Fun fact! Today’s gospel reading contains the longest conversation that Jesus has recorded with anyone, and it so happens that it’s with a woman, and it’s a theological chat! And it’s not in Luke, who’s our usual commentator when it comes to Jesus interacting with women.
It feels entirely appropriate to have a woman front and centre this week when we marked International Women’s Day on the 8th March. This is often a day when women-led faith-based organisations lead services celebrating women of faith all over the world.
65% of our Church of England congregations are female, yet only 28% of our paid clergy are now women and just 23% of senior leadership positions are held by us. When you look at the numbers of self-supporting ministers like myself and Caroline this figure jumps to around 50%.
Change we know is slow, and in the church of England it can at times be glacial. Attitudes to women for centuries have been shaped through the eyes and men, in particular the shaping of our ideas around who and what the women we encounter in the bible are.
Whilst it might be surprising that Jesus’ longest theological conversation is with a woman, it may be less surprising that centuries of theologians and commentators have told us she’s an immoral women. They’ve been way more interested in her five husbands than Jesus ever was, but it fits the traditional narrative perfectly, and particularly in Lent where the focus is on penitence.
She even tells Jesus “erm, you know you shouldn’t be talking to me…right?” She’s a Samaritan, we know the Jews of this time aren’t fans. She’s a woman, we know a single man shouldn’t be talking to a lone women, and particularly at a well, that old testament meeting place which so often resulted in marriage.
Famously that happened at this well- and it’s still there, where Jacob met Rachel and love blossomed.
So she’s a Samaritan, she’s out alone, she’s had five husbands – she must be immoral. It makes a much better story as we see her redemption after meeting Jesus.
History loves to make biblical women immoral, we hear that rather than being the mother of nations, Eve is Adam’s downfall, and rather than the likelihood of Mary Magdalene being one of Jesus’ monied benefactors, she’s a prostitute – with no biblical basis, because if a woman has sinned it has to come back to sexual sin.
I think there’s something far more interesting going on in this story, remember this is the longest conversation Jesus has recorded in the Bible. Like so many of the men Jesus interacts with this woman is an outsider, that’s likely because of the circumstances around her multiple marriages but it’s highly unlikely that this situation was of her own making.
Husbands could abandon their wives for very tenuous reasons, women had no agency and no control. The only way for them to survive after abandonment was to have another man take responsibility for them. This woman is more likely a survivor of abandonment and widowhood. The fact that she’s visiting the well at the hottest part of the day, when most people are indoors or under shelter, means she’s actively avoiding meeting others. She’s been labelled and stigmatised but is just trying to go about her day with as little fuss as possible.
Alice Connor in her book about remarkable biblical women called Fierce describes the encounter like this:
She was the outcast and sometime theologian, proud, put together, and with the sheen of intelligence and sadness in her eyes.
He said to her, as men had said to women for centuries, “give me a drink” and he meant both “I’m thirsty” and “I know the old stories of Jacob and Moses at the well, and I know that question means marriage sometimes, but I really don’t mean that. Mostly.” And he meant “I know you have questions. Quench my thirst and I’ll quench yours.”
She jokes with him- how can you quench my thirst when you don’t even have a bucket? But she’s completely open with him and recognises he’s something special. She wants to get closer to God and asks about worship, Jesus tells her not to worry, worship is going to be blown wide open.
The place won’t matter because the worship will be spirit-led and for all people, not just the chosen.
She’s amazed, the things he’s saying sound like the Messiah the prophet’s describe. Yeah, says Jesus…about that….
She’s amazed by him. He’s seen her. Really seen her, maybe for the first time in her life, and now, without the fear of being the outcast, forgetting she was there at midday to avoid everyone, she goes back to the town and tells them about the amazing rabbi she’s met, who maybe…just maybe…could be the Messiah.
Now this is the miracle. They listen. They listen to the outcast, the woman, the five times married woman. Her passion and testimony makes them want to meet this man, and when they do, they too believe. How many of us can say our telling others about Jesus has brought others to Jesus and helped them to experience him for themselves?
Now I’m not saying this as a criticism or to make us feel bad but maybe looking at this encounter with fresh eyes, not looking at the woman as a sinner in need of redemption, the story we’ve so often been fed, but as an amazing evangelist and disciple-maker. Maybe as part of our journey through Lent we can reflect upon Paul’s words and see how we can be more boastful in our faith.
Like the Hebrew people in the desert and the women at the well our world is thirsty for something that quenches more than momentary thirst.
What is the good news we have to share about our faith? What keeps you coming here?
I’m not expecting you to go and start shouting about Jesus in the middle of Urmston, but I think it would help us all to reflect upon why we’re here this morning. What keeps us being Christians, what is it about Jesus? Does he satisfy that thirst in us we’ve not been able to find anywhere else?
Why should we still come? I love Jesus, but I also love this community. When I first started coming here there were two things which kept me coming; strong female leadership and the importance and prominence of women within this parish. I have never once, as a member of the congregation or in ministry, within this community been made to feel I was ever less than because of my gender.
The inter-generational support and bonds and work of the women within this community, alongside our brothers, you matter too guys, kept me coming. I could name so many of you but I won’t embarrass you, you know who you are, and there are as well the sisters who are no longer with us. Like the woman at the well you have shared your faith with me and inspired me to seek Jesus for myself.
So it's my job, our job, sisters and brothers, to keep that going, to share our passion and love for Jesus, to remember what quenched our thirst, and to keep being the woman at the well for the next generation. Amen.
