Jesus and the Samaritan woman
1 The Lord knew that the Pharisees were informed about him; people said that Jesus was attracting and baptizing more disciples than John;
2 in fact it was not Jesus himself who was baptizing but his dis ciples.
3 So Je sus left Judea and returned to Galilee.
4 He had to cross Sama ria.
5 He came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
6 Jacob’s well is there. Tired from his journey, Jesus sat down by the well; it was about noon.
7 Now a Sa maritan woman came to draw water and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
8 His disciples had just gone into town to buy some food.
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan and a woman, for a drink?” (For Jews, in fact, have no dealings with Sama ritans.)
10 Jesus replied, “If you only knew the Gift of God! If you knew who it is that asks you for a drink, you yourself would have asked me and I would have given you living water.”
11 The woman answered, “Sir, you have no bucket and this well is deep; where is your living water?
12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well after he drank from it himself, together with his sons and his cattle?”
13 Jesus said to her, “Those who drink of this water will be thirsty again;
14 but those who drink of the water that I shall give will never be thirsty; for the water that I shall give will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Give me this water, that I may never be thirsty and never have to come here to draw water.”
16 Jesus said, “Go, call your husband and come back here.”
17 The woman answered, “I have no husband.” And Jesus re plied, “You are right to say: ‘I have no husband’;
18 for you have had five husbands and the one you have now is not your husband. What you said is true.”
19 The woman then said to him, “I see you are a prophet; tell me this:
20 Our fathers used to come to this mountain to worship God; but you Jews, do you not claim that Jeru salem is the only place to worship God?”
21 Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you shall worship the Father, but that will not be on this mountain or in Jeru salem.
22 You Samaritans worship with out knowledge, while we Jews worship with knowledge, for salvation comes from the Jews.
23 But the hour is coming and is even now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for that is the kind of worshippers the Father wants.
24 God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah, that is the Christ, is coming; when he comes, he will tell us everything.”
26 And Jesus said, “I who am talking to you, I am he.”
27 At this point the disciples re turned and were sur prised that Jesus was speaking with a woman; how ever, no one said, “What do you want?” or: “Why are you talking with her?”
28 So the woman left her water jar and ran to the town. There she said to the people,
29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I did! Could he not be the Christ?”
30 So they left the town and went to meet him.
31 In the meantime the disciples urged Jesus, “Master, eat.”
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”
33 And the disciples wondered, “Has anyone brought him food?”
34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the One who sent me and to carry out his work.
35 You say that in four more months it will be the harvest; now, I say to you, look up and see the fields white and ready for harvesting.
36 People who reap the harvest are paid for their work, and the fruit is gathered for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.
37 Indeed the saying holds true: ‘One sows and an other reaps.’
38 I sent you to reap where you didn’t work or suffer; others have worked and you are now sharing in their labors.”
39 In that town many Samaritans believed in him when they heard the woman who declared, “He told me everything I did.”
40 So, when they came to him, they asked him to stay with them and Jesus stayed there two days.
41 After that many more believed because of his own words
42 and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you told us; for we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is the Savior of the world.”
43 When the two days were over, Jesus left for Galilee.
44 Jesus himself said that no prophet is recognized in his own country.
45 Yet the Galileans welcomed him when he arrived, because of all the things he had done in Jerusalem during the Festival and which they had seen. For they, too, had gone to the feast.
Jesus cures the son of an official
46 Jesus went back to Cana of Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. At Ca per naum there was an official whose son was ill,
47 and when he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and asked him to come and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.
48 Jesus said, “Unless you see signs and won ders, you will not believe!”
49 The official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”
50 And Jesus replied, “Go, your son is living.”
The man had faith in the word that Jesus spoke to him and went his way.
51 He was already going down the hilly road when his servants met him with this news, “Your son has recovered!”
52 So he asked them at what hour the child had begun to recover and they said to him, “The fever left him yesterday in the afternoon about one o’clock.”
53 And the father realized that it was the time when Jesus told him, “Your son is living.” And he became a be liever, he and all his family.
54 Jesus performed this second miraculous sign when he returned from Judea to Galilee.
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Comments John, Chapter 4
• 4.1 LIVING WATER
The Jews hated the Samaritans. In addition, talking with any woman in a public place was looked upon with disapproval in Jewish culture at that time. Jesus, overcoming racial and social prejudices, began to talk with a Samari tan wo man. In the person of this woman he met the common people of Palestine. The woman was from a different province and belonged to a rival cult, but both shared the same promises of God and both were waiting for a Savior.
The first concern of the woman was to quench her thirst. The ancestors of the Jewish people walked with their flocks from one water source to another. The most famous Jews (like Jacob) dug wells, and around these wells the desert began to live. This fact was like a parable; people look everywhere for something to quench their thirst; but they are condemned to find nothing but stagnant waters. Those who make tanks to preserve water find that the tanks crack (see commentary on Gen 26). Jesus brings the living water, which is God’s gift to us, his chil dren: the gift of the Holy Spirit (7:37).
When there is water in the desert, although it does not surface, it is noticeable because of the verdant vegetation. The same happens with us when we truly live: our actions become better, our decisions more free, our thoughts more directed towards the essential. The living water from which all these fruits flow is not seen: this is eternal life, against which death can do nothing.
The second concern of the woman is to know: Where is truth to be found? Jesus tells her: You have had five hus bands… This symbolizes the common destiny of the townspeople who have served many masters or “husbands” and, in the end, do not have anyone whom they recognize as their Lord. To begin with, what is the true religion?
The Samaritans had their Bible, somewhat different from that of the Jews, and in the town itself, a few kilometers from the Well of Sychar, was their Temple, which rivaled that of Jerusalem. Jesus maintains that the Jewish religion is the true one: Salvation comes from the Jews. In this he does not share the position of those who say: “It matters little what Church we belong to, since they are all the same.” Nevertheless, although one has the good fortune of following the true religion, he has to arrive at the spiritual knowledge of God (v. 23). The Spirit, whom we receive, helps us worship God according to the truth. The Father seeks such worshipers who enter into intimate personal contact with him.
Spirit and truth (v. 24). God does not need the words of our prayers, but looks for simplicity, beauty and nobility in our spirit. The Spirit of God cannot be communicated except to those who seek the truth and live according to truth in a world of deception.
In the final analysis, the Samaritan woman’s account is a parable of our own lives. Each one of us is in some way the Samaritan woman. What happened at the well of Jacob describes our own encounter with Jesus; the ways by which Jesus led the woman to recognize and love him are the ways by which Jesus, step-by-step, accomplishes our own conversion. In the end, the woman became Jesus’ disciple, and through this very experience she also became Jesus’ apostle: Many in that town believed in Jesus because of the woman (v. 39). This Jesus experience is the source of the apostolate. To evangelize is to share this experience with others.
Four more months … (v. 35). Like the harvest, the people who follow Jesus are also maturing.
People who reap the harvest are paid for their work: this Jesus’ maxim has many applications. Verse 36 possibly refers to the shared joy of the Father who sowed and of the Son who will harvest. In a different way, in verse 37, Jesus and his own are aware that they do not work in vain. Others have worked: Jesus refers to those who came before him, and especially to John the Baptist.
• 46. See Luke 7:1.
Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe. Jesus’ reproach is directed, not to the official who will later show great faith, but to the Jews and to us. While Jesus works miracles which confirm his mission, he also stresses that we should recognize him by seeing and hearing him. Do lovers demand miracles in order to trust one another? Do those who follow leaders demand absolute proof? Those who really seek the truth recognize it when it is presented to them.
Jesus’ second miracle in Cana concludes this second part of the Gospel in which Jesus defines himself in relation to Jewish society and its hopes.
Now begins a new section: Jesus proclaims the work for which he has come into this world; his Father has sent him to judge and to give life. We must first believe in the Messenger of God. This is treated in chapters 5 and 6.