WATER SHORTAGE

Phil
Jul 12
6 min read

Jesus left Judea and departed for Galilee, and to get there He had to pass through Samaria. He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar. Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. (midday). A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

The Samaritan Woman’s day started like any other day.

Rising early she sent her defacto partner off to work.

At about 7:00am the village women walked past her door,

on their way to get water from the village well known as Jacob's Well.

They would walk past her house in groups of three or four.

Their joyful chatter and spirited laughter mocked her everyday.

Early morning was the perfect time to collect water –

when the day was still cool.

But it had been years since she had been to the well with them.

The condemning stares, the hushed whispers; the deliberate isolation.

It became too much to bear.

She would get water when no-one else did.

The middle of the day when the sun was hottest.

Why did she behave this way?

Because in the eyes of her fellow villagers

her poor moral reputation made her an outcast in society,

and she was a SAMARITAN!!!!.

She’d been married five times, and was currently living with a man

to whom she is not married.

She is an outcast, she is ignored, judged, slandered and isolated.

That's rich, considering that they were themselves Samaritans,

considered outcast by the Jewish people who surrounded them

She and Jesus arrive at the well at the same time.

Jesus, outcast, asks the outcast woman - “Will you give Me a drink?”

Men shouldn’t address woman who are alone. Rabbis especially.

Rabbis don’t mix with sinners and promiscuous people.

Jesus knew the questionable lifestyle of this woman.

Yet here is Jesus conversing with her.willing even to share her cup.

That is the reason He is in Samaria in the first place.

What Jesus is doing here is offering her a new understanding.

She has allowed herself to be convinced that she is not worthy.

Jesus comes to show her that God never pushes people away from Himself.

There is an inner peace which can break the turmoil,

a spring of water welling up into eternal life.

Jesus has something the woman desperately needs –

but the message was not coming through.

So Jesus had to make the point even clearer.

“Go call your husband and come back.” Jesus asked this question

in order to help her face up to her greatest needs.

Everyone shunned her. No one gave her a chance.

they talked about her behind her back –

in hushed and whispered criticism.

Everyone did– except Jesus.

God sent Jesus to be an outcast, so that Jesus the outcast

could embrace those who were on the Margin,

like this woman at the well.

Jesus was unorthodox.

Jesus stood on people’s toes.

Jesus did not fit into the system.

The leaders didn’t like that.

So Jesus was regarded as an outcast,

they kept on pushing Him away.

Lord Jesus Christ, you have taught us to be lovingly merciful,

Your love freed Zacchaeus and Matthew from enslavement to possessions;

Your love made Peter weep after his betrayal,

Your love assured Paradise to the repentant thief.

Your love spoke to the Samaritan woman.

Consecrate every one of us with The Spirit’s anointing,

so that your Church, with renewed enthusiasm for things eternal,

may bring good news to the poor,

proclaim liberty to captives and the oppressed,

and restore sight to those blinded by this world’s views and values.

Pope Francis - Prayer for The Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy - 2022

The Good Samaritan

(based on Jesus’ parable in Luke 10:25-37)

Now on the way from Southampton to Winchester

a young mother was assaulted by poverty, by fear, by depression,

and by her husband’s unfaithfulness.

She was left abandoned, her children fatherless,

Her privacy bartered in exchange for a benefit pay-out.

Too weary to go on, she lay, waiting for help.

Some good church people came by and said,

“Get up and get going,

God loves you so you shouldn’t worry.”

Some nice community people remained aloof and whispered,

“Don’t play with her children.

She’s on benefits, you know.”

Then a neighbour from up the street came in,

a neighbour from a far-away place,

with a history that others whispered about,

an outcast who had no husband

and who’s children named no father.

She didn’t give advice.

She didn’t condemn.

She said, instead, “Come and have coffee with me,”

and “Let’s go shopping today”

and “Show me how you made that casserole.”

In doing so she helped to bind the wounds,

and restore faith and self-esteem,

until the young mother was able to be on her way again.

As I travel the road of life,

Samaritan Christ, walk beside me.

As I fall into pot-holes,

Samaritan Christ, raise me.

As I baulk at the rough places,

Samaritan Christ, encourage me.

As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

Samaritan Christ, carry me.

According to the Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Bible by Louis F. Hartman, C.SS.R., feelings of ill-will probably went back before the separation

of the northern and southern Jewish kingdoms.

Even then there was a lack of unity between the tribes of Jacob.

After the separation of Judah and Israel in the ninth century, King Omri of the Northern Kingdom bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer (1 Kings 16:24).

He built there the city of Samaria which became his capital.

It was strong defensively and controlled the valley

through which the main road ran between Jerusalem and Galilee.

In 722 B.C. the city fell to the Assyrians

and became the headquarters of the Assyrian province of Samarina.

While many of the inhabitants of the city and the surrounding area of Samaria

were led off into captivity, some farmers and others were left behind.

They inter-married with new settlers from Mesopotamia and Syria.

Though the Samaritans were condemned by the Jews,

Hartman says they probably had as much pure Jewish blood

as the Jews who later returned from the Babylonian exile.

It is with those centuries of opposition and incidents behind their peoples

that we can understand the surprise of the Samaritan woman

when Jesus rises above the social and religious restrictions

not just of a man talking to a woman,

but also of a Jew talking to a Samaritan.

In Jesus’ time, Jews and Samaritans hated each other, not least because Samaritans had recently desecrated the Jewish Temple with human bones during Passover:

an act guaranteed to ignite existing religious tensions even further. In Luke chapter 9, we are told that Jesus received a hostile reception in Samaria.

The chief bone of contention between Jews and Samaritans was really the location of the Chosen Place, the Temple, to worship God: the Jews believed this was the Temple Mount of Moriah in Jerusalem, while the Samaritans worshipped at the Temple on Mount Gerizim.

In the Parable the Samaritan’s actions speak louder than bigotry, and words turn to compassionate action. He tends to the man’s wounds with oil and wine, lifts him onto his own donkey, and ensures the victim's ongoing care at an inn, paying out of his own pocket. He doesn’t ask for recognition or repayment. His love is practical, generous, and boundary-breaking.

In Greek, the word for “compassion” in this passage is a word meaning "to feel deeply moved in one’s inner being." The Samaritan didn’t just see the need—he was moved to do something about it. Jesus uses this unlikely hero to redefine the word neighbour as anyone in need, regardless of social, ethnic, or religious divides.