the people to worship YHWH but this was intermingled with idol worship (see 2 Kings 17.27ff).[4]
“Josephus reports a number of unpleasant events [between Jews and Samaritans]: Samaritans harass Jewish pilgrims traveling through Samaria between Galilee and Judea, Samaritans scatter human bones in the Jerusalem sanctuary, and Jews in turn burn down Samaritan villages.”[5]
One can see, then, that both sides saw a separation between themselves and “the other.”
To complicate matters further, the Samaritan was a woman. Verse 27 tells us the disciples returned and “were shocked to find Jesus having a private conversation with a woman.” It goes without saying that many of us have been taught how women in this era weren’t seen as equals (and still aren’t in some circles). The Talmud had many negative things to say about women. “Various rabbis at various times describe women as lazy, jealous, vain and gluttonous, prone to gossip and particularly prone to the occult and witchcraft.”[6]
But I don’t think that’s what’s going on. According to recent scholarship[7], “The role of women in traditional Judaism has been grossly misrepresented and misunderstood. The position of women is not nearly as lowly as many modern people think; in fact, the position of women in halakhah (Jewish Law) that dates back to the biblical period is in many ways better than the position of women under American civil law as recently as a century ago.”[8] In fact —
“According to traditional Judaism, women are endowed with a greater degree of “binah” (intuition, understanding, intelligence) than men. The rabbis inferred this from the fact that woman was “built” (Gen. 2:22) rather than “formed” (Gen. 2:7), and the Hebrew root of “build” has the same consonants as the word “binah.” It has been said that the matriarchs (Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah) were superior to the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) in prophecy. Women did not participate in the idolatry regarding the Golden Calf. … Some traditional sources suggest that women are closer to G-d’s ideal than men.”[9]
So what gives? Why were the disciples “shocked to find Jesus having a private conversation with a woman” (verse 27)? Their shock probably has more to say about them than any religious taboos. Looking again to Jewish tradition —
“Men are repeatedly advised against associating with women, although this is usually because of man’s lust rather than because of any shortcoming in women. It is worth noting that the Talmud also has negative things to say about men, frequently describing men as particularly prone to lust and forbidden sexual desires.”[10]
So what’s the point I’m driving at here? The point is, instead of continuing the misrepresentation and misunderstanding of women’s place in Judaism — and Photini’s supposed life of adultery[11] — the issue of “otherness” lands squarely on the shoulders of the disciples and the attitude of some men. That is, instead of seeing women as equals they saw them as objects. Furthermore, the fact that “no one dared to ask, ‘What do you want of him?’ or ‘Why are you talking with her?’ (verse 27) points out that the issue was more about the disciples’ own falseness, their own inappropriate view of women and neither Jesus’ view nor the custom of the day.
The last point I want to bring up is the Ultimate Redemption in the final verse. Photini was so moved by her conversation with Jesus that she left everything and went to tell others about Jesus (Which, by the way, is exactly the same response we see when Jesus calls his first disciples; e.g., Luke 5.11, 28). After she tells the community about Jesus, some of them believe right away. This again speaks to the scandalous nature of the situation.
While we’ve seen that the situation of women in first century Judaism has been misunderstood and misrepresented for some time, there is still evidence that a woman’s testimony was suspect. According to Josephus, “[Let] not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex.”[12] And the Talmud states, “This is the general rule: any testimony for which a woman is not qualified, they too are not qualified.”[13] The fact that people in this community listened to Photini and believed in Jesus because of her testimony tells us something about her place within the community (once more shattering the “sacred cow” of her immorality) and the power of the Gospel.
Many from the community follow Photini back to the well and hear Jesus for themselves. They tell Photini, “No longer does our faith depend on your story. We’ve heard for ourselves, and we know that this really is the savior of the world” (verse 42; emphasis added). Once more we see that Samaritans — i.e., those “other” people (like the Romans; Matthew 8.5-13) — see something in Jesus that the religious observer (i.e., us) misses. Jesus doesn’t come to only save us — you know, the people who look like us or sound like us or talk like us or hold the same political view as us or love the same people as us. It seems that those on the “outside” teach us more about The Way of Jesus than those on the “inside.”
The Samaritans tell us that Jesus “really is the savior” — not just of Samaritans, or Jews, or Muslims, or Buddhists, or Pagans, or Easter Orthodox, or Catholics, or Atheists, etc. — but “the world.” Too often we who believe we’re on the “inside” forget this about Jesus. Some of us even think Jesus will “come again soon” to bring judgment and destruction to, not only our enemies, but all of creation itself. But what the Samaritans tell us ties in with what we saw last week — Jesus came to save the world. All of it. The whole thing, including all of us. And the first followers of The Way of Jesus understood this. Saint Paul put it this way —
Ephesians 2.14-22 (CEB; adapted[14]):
14Christ is our peace. He made both Jews and [non-Jews] into one group. With his body, he broke down the barrier of hatred that divided us. 15He canceled the detailed rules of the Law so that he could create one new [humanity] out of the two groups, making peace. 16He reconciled [us all to God in one body through the cross], which ended the hostility to God.
17When he came, Christ announced the good news of peace to you who were far away from God and to those who were near. 18We [all] have access to Abba God through Christ by the one Spirit. 19So now you’re no longer strangers and aliens. Rather, you’re [included in God’s holy people], and you belong to God’s household. 20As God’s household, you’re built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 21The whole building is joined together in him, and it grows up into a temple that is dedicated to [God]. 22Christ is building you into a place where God lives through the Spirit.
Because of Christ, we’re all one new humanity and we’ve been reconciled to God by the cross (see also, Colossians 1.19-20). As Paul states elsewhere —
Galatians 3.28 (CEB): There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Colossians 3.11 (CEB): In this image (i.e., the image of God — jg+) there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all things and in all people.
So on this third Sunday in Lent, let’s give thanks to God for Photini and the Samaritan community who recognized that Jesus “really is the savior of the world.” Because of Christ’s work, there is no “other.” There is only one human family and “Christ is … in all people.”
~~~
In the Love of the Three in One,
Br. Jack+, LC
_________
[1] Scripture quotations marked (TIB) are taken from The Inclusive Bible. Copyright © 2007 by Priests for Equality. Used by permission.
[2] The first published story featuring Holmes and Watson was A Study in Scarlet, the first of four novels, published in 1887.
[3] Incidentally, this is why they were / are called “Jews,” which is short for “Judeans.”
[4] For so much more, see “Samaritans (Hebrew, שומרונים).” JewishEncyclopedia.com ©2002-2011, http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13059-samaritans.
[5] Jürgen K. Zangenberg, "The Samaritans", n.p. [cited 8 Mar 2020]. BibleOdyssey.org. https://www.bibleodyssey.org:443/en/people/related-articles/samaritans.
[6] “The Role of Women.” Judaism101, jewfaq.org. © (1995-2011), Tracey R Rich. http://www.jewfaq.org/women.htm.
[8] “The Role of Women.” Judaism101, jewfaq.org. © (1995-2011), Tracey R Rich. http://www.jewfaq.org/women.htm.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[13] Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 1.8. There is a subsequent note: “Although in certain cases a woman’s testimony is accepted, e.g., to testify to the death of someone’s husband, in the majority of cases her testimony is not valid.”
[14] Scripture quotations marked (CEB) are taken from The Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible.
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