A Chance Encounter at a Well

It was just under a year ago that I began a two week pilgrimage through the Holy Land.  The trip lives on through gospel readings, which are often related to places visited.  Of course, the world is much different from 2000 years ago when Jesus Christ walked the hills and took refuge in the caves of Judea and Nazareth, but in many places topography and general weather conditions are likely similar.  The Judean desert, east of Jerusalem, for example, is still a desert, although modern transportation makes it much easier to cross.  Bedouins still live in the desert eking out a living by raising sheep, or trading in camels, which provides a decent enough living to have generators, and their own dish antennae.  Further, conflict is still present in a landscape proclaimed holy by three major religions.  The frailties and inclinations of our existence as part of the human race do much to form our social situation.  Frailties and inclinations, or prejudices, if you will, were present 2000 years ago.  While modern weapons make attacks today more violent, outcomes compared to 2000 years ago are not too dissimilar.  Attacks of the Roman Legion have been replaced by suicide bombers.  Walls to protect a city, have become present once again, but to control the Palestinian population.  Check points are present, and more controlled than 2000 years ago.  Rather than crucifixion, today we see suicide bombers who are judge and jury unto themselves.  Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his poem, the “Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner” has the famous line commenting on the irony of the situation of being on a windless ocean, “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.”  So too is the irony of violence present in the Holy Land, a land where the most written about man in history preached peace is often torn by strife.

Jerusalem.  The photo was taken from the Mount of Olives, looking toward the city showing the
 Temple Mount, which is next to the Wailing Wall, and in the distance the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. 

But, as we look to history, the irony has always been present in the Holy Land.  Over the past three weekends, the gospel readings have focused on what the Priest at a mass I attended last weekend has called an ever increasing difficulty of miracles performed by Jesus.  The first reading involved Jesus talking to a Samaritan women at a well, the second the cure of a blind man, and the third raising of Lazarus from the dead.  All three readings are filled with symbols and metaphors. 

Urn reportedly used by the Samaritan woman to draw water

For the Samaritan woman, the well she frequented is more commonly referred to as Jacob’s well. Jacob was the father of a large number of boys, including Joseph, who was sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers.  Not only from this, but from other biblical references one can see a strong dislike between Samaritans and another Abrahamic religion, the Jews.  I suppose it is not unlike the Sunni’s and the Shiite’s in the Muslim religion today.  The Jews would not have anything to do with the Samaritans, and that is present in the reading:  “The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?’”  Shortly after this, and Jesus telling her the water he gives will quench thirst, Jesus plays a lawyerly trick asking her to bring her husband.  As Jesus knew, she did not have a husband, and he goes on to say:  “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”  After a brief discourse regarding a difference between Samaritan and Jewish worship traditions, Jesus comments:  “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”  The reading presents additional metaphors of the new life that belief in Christ will provide.  In this situation Christ has knowledge of the women and her past that as a passer-by he would not likely have heard through the gossip train in town.  The result of the encounter is not that she was living with a man, or had five husbands, but that she, and then the town, were given a new life, a new beginning from the promised prophet himself.  What is striking, is that given her past, this woman was probably somewhat of an outcaste within the Samaritan community (which was treated as an outcaste group from the Jewish community) around Sychar, was able to persuade fellow members of the city to come and see Jesus, for he had recounted items in her past to her.  While unsaid in John’s recollection, it is intimated that woman turned her life around by her belief in Jesus--the long promised prophet.  This is a critical juncture in the life of this woman.

Jacob's Well, I had a drink of water from this well

The second of the readings, from last week involved a particular miracle.  On the Sabbath, Jesus performs heals a blind man, by making mud with spit and placing it on the man’s eyes.  What is present in the reading is the ancient belief that the man’s blindness was related to either a sin by his parents or by him.  Being blind was apparently thought to be retribution brought on by God for some wrong.  Of course, the Pharisee’s did not like the outcome of this act and failed to believe that this man was the same one who had been blind.  What was more disconcerting to the Pharisee’s is that miracle was performed on the Sabbath, and because Jesus did not obey the Sabbath, he must not have been from God.  The high priests interrogated the parents and the man, demanding to know whether or not some trick had been played, and as a whole the failed to see the miracle that had occurred.  The man was ultimately banished by the religious rulers.  The important part of the encounter is Christ’s simple proclamation that he is “the light of the world.”  The blind man was given the gift of sight, as a way to prove the power of God working through Jesus.  The blind man, though banished, retained his belief in God, and that Jesus was the son of man, yet it failed to persuade many others, who would prefer to remain blind to the occurrence.  As the reading concludes Christ notes that he came so those who do not see, may see, and those who do see may become blind.  It is in the failure to recognize the works of Jesus that those who see become blind.  More to the point, it is simply human nature, be it a certain arrogance, or beholden to the way it has always been, that those who see become blind.

Location of Pool of Siloam within Jerusalem (Source: Google Images)

The final reading is often thought to be the most difficult of miracles, bringing a dead man back to life, and this reading, the week before the reading of the Passion, will presage the event of Easter Sunday.  In this reading, Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, has died and Jesus will raise him from the dead. Martha greets Jesus as he makes his way to Bethany.  From Jerusalem, Bethany is just beyond the Mount of Olives.  Martha complains that her brother would not have died if Jesus had been present, quite a rebuke to the son of God.  Although one of the most distressing experiences of life is to lose a loved one, which helps explain the rebuke—a human reaction.  It is the statement that follows where Jesus grants eternal life to those who leave the bonds of this earth, the is the essential element of Christianity.   This account also includes the shortest verse in scripture: “Et Dominus flevit.” (“And the Lord Wept.”) What is important in this account is that Jesus shows his humanness by weeping near the tomb of his friend.  When Lazarus’ sisters complain that the tomb cannot be opened because surely there is a stench, perhaps the stench is a metaphor for sin, and the raising of Lazarus represents the promise of Christianity.

Tomb of Lazarus in Bethany

Description of Lazarus' Tomb

With all due respect to the Priest who last weekend claimed that the miracles increased in difficulty, perhaps the occurrence at the well in Sychar is the most meaningful.  Making a blind man see, and raising a man from the dead are strong events, and are meant to help those not believing to believe, but the Samaritan women requires an alteration to human behavior.  As we know our experiences form each and every one of us, and even though two persons may have the same encounter, they can both experience it quite differently.  In Israel and Palestine we see evidence of prejudice and inclinations formed over centuries.  Is it any wonder it is difficult to have the two sides reach a peace agreement?  The Samaritan woman, I like to think, changed her life.  It was not a matter of her being able to have sight, or being raised from the dead, but rather she would end up altering her long-set values, her inclinations and her desires.  This takes courage, desire, and will-power to persevere to change the way she had lived her life to that point.  We all find ourselves following certain patterns, habits or customs, and those can bring a certain stability, but they may also leave us unwilling to adventure beyond a comfort zone. Just as Israel and Palestine find themselves on separate shores, so too often do we.  It requires will power, desire, perseverance to change our inclinations.  We need those values to meet with the person we have put aside, to welcome those who may have mis-affected us, to understand those who are different.  Yet, we are frail, we try but we do not always succeed.  This is the trial, and way of life.  But it is our trails, and how we face the frailties of our humanness that forms our character, and in turn develops our values.  This is best summed up in a prayer I saw just yesterday: “Falling down is part of life, getting back up is living.” Sometimes are greatest low points can produce the most respected high points.  On example, is a cancer research fund started by a person with stage four cancer.  Although the most obvious is Jesus who had his low point on Good Friday and his high point the following Sunday.  Next time there is a private little war in which you find yourself, you can dwell on the wrongs of the past, or recall where the times they were overcome.  Think of the Samaritan woman and what a chance encounter at Jacob’s well meant for her and the outcaste Samaritan community in Sychar.   

Note:  Unless otherwise noted, all photos by the author, taken in April 2013.