She Left Her Jar

I really like the fact that it's a story about routine.

A seemingly chance meeting between a woman and a rabbi.

No one else was around to record what happened.

Which means that we read about it because the story got legs after it happened, and returned to John through her telling of it or perhaps those who knew her and witnessed the change in her passing it on.

This rabbi stops to get water in the middle of the day and meets a woman at a well.

She always comes at this time so that no one bothers her.

She hopes to escape notice.

But this time, he's there.  

Traditionally he wouldn't even acknowledge her.

It was forbidden actually.  Rabbis weren't supposed to talk to women in this context, not even their wives, daughters or sisters.

But he does.

Because he's different.  

Oh, so different, and she's about to understand that.

In their conversation she realizes that even though she has done what she could to be hidden,

This rabbi, Jesus, knows everything.

(Just writing that makes me smile. Because it's true for all of us.  There's a joy like we've never experienced that comes in our being found.)

You can feel her eyes drop to the ground, and an anxiety rise up inside her.

I wonder though, if in some ways, 

it was a relief to meet someone who knows the story without her having to tell it, 

even before she understands who he is.

Much has been written to the idea that she was a sinful woman, because of her past relationships and 

her current one.

It's worth noting that whenever Jesus meets people identified as "sinners" in 

John's writings, he calls them to repent, and he doesn't do that here.

According to Jewish law, only husbands could initiate divorce, which required no explanation or justification. 

A man could divorce his wife for burning dinner.

Then she would be expected to remarry another man.  What an exciting prospect.

Also, while women had some legal rights, their fathers arranged their first marriage to benefit the family, and women (who could be as young as 12–15) often had little say about a match, usually with a much older man.  So, they could easily outlive several husbands.

Regardless of how her life story unfolded; through the consequences of her choices, or through fates that fell upon her,  she sought seclusion and I'm sure she's weary of explaining herself.  

Yet, after this conversation, when she returns home, she can barely contain her thoughts before the people of her neighborhood.

It feels like she may be shouting when she says, "Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did!"

I want to add, "...without condemning me."

It's just before that declaration that I found a simple phrase that's become my favorite part of the story.

It's at the beginning of verse 28 (John 4).

"The woman left her water jar..."

That caught me by surprise.  It seems like an unnecessary detail for John to identify.

Amidst all the rest of what was happening, why notice a water jar?

Something forgotten by the person it belonged to.

Then I started thinking, how can she walk away from her whole reason for leaving home that day?

The question grew in my mind, until I thought...

It represented ALL that she left behind.

The identity placed upon her by others.

She was NOT a utilitarian object to be used and discarded.

The Christ had helped her to see that she was much more.

It represented her previously isolated self.  

In the moments after her conversation with Jesus she became 

the truth teller of her community, and others were drawn to Jesus, 

because they were drawn to her.

It represented her emptiness apart from the Christ.

As he promised, she was now filled with a limitless hope.

A living water.

I wonder if she left that jar there and never picked it up again.

Until Someday

It was a question, that would not be answered.

Almost an irritation.

It stayed; it took root.

I knew that what I held...

In my hands, in my heart, in my mind, was not enough.

AND somehow, it had become clear in my mortal thoughts,

that it never would be.

What then?

One day,

In that hovering of the divine, I was restless until the words spilled out.

"Where can you find?"

"How can you know?"

I asked, someone that I barely knew.

There were patient words of response.

A listening heart.

A smile.

A request.

He was compassionate unto tears, for me...

Which was shocking to my ego and broke my skepticism.

And then, while he prayed, a never before sense of being surrounded.

By kindness.

By holiness.

By wholeness.

By an Unseen Other who held all of this in him, 

like coins in his palm, now being extended to me.

An invitation.

Not spoken but understood.

I now know, it was deep, calling to deep.

I was consumed, not by anxiety but dissatisfaction with what was before 

and hunger for what might be.

Willingness to let go of the "not enough"

and to trust in this well of something I had never known.

At least not in this way.

The learning of a new way to be.

Even a new way to be seen.

a new way to live.

It was grace.

Washing over me and the stain of who I had been.

Me and the stain of all I will ever be.

Released.

A ransom paid.

A door swung open.

My whole body shook in this knowing and being known.

I wept in thankfulness.

In weightlessness and light.

I was a mess, a puddle. 

But I didn't care; it felt good.

Later, I straightened myself and stood.

Then left that place.

Taking account; looking in a mirror.

I was the same but completely different.

Suddenly aware of beauty in others and all around me.

Wanting with everything, for that new sense of being found and favored,

to be poured on all.

And it will be that way forever.

Until someday, face to face.

Jesus.