EpiscopalCenter at Duke University

Asking someone to do something can be an invitation. It can be a way of saying, “You’re needed here. Come be part of this.”

Which is what I think Jesus is doing when he asks the Samaritan woman for a drink of water. He’s thirsty and he needs water because it’s high noon in the desert, but when he asks this particular woman for a drink he’s asking an outsider to do something for him. He’s a Jew and she’s a Samaritan, and Jews and Samaritans traditionally want nothing to do with one another. But this woman is apparently an outsider even among the Samaritans: women don’t come to the well alone at the hottest part of the day. Hauling water is hard, boring work, so women come together, in a group, early in the morning or late in the evening when it’s cooler and they can keep each other company.

We don’t know exactly why this woman isn’t part of the crowd, although there’s lots of speculation about whether her history with men implies that she’s immoral or abandoned or otherwise tainted. But we don’t know the specifics of why she’s not with her neighbors,  just that she’s not.

It’s a shock when Jesus speaks to her—men aren’t supposed to talk to women who aren’t their relatives. But Jesus not only speaks to her, he asks for something from her. As if to say whether she’s an outsider or an insider  isn’t relevant. As if to say he really does need this woman who’s supposed to be his enemy. As if to say she can be on intimate, human terms with him, just as she is.

She’s startled into talking with him. It’s no wonder that Jesus’ simple request for a drink turns into the longest conversation with anyone Jesus has anywhere in the Gospels. Because Jesus needs her and treats her simply and with dignity—he talks to her the same way he talked to his mother earlier in John’s Gospel (2:4)—even though, as she quickly finds out, he knows exactly who she is and what’s she’s done.

Karl Barth says it’s the job of a missionary to tell people the truth about themselves. And that is what Jesus does for this woman. The truth about her is something more than that she’s a Samaritan who’s had five husbands and now has a man who isn’t her husband. The truth Jesus conveys to her is “You are not an unworthy outcast, you are someone the Messiah asks for a drink of water. You are someone to whom God himself wants to speak. You are someone God seeks.”

And what’s striking about this exchange is its simplicity. Jesus changes water into wine, he feeds thousands of people with just five loaves of bread and two fish, he walks on water, he calls Lazarus back from the dead.

But Jesus also does very simple things. He shares meals with people with whom he’s not supposed to eat, he washes his disciples’ feet, he talks to people with whom he’s not supposed to associate. And he asks a Samaritan woman for a drink of water. He ministers even from his need, offering up his vulnerability on behalf of someone else. And that—that radically simple insistence on addressing the human dignity and worthiness in every person he meets, that refusal to honor the barriers we erect to keep ourselves safe from people who aren’t like us, that self-giving love of God and his neighbor—that is what gets him killed.

I think when we hear Jesus’ call to take up our cross and follow him we may imagine we’re called to do something daunting and heroic. And sometimes we are, although even then it doesn’t usually start that way. Jonathan Myrick Daniels was killed when he stepped in front of a bullet intended for a young girl, but what got him there was helping his neighbors register to vote. Constance and her companions gave their lives for victims of yellow fever, but what got them there was going about the business of being nurses caring for their patients.

Most often, we’re called to do something radically simple. We’re called to listen to other people, and maybe even to do more listening than talking. We’re called to go meet the people we think of as strangers. We’re called to pull up a milk crate and sit down with the men who live in the parking lot of St. Joseph’s and get to know them because we’re neighbors.

And sometimes we’re not called to do anything at all but to accept what someone else offers us. That, too, is a way of participating in Jesus’ invitation. Jesus came to reconcile the world to God and being part of that reconciliation means recognizing the depth and mutuality of our need.

That may not sound particularly life-changing, but it is. What begins with a simple request transforms the Samaritan woman. Sloughing off her old identity as an outsider she becomes the first evangelist. She runs back to her neighbors calling out, “Come and see!” and what she offers is herself and what her neighbors hear and see in her is so compelling that many of them become believers themselves. They come out to see Jesus and invite him to come back and stay with them a while. And he accepts their invitation and is their guest for a couple of days, and then even “more believed because of his word.”

Remember what we’re asked in our baptismal covenant? “Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”

All of those questions are God’s invitation to be reconciled to God and to one another. Accepting that invitation can be as simple as giving someone a drink of water or accepting a drink of water from someone else. We are all children of God and God created us to be in relationship with Him and with one another.

Jesus’ invitation to the Samaritan woman is his invitation to us, “I need you, just as you are. Come, be part of this.”