Sunday, March 19, 2017

John 4-Column on reading Bible with new glasses

A child is able to read the words of the bible with ease, especially with the simplified versions on the market. It takes a lifetime to wrestle with the words of the Bible, to wrest meaning from them as one moves in the life of faith. Our eldest daughter contributed to a paper that considers the hidden injuries and often invisible advantages of different status levels. Whenever we read Scripture, the lenses of status impinge on how we read and hear the Bible. Today, many churches are reading John 4, the meeting of Jesus and a woman at the well. Some of the ways it is read reflect more the reader’s preconceptions than what the text actually indicates.

When one reads John, it is helpful to keep an interpretive rule in mind: John uses the physical as a gateway to the spiritual level; he holds them in tension. To insist on one level is an interpretive mistake, one that these early dialogues demonstrate.

Samaritan- Prejudice was as real as racial prejudice in our time. Very quickly, the Northern and Southern kingdoms of David and Solomon split. The Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom some centuries later and exiled some and forced the immigration of other peoples, as a political attempt to ease nationalistic fervor. The southern kingdom thought that they mixed some other religious beliefs and practices during this time.  One of the things the newly freed southern kingdom did, before the birth of Jesus, was to destroy, allegedly, the Samaritan sanctuary or  temple.

Jewish-for many Christina readers this story serves to show the superiority of an outsider to the religious leader Nicodemus. This is in direct opposition to the text itself where Jesus is clear about the origin of salvation (4:22). In a time when anti-Jewish actions and threats are on the rise, this is a powerful warning to Christians.


Imagining the woman-  I do not know how many times the woman has been imagined, usually by male pastors, to be an ancient version of Elizabeth Taylor’s many marriages. The potential sexuality of the woman’s many marriage sis heightened by the meeting at a well, a venerable Biblical trope for meeting a future spouse. The first sign of Jesus is at the wedding at Cana, and then we have a mention of a bridegroom at 3: 29. The bridegroom then may be read as spiritual level of the deep bond between God and an expanded people. Multiple divorces could only be a product of  a male determination in that legal culture. She may have been widowed multiple times. In all likelihood, she is probably in quite an economic  and social plight. As Fred Craddock notes, “the brighter the nail polish, the darker her mascara, the shorter her skirt, the greater the testimony to the power of the converting word.”

The woman is shown in clear juxtaposition to Nicodemus in chapter 3. While they are both struggling in the darkness of incomprehension, she is the more acute. In a way, she is portrayed as another Eve, but instead of a theological discussion with the sly serpent, she is dealing with Jesus. While Nicodemus remains in the dark and disappears from the account, the woman becomes a witness. Already the sign of the life of Jesus is spreading in the gospel narrative. Already boundaries are being crossed, as walls of separation come down.

Living water could mean a spring or fresh running water. Jesus is pointing toward a water of life redolent of the Scriptures and of baptism itself. We will get a further clue at 7:37-39. There rivers of living (flowing) water are line dot the gift of the outpouring of the Spirit. Her understanding has not reached that level early in the narrative. Like anyone ecounter9ing John’s gospel, she is moving toward enlightenment, moving toward greater, deeper understanding of the identity and message of Jesus.



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