Savior of the World

Lent 3, Year A 2026; John 4:5-42

[Those interested in the Epistle this week, from Romans, can find commentary here]

The early theologian Clement of Alexandria called John’s a “spiritual Gospel,” , writing just decades after it was probably composed. Clement suggested that the “material issues” of Jesus’ life—the straightforward history—had been made clear in the Synoptics, but that John was written with something else in mind.¹ Aspects of this “spiritual” approach are on show in today’s Gospel. One is a different view of time, where things otherwise regarded as future (salvation, judgement) have already come. John also looks past familiar boundaries of ethnic or religious chauvinism more directly, where in the Synoptics they change only after Jesus’ saving work on the Cross (cf. Matt 28:19). More generally, in this “spiritual Gospel” things are just not how they initially or outwardly seem. Faith turns out to involve a change of perspective, and a willingness to look, think, and act differently. This is true time and again for the characters in John’s narrative, but it is also a challenge or offer to the reader.

The previous chapter—last Sunday’s Gospel—had Jesus speaking at night, with a Jewish man (Nicodemus), who was tentative in mood and of respectable Pharisaic convictions. This chapter has him speaking at high noon, with a Samaritan woman, who is forthright in disposition and with a checkered personal history. This encounter is thus a “mirror image,” as Craig Koester puts it, of the earlier one.² While Nicodemus ultimately follows Jesus, that will take the whole story line of the Gospel to be worked out. This unnamed woman however quickly becomes a follower of Jesus, despite—or because of—numerous apparent complications that should, in theory, have made her a much less likely believer.

The scene is set, and hence some of these complications introduced, with reference to Sychar, the location of Jacob’s well, and the gift of land to Joseph; so the geography and politics of Samaria, as well as the authority of the patriarchs, will be themes in the story. Jesus stops at the well “tired from his journey,” or so it seems. The term translated “tired” (κοπιάω) has an ambiguity like that of the English “labor”; that is, it means both toil and productivity (cf. Matt 11:28; Acts 20:35 etc.). It reappears three times late in the passage, when in v. 38 Jesus tells the disciples that the harvest of the work of God involves others “laboring.” So Jesus at the well may be thirsty and seeking water; but his labor is the work of God.

As in the Nicodemus episode (and often in John), Jesus’ words are misunderstood; then it was about birth, now it is about water. This misunderstanding presumes the hard labor of the woman and her peers—harder far than just walking from Galilee, we might note—of drawing water daily for all domestic uses from a communal well. Her interest in some source of miraculous water is very understandable. As with other Johannine stories—think of the miraculous feeding with loaves and fishes— we should not let the “spiritual” part suggest this material concern is trivial. Rather the material need provides insight into something else as well.

The “something else” is present in the very fact of their conversation. The woman is surprised at their interaction, not so much because of gender (this is left to the disciples when they return in v. 27) but because of ethnicity or religion (in the ancient world these are often the same thing). The evangelist notes that Jews and Samaritans did not share vessels or implements, presumably out of mutual concern for impurity, itself a sign of distrust regarding everything else. Jesus’ request for water will turn out to be more significant than just indifference to the rules.

Baptistery wall painting: Woman Drawing Water, Dura Europus, Syria, c. 250; Yale University Art Gallery

Although the Samaritan’s response to Jesus is fast by comparison to Nicodemus’, it takes us all of a very long Gospel reading to get there; she too has to take a sort of inner journey. We can see the woman’s developing perspective on Jesus through the changing language she uses for him: first he is “a Jew” (v.5), then “sir” (11) then (surely not) “greater than our father Jacob” (12) then a prophet (19), and then (surely not, again) the Messiah (29). The last point in this progression is not just hers but the affirmation of her townsfolk that he is “savior of the world” (42). This developmental arc of faith touches on a number of issues, some of them the characteristics we already noted, on its way to the conclusion.

Some commentators seem to repeat ancient Jewish talking points about Samaritans. Yet is not necessary or even plausible to present Samaritans as outcasts or as apostates; the alienation between northern Israelites (Samaritans) and southern (Jews, or Judeans) was older than the calamity that had overtaken Samaria and the northern tribes in 721 BC (see Ps 78). The northern region was affected by the settlement of other displaced peoples with disparate beliefs, yet this story shows—as does the survival of Samaritans even today—that these were not faithless or heretical people, but religiously conservative Israelites. Any disdain between the two groups was, in any case, mutual.

The exchange that follows involves the single most intractable issue between the two Israelite factions—the proper place for a temple dedicated to the God who had spoken to Moses. Jesus will affirm the claims of Judean tradition (his own; v.22), but even before making his case, he renders the old argument moot: “the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem” (21). The Samaritan temple had been destroyed (not for the first time) 150 years or so before; we can probably assume this Gospel was written after the destruction of the southern sanctuary in Jerusalem also, in the year 70, so the statement could be understood in a matter-of-fact way by the reader (if not by the Samaritan woman). Yet there is something more here than an allusion to those calamities.

The woman is convinced, not by Jesus’ so far unverifiable claim about the end of local worship, but by the exchange about her life-circumstances. The somewhat startling details are not dwelt upon. While some think the “five husbands” might allude to those transplanted subject peoples from other lands, and hence symbolize influence of other religions (1 Kings 17:24), this is speculative. For the purposes of the story, what seems to matter is just that Jesus has told her something he could not normally have known (cf. John 1:48). That such a sequence of marriages would have been looked at askance is given no attention at all. It simply lends authority to Jesus’ statement about the future of worship. By implication moralism is as irrelevant here as ethnic chauvinism.

Jesus’ prediction about the location and nature worship must be read alongside his claim to be the Messiah—another point of difference from the “material” view of the Synoptics, who hold off this revelation, or make it a secret. The Samaritan however seems to embody that “material” approach to time, because she thinks of the Messiah’s arrival as future, but he now indicates it is present:

The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am [he], the one who is speaking to you” (26)

Jesus’ response is actually more startling than it may appear in translation. He says simply “I am, the one speaking to you.” The formula “I am” occurs here for the first time in this Gospel, but hardly the last; Jesus goes on to use it, often with some other identifier, indicating he is the true bread, Good Shepherd, and so on (6:35, 8:12, 11:25 etc.). Here it could simply (!) mean “I am the Messiah,” but as the Gospel continues the “I am” expressions keep recurring, even without any clear predicate (8:24, 13:19), echoing language that is especially (not exclusively) associated with divine speech and revelation (cf. Exod 3:6, 14 etc.)

So when Jesus speaks of the coming change regarding worship, there is a level of irony at work. He himself has already changed the reality of worship simply by coming, even though she does not quite understand that, nor do his disciples. Divine service will not depend—does not depend— on competing claims to ancestry or land; it is is available to all who believe in the one speaking. He, like salvation, is from the Jews, but that salvation is for all. And the worship “in spirit and truth” which he announces is not just future: “the hour is coming and is now here,” he says. The hour is here, because “he is.”

Thanks to Misty Krasawski for research, and Felicity Harley-McGowan for proofreading..

1. Quoted in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 6.14.17)

2. Koester, Craig R. Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community. Fortress Press, 2003, 47.