The Samaritan Woman: Serial Divorcée or Abandoned and Bereaved

This article was first published in French at TPSG.

I love the British TV series "Call the Midwife". The story takes place in London in the 1950s, where a team of midwives serve in the most disadvantaged areas of the city. From the very first episode, I was hooked. There is something so powerful about seeing a woman giving birth, especially when you get to know her and understand her circumstances.

It is the same with stories of spiritual births. We enjoy hearing how people came to faith. And one of my favorite testimonies is in John 4, where the evangelist allows us to witness a delivery, the new birth of the Samaritan woman.

John 4 in Light of John's Unifying Theme
To put it in context. The unifying theme of the Gospel according to John is eternal life found only in Christ. In John 3, Jesus has a conversation with Nicodemus, a teacher of the law, about the new birth. Jesus declares, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God". (John 3:3). And what is the new birth? It is the moment when a human being, who is dead spiritually, repents of his sins and puts his trust in Christ for eternal life. This is when his true life, his spiritual life, begins.

Then, in John 4:1-42, the evangelist gives us a case study of a new birth.

The Root of the Animosity between Jews and Samaritans
At the beginning of chapter 4, we discover that in order to avoid any problems with the Pharisees, Jesus decides to leave Judea and set out for Galilee. And, in v. 4, the text tells us that "he had to pass through Samaria". To understand the significance of this sentence, we need to know a little history. In the year 597 B.C. the Babylonians invaded the northern kingdom and took the majority of the population into exile. They left only the most destitute and then imported captives from other parts of the kingdom to repopulate the territory. These pagan peoples intermarried with the Jews who lived there and created a distinct people with a syncretistic religion, a mixture of Judaism and paganism. 

As a result, Jesus' fellow Jews hated the Samaritans because they considered themselves the guardians of the law and the temple of God, and they judged the Samaritans to be an impure race who committed the worst of sacrileges.

To illustrate the extent of this animosity, the most direct route between Judea and Galilee required people to pass through Samaria. But the Jews were willing to take a long detour to the east and cross the Jordan River via Perea to avoid defiling their feet by setting foot into the cursed land of the Samaritans.

So when v. 4 says that Jesus had to go through Samaria, it is not because there was no alternate route. What compelled Jesus to go where no Jew wanted to go was love! For he had a divine appointment with a Samaritan woman and the people of Sychar.

Jesus at the Well of Sychar
Tired from his journey, Jesus arrives at the well to rest. He sends his disciples to the city to get something to eat. A woman arrives, and Jesus asks her for water. But it is obvious that there is something more behind his request. Jesus is looking for a lost soul. He sends his disciples away so that he can be alone to talk with this woman. 

Her reaction is one of astonishment, for "The Jews, in fact, have no relationship with the Samaritans" (v. 9). Jesus does not just talk to her. He asks to drink from his pitcher. This is unthinkable! It simply isn't done! The woman cannot believe it.

Jesus and the Living Water
In response to the woman, Jesus says, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that says to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him for a drink yourself, and he would have given you living water" (v.10). 

To understand the image of the living water, we must look at how John used the term in the rest of his book. John 3:5 says, "Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

In John, water represents the means by which we are washed and cleansed from our sins. And the one  Jesus gives to cleanse us from our sins is the Holy Spirit. The imagery does not originate with John, for Isaiah 44:3 says:

For I will pour out waters upon the troubled ground,
And streams on the parched land;
I will pour out my Spirit upon your race,
And my blessing on your offspring.

The prophet uses a parallelism here, or two ways of saying the same thing: that God will pour out waters, i.e. His Spirit. 

Sin or Shame
The woman, however, perhaps unfamiliar with the subtleties of figurative language, takes Jesus literally and asks him how to acquire her own supply of free water for life.  

Jesus wants to offer her much more than physical refreshment. He wants to offer her spiritual liberation. He tells her, therefore, to fetch her husband. 

At this point, you may remember hearing that this woman was particularly sinful, and that Jesus had to confront her with her own guilt in order to lead her to repentance. I myself taught this passage with this assumption about her.

But what if the Samaritan woman was neither an adulteress nor a fornicator? Thanks to some recent research, I now suspect that she had rather suffered the loss of six husbands. Some of them may have died. And some (most) might have left her. Infertility could have been one of the main reasons. At the time, women were generally not allowed to ask their husbands for a divorce. Especially not to five of them. How could such a woman eat if she did that? No, it was usually men who initiated divorce (see Matthew 19:3-12 and Mark 10:2-12). 

So she was probably abandoned and/or bereaved of her husband five times. The sixth time, she probably had to settle for a polygamous arrangement to avoid starving to death. This scenario is more appropriate in a society where women were treated as chattel.

Over the centuries, we have often been taught that sexual sin hid in the closets of many women in the Scripture. Certainly Jesus saves sinners. But in light of what we know about the cultural context, especially in this case, I believe that we may need a second look at the issue. 

If, indeed, Jesus was not confronting this woman about her sexual sins, but rather empathizing with her, what would that tell us about the wisdom of evangelizing through confrontation about sin first? 

Let's go back to our story to see what happens next. 

The Real Sin at the Heart of this Story
When it comes to the subject of authentic faith, Jesus does not mince  words. "You worship what you do not know" (v. 22). If he had wanted to be as direct about her alleged sin, he could have been. But he talks about her past with much more subtlety than about her false religion. This is her real problem: she does not worship in spirit and in truth. This is the real problem of every sinner. All other sins are merely the byproduct of this sin. 

Jesus must speak the truth about her idolatrous religion. In order for her to put her trust in the true God, she must first understand that her God is false. But he does not belabor the point. Instead of focusing on what she believes to be wrong, he points her toward what is right and true.

Worship in Spirit and Truth
He speaks to her of the importance of worshipping the Father in spirit and in truth (v. 24): in spirit means not limited to one place, i.e. the temple. It also means worshiping in the power of the Holy Spirit. And in truth it means worship based on God's self-revelation. What is God's revelation available to us today? His word! 

Verse 26 is truly amazing. Throughout his ministry, Jesus veils his identity. He often tells people that he has just been healed not to tell anyone. But here, Jesus openly declares his identity to them, he reveals the secret that he is the Messiah to this rejected woman. Wow! How wonderful!

More Important than a Picnic
What happens next is just as fascinating. The disciples return with their sack lunches, ready to sit down for a picnic with Jesus. But, to their surprise, they find him talking with a woman. Jesus does not submit to unnecessary cultural mores. On the contrary, by his own example, he invites his disciples to think outside the box. 

And when they offer him the food he had sent them for, he tells them that his food is to do the will of the one who sent him. It must have been so disconcerting for these poor guys! Well, the entrance of the disciples is the occasion for the exit of the Samaritan woman. But not for long. This new believer is on a mission! She has found the source of living water! She has finally met the Messiah! And she cannot keep the good news to herself.

The Revival at Sychar
She is so convincing that a group comes from the city to Jesus to found out if what she says is true. She is most likely not an educated person. We don't know how eloquent she is. But it doesn't matter. These people believe in Jesus based on the testimony of a broken woman. And these early converts of Samaria are the first fruits of what will be a great harvest, beginning in Acts 8. 

Their greatest take away is that Jesus is truly the Savior of the world (v. 42). I wonder if, as Samaritans, they grasped this reality even before the disciples did. For even after Pentecost, the disciples had difficulty understanding that Jesus came, not only to save the nation of Israel, but to redeem a multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language. 

The Savior of the World
What I love about passages like this is that they serve as a reminder of Christ's great and universal work of redemption. Yes, Jesus was the long-awaited Son of David. He was the Christ who fulfilled all the law and the prophets. But he was also the Savior of the world. 

As we prepare to celebrate the birth of our precious Savior this Advent, let us praise Him for the new birth He has brought about in us. And let this statement and its full scope resound in our hearts: "We know that he is truly the Savior of the world." (John 4:42).