On a hot day in Samaria by the well of Jacob, an unexpected meet-up, Jesus and a foreign woman eye to eye. Not inside a synagogue, not a pulpit, but the low wall of a well, for a heart-to-heart conversation.
Jesus goes straight to the essentials: “Go and call the one you love.” He knows the language of affection, generosity, and desire, which offers solid reasons to live.
“You have had five husbands,” he says; the statement is not an accusation, but a step to a new self. He doesn’t look for clues of guilt in the woman; he looks for indications of goodness and highlights them when he says: You are indeed correct. You have no husband.
After suffering a lot, being abandoned and humiliated five times by the “act of repudiation,” she still knows her truth.
Because if our water jar, cracked or broken, can no longer hold water, instead of throwing those shards that seem useless to us, God arranges them differently, creating a channel through which living water can flow gracefully.
He does not ask her to get her affairs in order before entrusting her with living water. Instead, he hints God is looking for those who worship in spirit and truth, and she is an excellent candidate.
She becomes an unexpected preacher, and the first community of foreign disciples is suddenly born around a Samaritan woman.
