A Chance Encounter

(From John 4)

We Samaritans have few visitors. Especially Jewish visitors. Very few. I won’t go into all of the reasons why. But just understand that it goes back centuries. Many centuries. Even though we are cousins of a sort, they consider us as half-breeds. And I suppose that in fact, we are, especially compared to them. You see, purity is something that obsesses them, and we Samaritans are considered to be impure and “unclean.”

That’s why it was so surprising to see a whole troop of Jewish men at the well. They must have come from Judea, heading north. Most Jews won’t travel through Samaria. Instead, they will take the longer way around, adding many miles to their journey, just to avoid the shorter walk through Samaria.

Yet here they were, just outside Sychar, my Samaritan town, at the well. About a dozen of them, I guessed. Who were they and what were they doing here? Of course, observing the strict rules of our culture, I would never ask them. And even if I did, I knew that they’d never speak to me anyway.

But I could overhear them talking. Actually, most of them were grumbling while I readied my bucket to draw water. The bulk of the men were complaining about going into town for food (it was the noon hour and time to eat). Food! Samaritan food! Unclean Samaritan food! They must have been starving to even consider it. I’d have thought they’d be better prepared, carrying their own provisions. On the contrary, they seemed to be carrying nothing! Nothing at all!

Well, enough of this background. I’m telling you all of this, not to teach you about Middle Eastern cultural norms, but to explain to you what happened to me. I just wish I could make better sense of it. But all I can do is tell you what happened and hope you can understand.

You see, when the others left for town, still grumbling I might add, one man stayed behind. He’s the one I want to tell you about.

It was just him and me at the well. Us alone. After a time of awkward silence, he spoke. To me? A Samaritan woman? Yes, he spoke to me and asked for a drink from the well.  

Well, I just had to answer him (I’ve always been a little outspoken) and so I gave him a sort of sarcastic response. He came back at me in a way that quickly escalated the conversation, making it quite personal. About me! About me! I certainly never expected that!

Not backing off, I kept responding to his questions and comments. Honestly, it felt a little like a battle of wits. He’d make a personal comment about me (he somehow seemed to know my history quite well) and I’d parry it with a mundane answer, hoping to re-route him away from my questionable past, which thankfully, I won’t bother to bore you with. 

But you must know, you must know that I didn’t lie. I didn’t. I told him the truth, and I think he appreciated that. And believe me, in truth, I have many regrets, which I freely confess. But time after time, I turned his probing comments away, with talk of worship practices, our history at Jacob’s well and so on. But time after time, he came back to talk about me. And what’s more, he said that something new was at hand. Something new? What could it be?

The conversation went on. It was kind of a game between the two of us, though not necessarily an unpleasant one.  I suppose that I could have cut it off, filled my bucket with water and returned to town. I did give him a drink and he thanked me for that. But something about him kept me there. I can’t say what it was. So, I stayed.

The man kept at it, taking my trivial talk about buckets and water and going deeper and deeper, with talk of “living water.” I tried to trivialize that, too, commenting that “living water” would be nice because it would relieve me from so many trips to the well.

But of course, that’s not what he meant, and I knew it. So, my next gambit was to change the subject altogether. Knowing that the Jews are obsessed with the idea of a Messiah who will free them from Rome, I raised the possibility that the Messiah’s arrival might be imminent. And that triggered his most amazing statement of all.

Because, surprise of surprises, he claimed to be the Messiah! Him! This ordinary-looking Galilean man who forgot to pack a lunch on his way through Samaria! The Messiah! Him? And if he was the Messiah, what was he doing in this obscure Samaritan town?

And yet.

And yet there was something about this man that went beyond what my eyes could see and my ears could hear. Something deeper. I can’t quite describe it. Surprisingly, his tone was gentle. It was not harsh, but soft in a way that I had never heard before. You could tell that he wasn’t trying to argue just for the sake of arguing. There was a tenderness in him, a sincerity that frankly, I had not experienced before. I have to admit that most people don’t speak to me at all, and if they do, their comments are sneering, aiming to put me down and keep me in my place.

But not this man. Not him. In him I could feel a deep caring, even love, in his words. I can’t explain it in any other way. In short, he seemed to care for me at a very personal level, as a father would care for his daughter, or a brother for his younger sister.

He touched something in me. Perhaps it was a hunger that had been suppressed for a long time. A yearning for something beyond my reach, a vitality, a purpose, and a peace that my shame-filled life could never offer.

And even as he drew me to confront my past, his touch was gentle. It was as if he was gently pulling a scab off of a deep wound in me, one that I had covered up, so that he could apply a healing touch. No one had ever before touched me like that.

There was also a feeling of burning. Yes, a burning, a good burning, not a burning from shame, which I’d felt many times before, but a burning from a warm fire that kindled in my heart and that somehow was reaching out from him to me. Does that make any sense? Any sense at all? Yes, a burning that demanded of me that I share it.

Yes, the burning was too big for me alone. Too big for any one person to carry. Again, not in guilt or pain but in joy, pure joy. A burning that was created not in conflict, but in peace. A peace that I’d never felt before and couldn’t truly understand. It was a peace-filled burning that demanded to be shared.

The conversation was over. It had gone so far beyond words. For a moment, I just silently stared at this man. This man whose path had crossed mine by pure coincidence. This man who by all rules of our society would never have even spoken to me. This man who by all of our customs would not only have avoided me but who would also have avoided anyone of my “breed.” This man who would have considered himself superior to me in every way, but who instead spoke to me, directly to my heart. This man, who treated me as a person, as one of God’s creation, as one of God’s own.

Living Water

Illustration by Mary Fuller

My life has been filled with surprises, most of them unwanted. But what happened next was perhaps the biggest surprise of my life, one that I still struggle to explain. 

I actually began to think like I’d never thought before. You might imagine that I’d interrogate this man, wondering what was his angle, what was his purpose in engaging me as he had. You’d have thought that I might chalk this experience off as merely random, an exception, something interesting, but nothing more. And then I’d return to my normal routine, living out my life day by day, struggling for some sense of meaning.

But I couldn’t let this experience go. I just couldn’t. Somehow, it seemed as if I’d received a precious gift, one that if required of me, I would refuse to give back. I’d even risk punishment to preserve what I’d felt with this man at the well. 

In the stillness, I could feel something deep in this encounter, something beyond words, below the surface, that kept burning inside until I got up, left my bucket at the well, and walked back toward town.

On my way back, I had no idea what would happen next, what I was going to do. It was if my mind had been disconnected, and my actions were being directed from some other source. 

People were in the streets, in the shops, working, visiting, doing normal early afternoon things. Without a conscious sense of it, I began to speak. First to one, then to another. Soon, a small crowd clustered around me as I shared what was burning in my heart. I’m not sure I can even remember my words and I fear that they were totally inadequate to what I was trying to communicate.

I do remember telling them about “this man” who could tell me all that I had ever done. Why on earth did I say that? After all, my life had been an open book in Sychar, all too open, in fact. The whole village seemed to know what I had done and without exception, had disapproved.

But I must have said more. Much more. Or maybe like the man, perhaps it was the tone, it was the sincerity, it was the sense of depth and truth that projected from me to them, not so much to their judgmental minds but directly into their hearts.

Whatever it was, they listened. They listened. To me! To the person who among them was least to be respected, most to be disregarded. They listened to me, the least likely person to convince anyone of anything. And that was the biggest surprise of all!

But they did listen. I convinced them. I convinced them to come and see. To come and see for themselves, to come and see this man who’d created a burning in me that couldn’t be contained, one that seemed to have a life of its own, which, in his own words, seemed like “living water.”

And they went. A whole crowd of them went. They went and I went with them. He was still there and by now, his friends had also returned (still grumbling). They wanted to leave, to be on their way. It was easy to see that they were uncomfortable and becoming more uncomfortable by the moment as they saw the approaching crowd.

But the man, Jesus they called him, would have none of it. None at all. He began to engage the crowd, not so much like he had with me, but offering words of peace and hope. He touched and blessed, especially children. He comforted the afflicted. And as with me, it wasn’t so much what his words said, but how he said them, how he touched them and somehow, in the tenderness of his voice.

Hours went by. By now, his friends had pretty much given up trying to get Jesus to leave. They were sitting around, looking a bit bored and exasperated with him. You could tell that they knew better than to try to control him. And you could also tell that Jesus was having a great time.

Our city’s leaders were in the crowd. Can you imagine? Based on my invitation, our city’s leaders had come out of town all the way to the well, the well where the women of the city normally came to draw water! My invitation!

They invited Jesus to stay. He said yes, thanks for the invitation, he would stay. At this, his friends really rolled their eyes and you could tell, simply gave up in trying to get Jesus to leave. They would all stay. For how long was anybody’s guess.

What does it all mean? It started out as an ordinary day. But it became the most extraordinary day of my life. One in which the shame of my past melted away. One in which I felt useful in a way I’d never before felt. And one in a way that I felt burned, not by guilt, but by the fire of a great love.

Was all of this an accident? A random event? What does it all mean? Why me? If Jesus had wanted a spokesperson in Sychar, why not choose one of our leaders? Why choose the least respected person in town? Why me? And most of all, why did anyone listen to me, the greatest of sinners in town? Why did they all come out to see this man, Jesus?

Answering all of these questions may take years. If it does, that’s all right with me. I don’t want to rush anything as this was an experience to savor, not dissect. Honestly, it was almost as if a new language had been invented. Words can be spoken in Aramaic, or in Greek. But engaging with this man, Jesus, was beyond words in any language. It was as if heart spoke to heart, no words required.

I know that doesn’t make any sense. It’s a feeling of being touched, deeply. Of connecting at a level beyond words, beyond conscious thoughts, in a new language, the language of love. A language, as he said, of “spirit and of truth.”

And you know what? I’ll never look at water in the same way, ever again!

Copyright 2020 Robert Westheimer all rights reserved