St. Photina at the Well of Jacob & Jesus

To the church in the diaspora[1]

& to the church of the unchurched[2]

March 11, 2007, Third Sunday of Lent

Exodus 17: 3-7 Romans 5:1-2, 5-8 John 4: 5-42[3]

Introduction

Setting: the ancestral well of Jacob

Journeying through Samaria Jesus and the disciples come to a town called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave his son Joseph. Jacob’s well (not mentioned in the Old Testament) is there. It is high noon, and they are tired and thirsty. An artist’s conception of the scene shows a massive tree with sprawling branches bending over the well, bestowing heavenly shade and cool breezes upon the weary wayfarers, as they wipe their brows and are about to slake their thirst with cool clear water from the ancestral well of Jacob (Jn 4: 5-42).

When the disciples go into town to buy food and Jesus remains behind, a Samaritan woman approaches the well at high noon with a bucket to draw water. There she meets Jesus, and the two launch off into a long (almost rambling) conversation that runs through 40 scriptural verses. The conversation is filled with the feisty give and take that characterized the bad-blood relationship that existed between Jews and Samaritans in those days. There is an anthropomorphic discussion about where God prefers to be worshipped (on Mt. Gerizim or in Jerusalem). There is a confessional moment which exposes the woman’s meandering life with five husbands. In fact, the woman came to the well at high noon precisely because of her public shame. Public sinner that she was, she had to wear a scarlet letter on her forehead! In order to avoid the gossip and cruelty of others, she came in the heat of high noon rather in the cool of early morning, when other women would be coming to the ancestral well of Jacob to fetch their water.

Ancestral wells run deep with values and priorities

Ancestral wells are the wells to which mothers and fathers lead their sons and daughters to drink. Those wells run deep. "Sir," says the Samaritan woman, "you don't have a bucket, and the well is deep" (Jn 4: 11). From the depths of the ancestral well we drink in our world-view: what color skin people should have, what language they should speak, what food they should eat, what feasts they should celebrate, what quaint things they should do, and yes, even what God they should believe in, and where He should be worshipped.

Ancestral wells run deep with the priorities and values (conservative or liberal) with which we arrange our lives. Years ago a friend speaking of his ancestral well wrote, “I was raised in a conservative working class family in Cincinnati, Ohio. Being of German ancestry, I was taught from my earliest memory to challenge nothing that Holy Mother Church teaches. I was taught to respect all persons in positions of authority: teachers, parents, aunts, uncles, police, government officials, etc. I was taught to work for what I wanted and to wait until I had cash to buy it. I was taught that the Lord helps those who help themselves. And I was taught there is no excuse for being dirty because everyone can afford a bar of soap.”

That was his worldview with its priorities and values. He imbibed it at his ancestral well. But good man that he was, he felt uneasy about it. He continued his letters, writing, “This is my view of the world filled with its conservative values, and it is comfortable, but the truth is never comfortable! The truth hurts, especially if you are living comfortably in Cedarburg or Grafton.”

They run deep with also with religion

Ancestral wells run deep also with religion. The woman at the well is a Samaritan. (Samaritans believe much that Jews believe, but they also have differing additional beliefs of their own.) The woman argues a point of theological difference between Jesus and herself: “You Jews believe it is in Jerusalem that we should worship God,” she says to Jesus. “We Samaritans believe it is here on this mountain that we should worship God” (Jn 4: 19).

Where in the world did Samaritans get their claim that Mt. Gerizim is the right place to worship God? They got it from their ancestral well. “My Samaritan ancestors worshipped here on this mountain,” the woman tells Jesus (Jn 4: 20). That’s her proof! Where in the world did Jews get their claim that Jerusalem is the only right place to worship God? They, too, got it from their ancestral well. Where in the world do Muslims get their claim that Medina and Mecca in Saudi Arabia are the only right places to worship God? They get it from their Islamic ancestral well.

Where in the world do Usama bin Laden and Islamists get their worldview that Islam is the only way and that every other way has to go? Why, of course, they get it from an ancestral well. To schools called madrasas Islamists lead their little ones to drink from a well filled with religiously inspired hate. There they are not taught to read and write in order to become intelligent free human beings but to hate religiously (and nobody hates so fiercely as those who hate religiously). To madrasas Islamists lead their little ones where they imbibe the suicide bomber’s mentality that some hate-filled religious agenda is far more precious than their own individual precious lives. At madrasas Islamists spawn an ominous and formidable heap of suicide martyrs all lined up to bring down infidels and crusaders.

Jesus drinks neither of the woman’s nor even of his own religious well. Instead he tells her,”Believe me, the hour is coming when we will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem [nor in Medina and Mecca nor even in Rome]. Indeed, the hour is already here when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:21-23).

They run deep with also racism

Ancestral wells run deep also with racism (which always has a yen for ethnic cleansing). When the Samaritan woman comes to the well at high noon with a bucket, Jesus asks her for a cup of water. “What!” she exclaims. “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan—how can you ask me for a cup of water!” Here the gospel adds parenthetically that “Jews will not use the same cups or dishes that Samaritans use” (Jn 4: 9). That was not just a matter of incurring ritual impurity; it was also about racism. The hatred between Jews and Samaritans was not just about religion; it was also about politics, social customs and especially blood. Jews considered themselves as pure-breeds and Samaritans as racially impure mongrels. When a Jew got angry at another Jew, he would call him a “Samaritan,” very much in the same way we today call someone an SOB. One day in the midst of a hot quarrel, his fellow Jews screamed at Jesus saying, "Samaritanus es tu, et daemonum habes!" -- “You are a damn Samaritan, and you are possessed by a demon" (Jn 8:48)!

Where in the world did the Jew of old learn to hate Samaritans as mongrels and half-breeds? Why, of course, as babes in arm they were carried to the ancestral well, and there they imbibed racism with mother’s milk. Jesus refuses to drink from an ancestral well filled with racism. He purposely goes out of his way and asks a Samaritan--a despised mongrel and half-breed—(ritual impurity or not) to hand him a cup of water.

Again Jesus goes out of his way to reject the racism that lurks about in his ancestral well, when he crafts for us that mother of all parables: the Parable of the Good Samaritan. What Dostoyevsky in Brothers Karamazov has the Grand Inquisitor asking Christ about the three temptations in the desert—that I also ask about the Parable of the Good Samaritan: “Dost thou think that all the combined wisdom of the world could have invented anything in depth and force equal to the Parable of the Good Samaritan?”

Once upon a time a man (a Jew) was going from Jerusalem to Jericho and was waylaid by robbers and left half-dead. Along came a Jewish priest who saw him, did nothing and passed by. Along came a Levite (the priest’s helper and likewise a Jew) who also saw the man, did nothing and passed him by. Finally along came a Samaritan (a despised mongrel and half-breed). Seized with compassion he stopped for the poor Jew and poured the oil of comfort into his wounds, then hoisted the man’s dead weight upon his beast of burden and hurried him off to the nearest inn. There the Samaritan dug deep into his pockets to pay for the care and cure of a Jew (Lk 10: 30-37).

That immortal parable did such a magnificent job of rehabilitating the bad reputation of Samaritans that "Samaritan" has now become synonymous with "good” for all ages to come. Today we cannot imagine a Samaritan who is not good!

Blessings in the well

There are dark and dank waters lurking in the ancestral well, but there are also cool clean waters flowing in them as well. At our ancestral wells we imbibe the riches of our Germanic, Irish, Hispanic and Italian roots. Some of the best stuff that’s in us comes from those wells. From my Italian ancestral well I draw wonderful recipes for spaghetti sauces. From there I have imbibed my yen for pasta, prosciutto and tiramisu. From there I have inherited a preference for the Mediterranean diet which is rich in fruits, vegetables and greens. (I much prefer that over McDonald’s menu of hamburgers and French fries.) From my Italian ancestral well I have become heir to a warm and emotional nature, a sense of hospitality and a great ease of sharing and giving things away. From that well I have drawn an unselfconscious custom of kissing relatives and friends instead of simply tossing them an empty “Hi!”

The baptismal well

Christians drink not only from their ancestral wells but also from the well of Jesus in which flow the cool clear waters of baptism calling us to rebirth. The waters of our baptism, as well as our Lenten repentance, call us to go back into the womb and unlearn whatever in our worldview needs to be unlearned. The wonderful process of life is not only about learning but also about unlearning.

There at the well of Jesus the waters of baptism call us to wash away labels like Samaritans and Jews, Believers and Infidels. There at the well of Jesus the waters of baptism call us to wash away pretentious claims to know for sure where God wants to be worshipped. There at the well of Jesus we are led to worship the Father not in a temple built by human hands but in spirit and truth (Acts 17:24).

Turning the tables

The conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob is so rambling that a liturgical directive allows the gospel reading to be shortened for the Sunday assembly. When the story opens, it is the woman who has cool clear water to offer, and it is the Lord who is thirsty and asking for some. In the course of the rambling, we find ourselves exclaiming, “For God's sake, give the poor man a drink of water! He’s dying of thirst!" Nowhere in the whole story do we read that Jesus get his cup of water! There is no material transaction. There is only spiritual transaction in which the tables are turned: at the end of the day, it is now Jesus who has cool clear water to offer, and it is the woman who is thirsty and is asking for some to drink. Jesus offers her “a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (Jn 4: 14). She drinks deeply of it and is converted from her meandering life, and the waters of rebirth wash away the scarlet letter from her brow!

Conclusion

St. Photina at the well of Jacob and Jesus.

The Eastern Orthodox Church has a long and rich tradition about the Samaritan woman. It bestows upon her, who was so enlightened at the well of Jesus, a place of honor among the apostles. It sends her on zealous apostolic journeys to distant lands, like Carthage and Smyrna in Asia Minor, to spread the light which she received at the well of Jacob and Jesus. In Greek Orthodox sermons from the fourth to the fourteenth centuries she is called "apostle" and "evangelist" and is characterized as excelling male disciples! At her baptism she took the name of Photina! (Phos in Greek means light.) Photina is “The enlightened one. “ Photina is also “The enlightener.” She took the light she received at the well of Jacob and Jesus and set it upon a lampstand for all to see (Mt 5: 15). On her feast day, February 28th, the Orthodox Church sings this song to the woman at the well:

By the well of Jacob, O holy one,
thou didst find the water
of eternal and blessed life.
And having partaken
thereof, O wise Photina,
thou went forth proclaiming

Christ, the Anointed One

and the light of the world.

Great Photina, equal-to-the-Apostles,

pray to Christ for the salvation of our souls.

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[1] Diaspora is a Greek word meaning dispersion. Originally it referred to the settling of scattered colonies of Jews outside Palestine after the Babylonian exile. It’s now come to mean the migration or scattering of a people away from an established or ancestral homeland or parish!

[2] By the “the unchurched” is especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church has left!

[3] These readings from Cycle A may be proclaimed even in Cycle C (the present cycle) when candidates are being prepared for baptism.