It’s tempting when you hear today’s Gospel, to hear it as another story of a sinful woman who encounters Jesus and finds mercy. There are other stories that fit that description. If you were here on Ash Wednesday, the Gospel for that day was the story of the woman “caught in the very act of commiting adultery.” The religious authorities drag her before Jesus as though on trial, but he responds with his famous words: “Let anyone without sin cast the first stone.” The religious leaders disperse, and Jesus tells the woman, “I don’t condemn you; go and don’t sin again.” There’s another story of a sex worker who approached Jesus and anointed his feet with precious ointment, using her hair to brush the ointment. Onlookers are displeased that Jesus would allow this, but he tells them, “her many sins have been forgiven, for she has shown great love.” It’s tempting read today’s Gospel as similar to these sorts of stories.  

But that would be a mistake. Today’s Gospel is not a story about a sinful woman. In fact, if you look closely, nowhere is it mentioned that she has done anything wrong. And nowhere does Jesus offer her forgiveness. When Jesus tells the woman, “you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband,” this is often taken to be a “gotcha” moment, when Jesus breaks down the woman’s defenses and exposes her promiscuity and immorality. But has she really led a promiscuous and immoral life? Consider the story of when the Sadducees—who didn’t believe in the idea of the resurrection of the dead—come to Jesus with a theological question. They tell him that the eldest of seven brothers died, leaving his widow (as the law would have it) to his eldest surviving brother. When that brother died, the same widow was left to the third brother, and so forth, until all seven brothers had married the same widow. There is nothing untoward in this scenario, nothing sketchy; it’s unlikely but possible and legally permissible. Perhaps the woman whom Jesus encounters in today’s Gospel is in a similar situation. Perhaps she is a widow several times over and is now engaged to marry once more. Whatever we conclude, it’s an argument from silence to assume that she is caught up in a life of sin.  

What then is the point of this story? I think we need to fix our attention less on what we think the woman is up to and more on the significance of her Samaritan identity. According to the overarching narrative of the Gospel of John, Jesus has been in Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, but now he is on his way back home to Galilee in the far north. Between Jerusalem in the south and Galilee in the far north was a region called Samaria. It’s helpful to remember that the ancient kingdom of Israel in its early period was a united monarchy. But after King Solomon, internal conflict of various kinds divided the kingdom in half—into Israel in the north and Judah in the south. When the Babylonian and Persian empires conquered the region, Jews in the northern kingdom intermarried with their colonizers and adopted foreign cultural and religious practices. The Jews in the south, who resisted assimilation, looked with disdain on their siblings in the north who had abandoned Torah. These northern Jews came to be known as Samaritans. (The irony of that name is that “Samaritan” literally means “guardian” or “watchkeeper” of the law.) In any case, Jews—whether they lived in the far north in Galilee or in the south around Jerusalem—viewed Samaritans as inauthentic and heterodox. The region of Samaria, however, lay between Galilee and Jerusalem, so any Jew traveling from the far north to the south (or vice versa) had to pass through Samaria and avoid interaction with Samaritans.

We’re told in today’s Gospel that Jesus “had to go through Samaria.” That’s obvious in a geographical sense. But I think there’s a deeper meaning to this statement. Jesus had to go through Samaria to demonstrate that his message of good news is just as much for Samaritans as it is for Jews. In the middle of Samaria is Mount Gerizim, which Samaritans identified as a holy place of worship. Near Mount Gerizim was the city of Shechem (or Sychar, as it’s called in today’s Gospel) and a well that came to be associated with the patriarch Jacob because he had settled there. This is where Jesus meets the woman in today’s Gospel while his disciples had gone into the city to buy food.  

Jesus’ encounter with the woman is remarkable. It was not socially acceptable for men to engage women in conversation in public places, but Jesus does exactly that. It was definitely out of the ordinary for Jews to engage Samaritans, let alone a Jewish man to initiate conversation with a Samaritan woman, but that’s what Jesus does. The focus of their conversation is Jesus’ offer of “living water,” and this confuses the woman. Is Jesus referring to a nearby waterfall that no one has discovered? She eventually realizes that Jesus is speaking of a different kind of water: a spring within a person that gushes up to eternal life. This water is God’s Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that came upon Jesus immediately after his baptism. Jesus offers this Samaritan woman the same Spirit that empowers and sustains him.  

What makes the offer irresistable is when Jesus tells the woman to bring her husband so that he, too, can receive the gift of living water. When she responds that she doesn’t have a husband, Jesus says, “True, you’re not actually married to the man in your life right now, but you’ve also had five previous husbands.” The woman is blown away. “You must be a prophet!” she exclaims. She then presses Jesus about where the worship of God should happen. She’s confused about whether the gift of living water obliges her to go to Mount Gerizim, as she’s been taught, or the Temple mount in Jerusalem. Jesus essentially tells her, “Don’t get hung up on where the right place of worship is. True worship of God is not tied to a place; it’s predicated on God’s Spirit being within you.”  

There are at least two lessons in this story for us today. The first is that the place of worship is less important than whether the Spirit of God—Jesus’ living water—is overflowing within you. I’m an Anglican. I’ve been ordained to serve as a priest for the rest of my life. I love the Anglican Church, even though I’m also frustrated by it. And I’ll be the first one to concede that Anglicans do not have a monopoly on where the Holy Spirit is active. I know many, many people, in whom the Spirit of God is overflowing, who are not Anglicans. I think that illustrates Jesus’ point: where you worship matters less than whether God is already present in your life.   A second lesson is that the gift of living water is extended to all. And all really means all. The Spirit of God can overflow in Anglicans, Baptists, Catholics, Pentecostals, Unitarians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists … you fill in the blank. That’s why Jesus needed to go through Samaria: to demontrate that his gift of living water is extended to the whole world.  

So, as you leave this place to enter another new week, take note all those you come in contact with. The Spirit of God may be overflowing within them. And if it’s not, help them to see the Spirit of God overflowing within you.