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ProudDog
Posts:511
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| 02/18/2008 8:07 AM |
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| Welcome to our Bible conversation for this week. Kate's provided some refreshing thoughts comparing last week's reading about Nicodemus with this long one (John 4:5-42) as well as exploring the well of "Living Water" more deeply. I've written a short piece that talks about Jesus' ignoring social taboos as he had a conversation. Take a look at Water, Word, Witness and Rejection reasons and let's talk! |
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-Kirk Moore |
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katehuey
Posts:174
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| 02/19/2008 1:33 PM |
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John 4:5-42
Remember the story of Nicodemus last week, coming to talk with Jesus in the night? It’s no coincidence that the clueless, educated (and named) man was “in the dark,” and the unnamed, insightful outsider woman in today's passage (John 4:5-42) sits in the bright light of the noonday sun. John is telling us in his Gospel about light and darkness, and who “gets it,” and who doesn’t.
Today’s passage is a conversation exceedingly rich for our own discussion. We could begin with John’s use of metaphor, calling Jesus “the light of world” that shines in the darkness (remember Nicodemus), and Jesus himself offers “living water” to a woman who has to carry heavy jugs of water each day back to her home. Later, he’ll tell his followers that he is the living bread, and some of them walk away. We can speak of spiritual hunger, but also of spiritual thirst, and I think that’s what Jesus is really talking about today. What do you think?
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Kate Huey |
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sancho032
Posts:8
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| 02/19/2008 7:37 PM |
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| I am struck most when looking at this passage that here we have yet another person who just doesn't get what Jesus is talking about. We have Nicodemus in the preceeding passage and the disciples throughout the gospels just not getting what Jesus was trying to tell them. I wonder if Jesus ever got frustrated?!! I know I sure would have. It borders on comical sometimes how people react to what Jesus says to them. This is no accident and this isn't an example of the level of people's intellect in Jesus' day. What it is is a way of inviting us into the text. It is a way of getting us involved because most of us struggle with our belief. We struggle to understand what our faith, what Jesus has to say to us and for us. By showing us that even his closest followers and those he chose to associate with don't get it at first we are invited deeper into the story. If the stories of the Bible were always about how people understood Jesus right away it would create a need for us to know all things and believe all things without question or doubt.
Instead we are given a faith story that is filled with people who don't get it at first, but have to go through a process...they have to take a journey of faith with Jesus to a deeper and more meaningful understanding. The apparent stupidity or density of the people Jesus meets and associates with is not about them at all, but is about us. It is about us being welcomed into the story by Jesus...welcomed on a journey of faith that is more about the questions than it is the answers! I thank God that I am part of a faith that allows me to ask the questions instead of reciting the answers. Thanks for reading my rant!! Peace |
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God is Love! - Josh |
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ProudDog
Posts:511
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| 02/19/2008 10:59 PM |
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Sancho -- would I be right in characterizing your thoughts like this?
When we 'get' that we 'don't get' it our journey of faith really gets going. |
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-Kirk Moore |
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uccwomanist
Posts:6
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| 02/20/2008 1:50 AM |
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Hi Sancho,
I don't think your post is a rant.:-)
I think you are right about this being a passage that invites us in, but I take it from a little different view point. It is the Samaritan woman's status and her past that invites me in.
Reading the passage this weekend, I identified with the woman, because like her, I have be considered an "other." However, that was not enough to bring me in.
I realized that I never really liked this passage before. I believe it was my identifying with the shame that this woman must have felt and not wanting to dig deeper into my own feelings of shame.
In addition, the interpretations that I heard of it growing up were so judgmental and condemning.
What I see in reading it this time is an invitation to be who I am---warts and all---in my relationship with God. While God intimately knows my past, she does not use it against me rather she uses it for her purpose. Here i was trying to hide all my stuff; not feeling worthy to be used by God and she flips the script.
"To worship in spirit and in truth" had always puzzled me, but reading The Message translation of it helped me. God is not looking for us to be anything, but ourselves. That is so refreshing when as an "other" you constantly receive messages that you are not good enough, that you should assimilate to something else that "isn't you."
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sancho032
Posts:8
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| 02/20/2008 9:42 AM |
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| I think that would probably be an accurate statement Kirk.
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God is Love! - Josh |
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ProudDog
Posts:511
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| 02/20/2008 12:27 PM |
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Posted By uccwomanist on 02/20/2008 1:50 AM
Here i was trying to hide all my stuff; not feeling worthy to be used by God and she flips the script.
I just love that line. And instead of experiencing God's ability to see all my stuff as something scary and privacy-violating, I experience it as God saying, "Yeah -- I know your stuff -- so what? Of course I love you and accept you!"
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-Kirk Moore |
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katehuey
Posts:174
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| 02/20/2008 3:14 PM |
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It seems to me that this story has the power to lift a woman's spirit rather dramatically. This woman starts at a disadvantage just because she's a woman, but she's also outside the community. She's not coming to the well when all the other women bring their water jars (the cool part of the day - it was heavy to carry those things!), and chat and gossip, presumably. It might be when they share information that helps them help one another. In that case, she would find it hard to receive help or offer it.
But what I particularly love is that, when she figures out (very fast) that this stranger is a prophet, she doesn't ask for forgiveness or healing or anything. She launches into a theological discussion! Kind of like, "Wow! So you're a prophet that knows everything. There's something that has bothered me for a long time, so maybe you can explain it." Then she asks about something that's hard for us to relate to but of course was very important to her people. I wonder what kind of sense she had of even belonging to a people. In any case, I find it amazing and wonderful that Jesus responds in the same spirit of theological reflection. It feels as if he acknowledges her dignity.
If you were in her place, what's the question on your mind that you'd want to ask Jesus at the well?
I also look forward to reading your thoughts on the reaction of the townsfolk. Maybe tomorrow... |
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Kate Huey |
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subear
Posts:774
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| 02/20/2008 4:39 PM |
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John 4:5-24
Upon reading this passage again, I stop first at verse 5, "Then he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, [synchar signifies a confused state of mind, mixed state of consciousness, idolatry] near the field which Jacob had given to his son Joseph." Which reminds us that they were all family there, cousins. The Samaritan woman may have been an "outsider" in terms of their sects and Temple politics, but the well was within her branch of the family's territory. So technically, Jesus is the "outsider" in this picture. (6)"Jacob's well was there;" Jacob stands for the intellect and the well (source of water) represents inspiration. As expressed in the conversation that issued forth.
The difference between Jacob and his twin Esau, is that Esau represents the animal nature in the human, and Jacob represents the mental. And the conversation that Jesus had with the Woman at the Well was about rising in consciousness, from the animal and mental nature to the higher spiritual nature of the human consciousness. "(13) Jesus answered, saying to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; (14) But whoever drinks of the water which I give him shall never thirst; but the same water which I give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to life everlasting." And she got it! Just that fast. (15)" The woman said to him, My lord, give me of this water, so that I may not thirst again and need not come and draw from here."
Then the conversation appears to get "tribal" ("my tribe's better than your tribe") when Jesus tells her (22) "You worship what you do not know; but we worship what we do know; for salvation is from the Jews." The Jews were of the tribe of Judah. They had the Temple. The Samaritans worshiped on the mountain (like Moses "our forefathers"). But Jesus goes on, (23) But the time is coming, and it is here, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father also desires worshippers such as these. (24) For God is Spirit; and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." This has to be my favorite line in the whole Bible.
This is about direct, personal, experience of God as Spirit. Inner experience. "In Spirit and in Truth." There will still be "insiders" and "outsiders" but it is always possible to become an "insider" because this definition is not about social, cultural, or religious conventions, this "inside" is about Knowing God from the inside out. God is the Spirit inside each one of us and it's up to us to awaken to that Spirit. God is "knocking at the door of our heart" and it's up to us to notice. Turn within. Turn our attention away from the outside world of form, to the inner world of consciousness. And there is Spirit. There is God. God is Spirit. God is Truth. It's that simple. . . (and that difficult).
Peace, Love and Understanding,
sb |
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"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin |
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uccwomanist
Posts:6
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| 02/21/2008 10:32 AM |
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Posted By katehuey on 02/20/2008 3:14 PM
If you were in her place, what's the question on your mind that you'd want to ask Jesus at the well?
I would be just like her. Once I realized who he was, I would jump into my questions. I don't think my first questions would address "the most burning theological question of our times," but I would have theological and personal questions.
What was the Samaritan woman's name at the well? What had happened in her life? What happened to her after she witnessed to her entire village?
Why didn't you make women disciples? They are the ones who stuck with you to the end.
Don't you support women's ordaination?
What is your stance on abortion? How do I work with people who disagree with my position on it?
What do you want me to do?
People keep saying "Let go and let God." What's my part and what's your part?
Why did my mother die so young?
It was hard for me to write questions without censoring myself. This woman did not do that. Each time Jesus revealed something, she was ready with an intelligent question. She was someone who did not have a voice in her society; yet, when she meets Jesus, she finds her voice. She does not stumble or qualify her question with "I don't know whether this is right or not, but are you greater than our ancestor Jacob?" She comes on out with her questions.
Why did she so easily engage in this conversation? Was it Jesus or something about her or both?
She may have been so happy to have a conversation with someone that she, like Jesus, ignored the social taboos. Think about the messages she had gotten all her life and that certainly had to have been internalized. It is as if Jesus lifts the burden of these external forces and allows her "to be human."
Or despite her social status, had she always been bold or as they say in African
American communities, had she always been womanish?
In his book Living Water, Obery Hendricks creates a back story to the character of the Samaritan woman and he describes how her intelligence, vivaciousness and ack of deference to men made her stand out in childhood. (This discussion is inspiritng me to go back and finish reading it.) Could it be that rather than immoral character, it was these characteristics that lead to her multiple marriages?
Yes, Kate. I think this story can be quite liberating for women and anyone who has felt the loneliness, isolation, shame, & silencing of oppression.
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subear
Posts:774
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| 02/21/2008 11:04 AM |
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Oooooh, Womanist, I like what you wrote, especially about the (most likely) reason why she had had so many husbands. A woman with a mind AND a mouth. . . .. ummm mmm mmm. She had no shame (she didn't ask for forgiveness) nor did Jesus admonish her to "go and sin no more" like he did the "adulteress" who was about to be stoned (in another story).
And, "who was that woman?" That's what I want to know. I have heard or read (or imagined?) allusions to "the woman at the well" as Mary Magdalene. Is that the general belief?
But, Jesus did have women disciples, wasn't Mary Magdalene a disciple? . . . . and maybe the other women who traveled with them were also disciples?
And "Why did she so easily engage in this conversation?" it was the well, source of inspiration, overflowing, abundantly. . .
P,L &
U,
Susannah
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"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin |
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katehuey
Posts:174
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| 02/21/2008 4:18 PM |
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Actually, I think many of the "burning theological issues of the day" are included in your list, womanist!
And, Susannah, you're right - she doesn't ask for forgiveness or repent, does she? It would be interesting and fruitful to reflect on how her life was changed afterward.
And yes, Mary Magdalene and other women were disciples. Some even call MM an apostle, since she actually fits the definition better than the men: she followed Jesus in his travels, AND was a witness to the Resurrection - she went and told the "real" apostles, the men. But the institutional church has long insisted that Jesus intentionally chose only men to lead the church. Now THAT'S a whole new discussion thread, isn't it!! |
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Kate Huey |
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subear
Posts:774
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| 02/21/2008 4:59 PM |
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Thanks, Kate,
But was the woman at the well Mary M. ?
-PL&U,
Susannah |
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"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin |
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greenrebel55
Posts:70
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| 02/21/2008 7:24 PM |
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Wow! What an exciting discussion to step into! I'm been down with the flu and didn't have two gray cells functioning in tandem all week.
It's impossible to tell from the text who the woman is,Subear. MM is from Magdala. That's how she got her name. So it's probably not MM. But a lot like her, I'd bet.
welcome, womanist! |
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katehuey
Posts:174
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| 02/22/2008 9:35 AM |
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Hope you're feeling better, Greenrebel - good to have you back!
Subear, your question prompts another one in my mind: is it possible that the woman at the well isn't a historical person but a "type" - a figure who represents something like "women," or, more likely, "the other," specifically "the Samaritans" - who, in another generation, might represent "the gentiles" who wanted to become Christian - when some folks thought they shouldn't be welcomed or evangelized?
It seems like Mary Magdalene is a real, historical figure, but I just wonder about the woman at the well.
And I'm just wondering what you all think, too.... |
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Kate Huey |
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uccwomanist
Posts:6
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| 02/22/2008 10:58 AM |
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Posted By katehuey on 02/20/2008 3:14 PM
I also look forward to reading your thoughts on the reaction of the townsfolk. Maybe tomorrow... Assuming that she was a "Gibora" woman, I think the townspeople would have listened to her without hesitation---even though they may not have responded right away.
Why do I say that? Let's think about this. She is not only an intelligent and articulate, she is quite attractive. Her physical attractiveness is evidenced by her past relationships. Even with the rules about a widow passing to a brother, could she really have had 5 marriages and be in a sixth relationship if she were not fine? Although her womanist/feminist behavior may have been a public turnoff, could it be that her feistiness was a private turn on for men? (And it did not hurt that she was cute whether this was an actual physical beauty or a sexiness emanating from her bold personality.) Therefore, when she ran back to town, men were listening even though they may have played it off at first.
How did women respond? Women resented how she always received sly attention from their husbands/brothers/fathers. The women could see how they chided her on the one hand, but would sneak glances at her as she would walk to the well alone. Here they abided by all the religious rules and societal mores; yet, they were treated like doormats. Why should this non-conforming woman be rewarded? However, their feelings were more complicated. While the women were resentful and ostracized and otracized her, they also secretly admired her audacity. She was such a free spirit!
Therefore, they also paid attention when she came into the village.
Although there was an initial period of coolness to her message it did not take long before people began to question her. They had not seen her this animated since her youth and something was different about her. She was glowing; yet, how she spoke was different. She normally had a confident tone, but this afternoon she was humble in her speech, "He cannot be the Messiah,* can he?’
" She knew what she was talking about it, but she phrased it in such a way to give the listener the power to affirm.
"Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!" I wonder whether this statement concerned some of the men and that is why they went?
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