A Different Point of View

4th Sunday of Lent

John 4:5-42

The Woman at the Well
(an exercise in first person character preaching)

You just heard it…

Or did you?

Perhaps you’ve just heard what you have been trained to hear…

Filling in all the gaps in the story with what you’ve been taught since you started coloring pictures of me at the well in Sunday school

Brain-washing that’s what it is…

It has taken over your Christian imagination!!!

So how about you try real hard to listen as I set a few things straight

First of all…

I would go to that well in the scorching heat ANYDAY

Over having to cross paths with those judgy, prissy, self-righteous hippocrites!  And you might be just as bad…whose to say.

See…what they saw in me…

Was an easy convenient place to heap a ton of lies…

and saunter off with their nudge-nudge-wink-winks

Well…I finally say…go ahead

if that’s what it takes for you to feel good about yourselves

…piss on you

And this husband thing…

There isn’t some big sexual scandal here…

But juicy gossip is so very tantalizing!!!

The 1^st two…

Before I was 18

Divorced me

…got impatient when I didn’t conceive right away…

CRUEL…that’s what they were…

But they talked it up around town that I burnt the dinner night after night…look at me…

does it look like I miss any good meals!

Then Josiah

The love of my life

Laughter, and music, joy…

And then I was pregnant.  What a different time it was around the well then…

OH how quickly things can change

The accident…Josiah was a builder

A roof fell on him…It was an accident
that's what they say
he died

I was so possessed by grief
didn’t even notice the labor pains…
Couldn't feel anything but grief
just a few hours she lived…that’s all.

Then the rumors began in earnest

I must be cursed…

I get it from 1^st century folks

But NOT you all!
You should know better

Things went from bad to worse

Jeremiah

Philip

It was a blurr…grief…two years…blurr blurr…grief blurr

Ever been there?

Then I slowly got myself back together…

And YES…I’m a concubine…he’s a good man…a Greek

Travels through twice a year on business…

really its nice…perfect really

I feel safe…I feel quite free actually

I know I don’t look so good on paper

But…really…that’s a problem for you…not me

And so I keep to myself…

I’m too tired to fight for a place at the morning well

It’s my life…I come to the well at noon

It works for me

SO  YES

I was shocked when this Jesus man talked to me and asked me for a drink…

It just doesn’t happen

Jewish man…Samaritain woman

On so so many levels…it just doesn’t happen

And YES…I was a bit sassy

I’m a little gun shy with men…there was no one around

I thought…hey, I can dish it out…its my defense mechanism

And…when he started talking all weird and creepy

I was only half listening…

But then…

I thought…this could be fun…engage this man

And then…

when He spoke my story

I knew…I knew

This guy is different

but I was so frazzled so confused

So uncomfortable

You know what I mean???

I just changed the subject…about places of worship

As if that is what would interest this man???

But this man stayed with me…

Followed my lead…giving me time to come to myself

And then he put his hands on my face

He held my face…oh so tenderly

He did, he touched me, I know it doesn’t say it in the text…

But…think of who wrote it???

My face

He Held it

As a treasure

The men returned

They were caught off guard and couldn’t hold back their snide gazes

But I didn’t care

HE didn’t care

They couldn’t break the moment…truth and life…

…can’t break that

I went

Called the community

I must have changed

Because…

They listened to me!

And, they too went in search of him.

And what I learned later

Just drove the ball outta the park

Guess where he had just been?

With that

Well-known, squeaky clean, high and mighty Nicodemus

And this Jesus didn’t go seeking him out like he did me

It was Nicodemus doing the seeking

Go figure…He seeks him out and then he doesn’t listen.

He’s probably still sitting there in his lazy-boy…

Contemplating meaning…praying over words…feeling all important.

Word on the street is that Jesus

Sought me out

From his point of view I was a kind of Divine Appointment…

You wanna know  something?

…he never talked to anyone as long as he talked to me!!!

I’m really someone! 

And when you’re someone

you can’t help but go and tell everyone all about it!!!

Sources:

Reta Halteman Finger, “Man Meets Woman at a Well – John 4:1-42

“The Samaritain Woman Tale Revisited” http://sallysjourney.typepad.com/emerging_feminist/2009/03/the-samaritan-womans-tale-revisited-john-4.html