Samaritan Woman Set Free

I have been thinking lately about the Samaritan Woman of John's Gospel in the Christian Testament. Years ago I was trained by a very dear friend and Spiritual Director, Sr. Judy Rinek SNJM, in leading a one-to-one directed retreat on this misunderstood woman. (Note: It is an amazing spiritual retreat experience written by another dear friend and Spiritual Director, Almita Bey-Carrion of Gardnerville, Nevada. I will save that blog for another day.)

Returning to the Samaritan Woman - we don't know much about her, not even her true name. What we do know about her is that she was walking to Jacob's Well alone, at midday. An unusual occurrence for a woman in the communally-focused towns of ancient Samaria. So, we assume she is outcast from her community for some reason.

This nameless woman, walking alone, meets Jesus suddenly and unexpectedly at the Well. Jesus greets her and pretty quickly tells her that she has had many men in her life. She does not deny this abrupt statement from the stranger. We the reader have been led to believe, in Bible study discussions and countless sermons preached from the pulpit, that this was a shameful characteristic for a woman of this time. This gets me thinking about shame and the damaging way shame acts in a person's psyche and in a life.

John Bradshaw writes in his classic book on shame and recovery, Healing the Shame that Binds You (HCI, Deerfield Beach, FL, 1988), "...(With shame) What I feel is emptiness and exposure. I have no boundaries and therefore no protection. I must run and hide. But I feel like there is no place to hide since I am totally exposed...I am alone in the most complete way." He goes on to explain that because of this reaction to shame, we create "various layers of protection that we use to create our defenses against the core agony of shame. Each layer is progressively less conscious. The deepest layers-our ego defenses, family system roles and scripts-are automatic and unconscious."

The nameless Samaritan Woman seemed to be in this space of shame and personal defensiveness when she encounters Jesus at the ancient village well. And, what we discover in the Gospel (John 4:7-30) is that she could not hide from Him who knows everything.

Now, I do not believe that Jesus exposed her there on that hilltop in a malicious, accusatory way. I do not believe that was his intent. In order to set the Samaritan woman's spirit free from her shame, from the unconscious ego defenses she had built up to cope with the internalized shame she felt, Jesus had to let her know in a very powerful way that he knew her; that there was no hiding who she truly was deep inside. And, indeed his words had a powerful effect on this unsuspecting, yet curious-to-know-more woman.

Jesus knew the Samaritan Woman's true desires. He knew her true spirit. And, he offered her the satisfying drink of Living Water which would quench her deepest thirst. The thirst to be loved unconditionally. It is a thirst I share with her. I believe we all share that thirst at some level. It is a basic human need to be loved. The Samaritan Woman at the Well wasted no time in enthusiastically accepting this generous offer from the prophetic stranger, even though she did not yet understand its full significance.

So, the woman who just moments before approached the well on the hill in isolation, with (what I imagine was) a sense of discontent, loneliness, separateness, shame, dissatisfaction with her life, and possibly fear of the Hebrew man sitting by the well, was transformed by the brief encounter. She arrived at the well tentative and full of shame. She left the well full of anticipation and excitement, with a feeling of liberation, freedom, forgiveness and love. Her Spirit had been Set Free.

She left that hill to fearlessly, breathlessly run and share with her townspeople the Good News she had heard, and tell them of the presence of a prophet among them. No longer shamed and fearful was she, but filled with love and hope.

What a wonderful experience of exuberance and renewal of life. What a wonderful experience of being loved, valued and heard. What a wonderful experience of discovering her life's purpose and spiritual destiny. That is the Samaritan Woman's experience. That can be our experience as well.

I encourage you to Set your Spirit Free today by meditating on the words of Jesus: "...those who drink from the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." (John 4:14, NRSV).