Today’s Biblical scripture is quite a popular one – “the Samaritan Woman at the Well.” I grew up hearing about this story from Baptists, hippy-Christians, and Salvationists, and I appreciate those contexts and insights as I approach this text. I also think adding a bit of my more newfound Swedenborgian perspective focusing on a spiritual or metaphorical interpretation can shed even more light on the deeper meaning of such a beautiful tale for each of us.
Our story tells us that one day Jesus, God in the flesh in the Bible, comes to Jacob’s and Joseph’s well. To refresh our Hebrew Bible knowledge, Jacob and Joseph are two of the main forefathers of the Jewish tradition (the other ones being Jacob’s father, Isaac and grandfather, Abraham).
In this community, we often share the Biblical idea that the stories and parables of these forefathers, as well as of the Hebrew foremothers, all point to God(dess) and God’s journey with each of us across time. For example, Abraham the patriarch of the religion, means “the father of many,” which, in a spiritual sense, clearly points to Divinity – the parent of us all. These connections continue down to the details of the stories as we’ll see today, sharing with us aspects of Divinity and her loving kindness and wisdom, as well as parables that describe our own journeys receiving the Lord (or whichever one of his many names that we call God) in greater and greater ways, or misusing the gift of her openness, infinite love, and life for our own selfish purposes.
There’s a reason why scripture says Christ always spoke in parable: it’s the symbolic language of spiritual growth, of higher truth! Like Jesus, we can’t help but often interpret our own history and even our scriptures in some type of parable; no matter how literally oriented we believe our recollections and lessons-learned are, we typically ask ourselves, “What’s the moral(s) of the story?”
So, let’s jump in! Christ comes to a well, tired from his travels due to the need to avoid the Pharisees (religious leaders who, in the Bible, often try to dominate with their view on their tradition). At this point, a religious outcast to the Jews, a Samaritan, comes to the well. Not only that, but as the sermons of my childhood often pointed out, she was a woman with many divorces now living with someone who wasn’t her husband, and thus a “sinful” (meaning “missed-the-mark”) outcast even among Samaritans. As she points out, with all layers of decorum to the wind, Jesus asks her for water and says that she should ask him for some as well!
There’s a clear theme established here: that God and the Bible are not interested in enforcing religious or cultural hierarchy and dominance. Not only does Divinity avoid the Biblical characters that present that (the Pharisees), but Jesus gently steps through the cultural anxieties and hurtful rules to connect, while still uplifting health and community but in a greater, more humane way than established.
To her vast credit, the woman does as well, entering into spiritual discourse with this wonderful, strange Jew. In surprising fashion, he says if you knew who I was you wouldn’t point out decorum but would take living water from me. She points out the shared roots of their religion, today both are typically considered types of Jews, and asks, “Are you greater than our father Jacob” and his son Joseph?
Jesus, instead of answering directly, emphasizes that if she takes water from him she will never thirst and will, in fact, find a well springing up to eternal life. Now, like many of us, taking Christ literally she responds excitedly (and I paraphrase), “For sure! I’m tired of having to travel to this well for water!” She must be thinking he’s some kind of expert magician or sorcerer or something.
In a way, he is, but his magic is the magic of the cosmos, his providence and wisdom is that of the Universe called by many names, of which springs up quantum physics, love and life.
He then generally says, “Well, you can have it, but I’d like to get to know you first. Why don’t you go get your husband and we can chat.” And she admits, “I don’t have a husband.” Commending her on her honesty, Christ then reveals that he already knows this, describing her many divorces, five, and her current living situation with her boyfriend. Now, this is where many interpretations might dive right into the literal bate, so-to-speak, focusing on the sinful nature of literal promiscuity and divorce, perhaps.
Now, I don’t condone reckless sexual behavior or the impact of possibly flippant approaches to marriage and relationship, whether or not this is the case with her is beyond our conversation today. In fact, Jesus doesn’t condemn these things either. No, instead I’d like to point out some bigger themes present here that deeply incorporate reflections on behavioral health and life transformation.
Christ points to these bigger themes himself. After the woman, shocked, responds by calling him a prophet and mentions some differences in their traditions, he amazingly points out that these differences are trivial when we worship in Spirit and in truth.
According to the 18th century open, mystical Christian writings that inspired our Swedenborgian denomination as well as people like Helen Keller, Emerson, Blake, and Robert Frost, we should focus on this sentiment of worshipping in the light of Spirit and truth. Which is exactly what Jesus says next, “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth,” while indicating that this can be rare!
But what does that mean? Well, I think this story and Jesus’ words answers this question. As the woman says next, “I know that the Messiah (“Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
In this story, Jesus points out the metaphor of scripture. He connects with someone who to the religion of his culture is essentially condemned for many reasons, an outcast, and says that he can offer water that is even beyond the literal water of both of their forefathers’ well, let alone the current forms of their traditions! God offers each of us living water that is beyond the literal water of our own forefathers’ wells, beyond the literal interpretations of scripture that we carry, and beyond the judgment, hate, and dismissal of our own internal Pharisees seeking to dominate, control, and condemn.
Scripture tends to use the metaphor of a woman for the church, calling God the bridegroom and the rest of us the bride as well as other female images. For a tradition that so often criticizes trans culture, there’s a lot of trans language in the Christian gospel! Especially when we consider that the Christian church has historically been patriarchal, and yet still says it embraces Christ’s labelling of the church as a wife, a bride, a virgin, and on. If there’s one obvious aspect of the gospels that Christians don’t take literally, it’s that one!
We are each the Samaritan woman at the well, although it may take some humility to accept that. We each have our own journeys filled with mistakes, transformations, stale waters, and marriages with “sinful” or “missing-the-mark" motives – often vastly so. We often drink from stagnant pools, but always have the opportunity to accept the living water that reaches past the anxieties, the limitations, and the hurtful judgments of our flooded lives. May we start to follow in the next footsteps of the woman of this story, sharing the good news of God’s interfaith embrace with everyone, as well as emulate God by spiritually meeting others where they’re at instead of trying to force our own dogma or traditions onto them. This doesn’t mean that we hide away our perspective, our insight or “candle,” but instead use these truths to help illuminate the spirit of others, uplifting their journeys instead of drowning them with our own.
As we know, water can be both destructive or mind-bendingly constructive. We can suffer floods thanks to water… but more so, we also have life thanks to it, and many other things: nourishment, cleansing, fun, refreshment, construction, transportation, and an ability to recover and douse the flames of our own hurtful passions thanks to it!
There’s no element on this planet more empowering to life than water. And living water represents our reception of our empowering Higher Power in this story, that’s easy to see and hard to dismiss. But as we’ve also seen, it’s easy to overlook the implications of this in our lives and culture. God points out that we can lack reception of this water, receiving it is not just a given - we can become dehydrated, stagnant, unclean in a sense, not allowing the flow of the living, healing Wellspring of God to cleanse our hearts and nourish our own lives in Spirit and in truth.
As we were shown by our reading, to do this we are called on to emulate God and the woman at the well: allowing the flow of living water to break down barriers, washing away our own stale orientations, and pushing us into personal transformation toward health and connection. This empowerment takes a willingness to see and accept that we are enlivened by something higher, whatever we call him, the Water and Wellspring of Life that truly embodies the act of reaching across the aisle to uplift with her gentle waves, but not to smother.
