Spiritual direction: revisit the woman at the well

It's time to have another session of "what Jesus said and did and what Jesus did not say and did not do."

Read John 4: 1 - 42 "The Samaritan Woman"

This is the episode where Jesus requests water from a Samaritan woman at a well. She wonders that Jesus, a Jew, would ask for water from her, a Samaritan (they were hostile groups at the time). Jesus assures her that he will give her even greater water in return, which is the "living water" of the word of God. She recognizes that he is like one of the fathers of the faith like Jacob, but perhaps greater. Jesus asks her to call her husband to hear his message with her, as a way of getting her to admit that she has "no husband" but "has had five husbands." She recognizes Jesus as a prophet. Jesus teaches her and she recognizes that he is the Messiah. She returns to the town and "Now many of the Samaritans of that town believed in him because of the word of the woman who bore witness" (John 4: 39). As a result of her witness to Jesus the Samaritans of the town asked Jesus to stay with them, and he did so for two days. At the end of the two days "they said to the woman, 'We no longer believe because of what thou hast said, for we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is in truth the Savior of the world'" (John 4: 41). (Notice that the townspeople believed her witness even before they heard from Jesus himself. She clearly was converted and spoke with authority immediately upon her return to the town from the well.)

And that is the heart of my point in asking you to revisit this very important episode. Notice that Jesus did not give her a speech about adultery and in truth, he didn't even say anything at all about "you sinned" or "sin no more." He did not say anything about her sins or offering forgiveness. Why? Because the whole point of "meeting Jesus" is that one is converted and one's sins are forgiven if they are confessed (and she admits to Jesus the truth when he gives her the conversational opening).

Jesus did not follow her into the town and yell, "Listen to this woman! Even though she sleeps around she knows what she's talking about!"

Jesus did not follow her into town and rat her out to the wives of the men she had been with, as an opportunity to "come clean." He certainly did not make sketches of her with the men and post them on the spiritual Internet.

Jesus did not say, "But didn't you know that you are reincarnated Esther? Gosh you ought to know better than sleep around. The real reincarnated Esther would not sleep around. God must have made a boo boo, or the scriptures must be wrong. I mean, how can a reincarnated Esther be an adulterer?"

Jesus did not cross examine her about each man. You know, as a way to "find out what her sex life is like" and also as a "cleansing" or "confessional" tool to help her find out her true "inner self."

Don't those scenarios sound gross? Well, they sound all too familiar to me.

This episode if read with clean hands with clean minds is one of the most illustrative of the events in the life of Jesus. Here you can see that none of the third degree and sin angst is needed ONCE ONE HAS ENCOUNTERED THE TRUE JESUS. When one is personally instructed by Jesus as this woman was, in the blink of an eye she is cleaned, forgiven, and becomes a personal witness to Jesus as Messiah.

This is, incidentally, one of the events included in the Gospel for the express reason of providing the model and precedence for the Sacrament of Confession (now called Penance, Reconciliation). Remember that Jesus is the first Christian priest and personally instituted the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. He is at the "confessional" (the well), and he gives her opportunity to speak. He teaches her and she leaves, without him saying a word, forgiven, reconciled with God and an active witness who within hours has brought more souls to the Lord for teaching and saving. When one appeals to Jesus in person, not only is the slate wiped clean, but you come away with more than you asked, or even imagined. You give him a clean drink of water and your respectful attention and you leave converted and with the water of life.

Remember, God is great and beyond human understanding. Do not second guess God and heaven forbid, do not test him. Instead, listen to Jesus and trust in the institutions he has established so that each person can have this "conversation" with him in the fullness of how he intended. Do not ruin encounters with Jesus by being your own smarty pants and thinking that Jesus was saying and thinking things that he never did. Like Jesus explained to the Apostles and disciples, they became his "friends" and therefore were not treated as slaves. This woman simply came to Jesus, served him water, listened to him, became his friend, recognized his authority, and proclaimed it. I really wonder at the hard heartedness of these generations living today, where they cannot even read an event that is so clear as this in John, understand it, and apply it with kindness, wisdom and discretion.