Standing At the Well: An Encounter and a Call
Loyola Chicago Talk:
"Standing At the Well: An Encounter and a Call"
Michelle A. Gonzalez, Ph.D.
February 9, 2004
The text I would like to reflect on this evening, one that is most likely familiar to many of you, is the encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman. This has, for many years, been one of my favorite gospel stories. I remember reading this story as an undergraduate at Georgetown University, confused at my desire to become a theologian, and finding comfort in this woman's theological discussion with Jesus. She served as a role model for me. And as my studies progressed and my critical feminist voice emerged, I began to more readily identify and cling to this nameless woman, one who actively engages in one of the longest dialogues with Jesus found in the gospel of John. Also, I have consistently embraced this passage as one where Jesus challenges the status quo, and seen it as a call to me as a Christian to do so in my life.
I would like to group my comments to you this evening in three sections. In the first I offer some modest textual comments, highlighting certain aspects of the narrative for us to reflect upon this evening. Second I would like to emphasize the personal challenges this text poses to Christians today. In my final section I would like to draw attention to the call this passage poses to the Church and the manner in which I have witnessed the Church responding to this challenge.
Textual Comments
I am a systematic theologian, not a biblical scholar. So I would like to thank my colleagues in New Testament studies who have enriched my reading of this passage and share some of their insights with you this evening. Perhaps the most important dimension of this text, one that resonates with me profoundly, is that in this passage Jesus turns his ministry to those the Jews considered outsiders and enemies: the Samaritans. Jews and Samaritans did not, to put it lightly, get along. Their dispute was over the proper place of worship, Samaritans not recognizing the Jerusalem Temple. Therefore, in this story Jesus is speaking to an unnamed woman of an enemy people. Her biological sex is also important, for Jesus not only shatters conventions in terms of ethnicity, but also gender. It was inappropriate for a Jewish man to be speaking to a strange woman. Thus in his conversation with this unnamed woman Jesus violates two social conventions: by speaking to a woman he crosses the boundary between male and female, by speaking to a Samaritan the boundary between a chosen and a rejected people.
Scholars have mused over the significance of Jesus walking through Samaria, attempting to determine whether this geographical turn into an area avoided by his fellow Jews was more for geographic convenience or if it has theological value. I would argue both. Not only was crossing Samaria a shorter route, but also an opportunity for Jesus to preach to the Samaritans, a people seen as unacceptable by the Jews. In other words, his entry into Samaria has theological and missionary implications. It is an intentional move to bring the good news to the Samaritan people, not just a short cut. In fact, given the amount of time Jesus later spends with the Samaritans, the walk through this region saves him precious little time on his journeys.
It is important to note that the encounter read this evening was most likely not a historical event. Instead, it was an account used by the evangelist to legitimate Samaritan mission and the equality of Samaritan Christians with Jewish Christians. In other words, the Johannine community most likely contained Samaritan Christians within it, and this story was most likely incorporated into the gospel in order to legitimize their presence, denouncing any potential Jewish Christian bias against the Samaritans in their midst. This would also explain why the disciples are shocked that Jesus is speaking to a woman, and not shocked that his conversation is with a Samaritan. It is her sex that unsettles them, not her ethnicity. I will return to this point later.
I would now like to focus on the woman herself, an individual that for so many years has captured my imagination. We find her at the well drawing water, engaged in a chore of everyday life. From her everyday task she is called to give an extraordinary testimony. She becomes, as a result of this brief conversation, a witness to the good news. More importantly, however, she becomes Jesus' witness to a despised people. She takes the message she has heard, leaving her jug behind, and testifies to her people about her encounter with Jesus and his life-giving message. I will not dwell too long on the actual conversation, living water. Scholars have noted that throughout their dialogue, in typical Johannine fashion, the irony of water plays significantly in the discourse. The woman, at first, believes the water is to be taken literally, in other words material water. Slowly she realizes that Jesus means much more than this, that the living water of which he speaks is a prophetic message of eternal life. In chapter seven of the gospel of John living water is associated with the Spirit. Thus in offering her living water Jesus is offering her the gift of the Spirit.
Scholars have often depicted this woman as sinful, emphasizing her multiple marriages as an example of her fallen state. In verses sixteen through nineteen she is not depicted as a sinner, and Jesus does not morally judge her. Instead it is later biblical scholars that remain fascinated with this dimension of her life. Like many feminist biblical scholars, I am troubled by the constant stereotype that Jesus only liberated women from sexual sins and that the only interesting women in the gospels were whores. This is seen also, for example, in the false depiction of Mary Magdalene as a whore, a teaching that became officially sanctioned in the Christian tradition by Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century.
When the disciples return they are shocked to find Jesus speaking to a woman. They are not, interestingly enough, taken aback by his conversation with a Samaritan. In their eyes the gender transgression outweighs the ethnic transgression. Scholars have noted that this supports the thesis that this was a passage that was used to legitimate the Samaritan presence in the Johannine community by evoking Jesus' direct ministry to the Samaritans. The presence of Samaritans is not problematic. The story affirms the Samaritan presence within the Christian community. What remains perhaps controversial, however, is the role of women within the Johannine community. This would explain the disciples' shocked reaction to Jesus' conversation with her.
In spite of the shock of the disciples, the woman leaves her jug to proclaim the good news to her community. Like so many of Jesus' disciples, whether it is a jug or fishing net, she leaves behind an article from her everyday life in order to participate in his ministry. The woman returns to her town to bear witness to the gospel message. She invites the members of her community to participate in a life of faith and offers her experience as a testimony to Jesus' Messianic presence. She also, in turn, declares Jesus as the Messiah. She is a missionary and a disciple, bringing the living water, the gift of the Spirit, to her people. She herself a marginalized woman, she emerges from a place of dual oppression. On the one hand outsiders of her community judge her due to her ethnicity. On the other she is a second-class citizen within her community due to her biological sex. Nonetheless, her witness is successful and because of her testimony the townspeople come to meet Jesus and convert to the gospel message.
Challenge to us:
As I mentioned earlier, this text is one that I hold dear, primarily through my identification with the Samaritan woman. This evening, I would like to explore some of the implications of this story for Christians at a personal level, and then move to the broader institution of the Roman Catholic Church.
As a Cuban-American I have spent much of my academic research and writing studying the concrete faith expressions of Latino/as in the United States. This journey began for me as a sort of self-exploration. For years I rejected my Cuban heritage and the Spanish language, seeing it as something that made me different and therefore lesser than the dominant culture. I had uncritically accepted all the stereotypes and prejudices about being of Latin American descent. Thankfully, I was able to overcome some of this internalized oppression and find, in my Cuban heritage, a source of pride and not shame. This led me to study Latino/a theology voraciously when I began my graduate studies, and to situate much of my writing and teaching in Latin American and Latino/a theologies.
For the past thirty years Latino/a theologians have emphasized the concrete lives of Latino/a communities as the starting point of their theological reflection. Lo cotidiano, or daily life, is the centerpiece of Latino/a theological reflection. Daily life is the mundane, the everyday, the things we do unconsciously, the relationships we live and model. Lo cotidiano is also the site of our communion with the divine, where we feel the sacred touch our lives and the lives of those around us. Without daily life, we do not have theology.
The story of the Samaritan woman teaches us to look for God in daily life. For there she was, doing one of the most ordinary tasks, when her life was forever altered by Jesus' presence within it. He interrupts her doing her household work, one of the most mundane activities. For me, this story is a reminder to look for God's presence in our daily lives, amongst the ordinary and routine things we do almost absentmindedly. When I teach this story to my undergraduate students, I always emphasize this dimension of the story. Too often Catholics feel that their only time with God has to be explicitly set aside. It has to be an hour or two at mass on Sunday, a pause before a meal as a family gathers around a table, a set of memorized prayers and routine blessings said kneeling before a bed. While all of these moments are important and vital to the life of faith, they do not encompass the totality of that life. They also, I would argue, do not reflect the majority of people's experiences of the divine. For God often finds us within the ordinary, surprising and shocking us amidst the everyday.
In my own personal faith life, the everydayness of God's presence was exemplified growing up by the placement of my mother's home altar. Like so many Latino/a families, my mother had an altar in our home with statues of Mary, crucifixes, statues of the saints, candles, personal mementos, holy water, and prayer cards. This rather elaborate and cluttered altar was placed not in a prominent place in our home, such as the living room, but by her vanity in the bedroom. I always found this odd. At first I thought my father was behind it. As a Deacon in the Catholic Church he always frowned upon my mother's more popular devotions. However, I have come to realize that for my mother, as she puts on her makeup in preparation for her day or at the end of the day removes it, the altar and its placement represents the saturation of her faith within every aspect of her life. To some I suppose an altar next to a makeup mirror may seem irreverent. However, I find it to show her extreme reverence and her insertion of the sacred in the everyday.
One of the calls, therefore, of this account of the Samaritan woman, is to look for God in the everyday, and not solely in those spaces that we humans have designated as sacred places and sacred times. All time and all spaces are sacred. God does not wait until Sunday morning to touch us. God does not wait for us to enter a church in order to reveal God's presence to us. God is not on our schedule. Instead, God touches us in those mundane moments when we least expect it. I am quite sure this nameless woman did not think she would meet the Messiah during her everyday chore. But she did.
It is important for you to know that I do not accept that Jesus only called men to missionary work and discipleship. The Samaritan woman is one of the few women we know about who was commissioned to bear witness to the good news. However, as feminist theological scholarship has shown, just because women have been written out of the history of Christianity does not mean they did not participate within it. Also, we cannot treat this story as exceptional, as if Jesus never spoke to women, for this reinforces the false notion that biblical history and the early Jesus movement was primarily male. This is also true for the history of Christianity. Often, when women's voices are retrieved within the Christian tradition, they are treated as icons. Their exceptional status contributes to an understanding of Christianity where men remain normative and women only shine brightly and rarely.
Often when I have read this story I have attempted to put myself in the place of the disciples. I ask myself, who are the Samaritan women in my midst whose evangelical role I would question? Who would I be shocked to find Jesus engaged in conversation with? Where are my biases? For this evening I would like to put us in the place of the Samaritans. For they received the good news from one of their own, albeit an unlikely evangelizer. The Samaritans in this story are a people who receive the gospel in an unexpected place, at an unexpected time, from an unlikely source.
Too often we ignore the inner dynamics of oppression within our own communities and instead focus on the oppressive relationships between communities. We emphasize the prejudices between Blacks, Latino/as, Whites, Asian Americans. We look at sexism and classism. We do not examine how these destructive forces operate within our own communities. No community is innocent, and we must not only define ourselves over and against others, but also in manners that express the fullness of the diversity that constitutes communities. The Samaritan woman reminds us of this. She shows us that no one is privileged within a community. As a woman within the Samaritan community she was viewed as a second-class citizen. However, it is from this unlikely prophet in their midst that the Samaritans receive the good news. Who are the prophets in your midst, those unlikely evangelizers whose message if often ignored because of the bearer of the news? How can we, like the Samaritan people, accept those in our everyday lives who voice we devalue?
Challenge to the Church:
In this final section I would like to offer some reflections on the implications of the Samaritan woman for the institutional Church. However, instead of offering you more systematic comments, I would like to share three vignettes that exemplify the call that this story poses and how the Church is responding to that call. I will conclude with some comments on the continued challenge this narrative offers of the Church.
The first theme is the call for the Church to stop shaping its life according to those who are deemed acceptable by the dominant society and instead listen to the unlikely evangelizers in our midst.
Many of you, I am sure, are familiar with the image and devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe. In 1531 La Morenita, as she is affectionately called, appeared at dawn on the hillside of Tepeyac to the Indigenous man Juan Diego. Juan Diego, a recent convert to Catholicism, was a man that existed on the boundaries of Spanish and Indigenous cultures. As an Indigenous man he was not fully accepted by the Spanish Catholic community, as a Catholic he was marginalized from his fellow Indigenous brothers and sisters.
La Morenita ordered Juan Diego to go to the local bishop with the request that a church be built on Tepeyac in her honor. Juan Diego, feeling highly unworthy of the task, refuses adamantly. She will not take no for an answer. So he goes to the bishop and is not heard. A second encounter with Guadalupe results in another trip to the bishop, again with no success. Finally, she gives him the gift of flowers to prove Juan Diego's story, roses that never grow on the dusty hillside. When Juan Diego goes to the bishop he opens his cloak and the flowers tumble out. In addition, an image of Guadalupe is imprinted on his cloak, the same image that rests in the basilica in Mexico today. The bishop, seeing the miracle, finally believes and the church is built.
The story of Juan Diego and Guadalupe teaches us many lessons. It shows the Church that often God's message comes from an unlikely source, such as a brown, Indigenous man. In fact, Guadalupe purposely puts her commission in Juan Diego's hands. Surely it would have been easier for her to appear to the bishop. Instead she makes the evangelized the evangelizer, the convert becomes the bearer of the Christian message to the ecclesial hierarchy.
While the bishop finally builds the church and Juan Diego's mission is realized, it takes a miracle. The bishop will not listen to this unlikely evangelizer without a miracle. His testimony is not enough. The story of Juan Diego and the bishop's unwillingness to listen to him reminds the Church, like the Samaritan woman, that we must expect God in the unexpected; that we must listen to those who are socially unacceptable and not allow ourselves to be evangelized solely by those deemed acceptable in the dominant culture.
A second theme that emerges from a reading of the Samaritan woman is the call for the Church to cross boundaries and enter into those spaces where the undesirables of society live and struggle to survive.
After living in Los Angeles for a few months I began to hear about a Jesuit named Greg Boyle. "You have to meet him," people kept telling me. "He works with Latino ex-gang members." Finally after over two years I brought a group of students to the offices of Homeboy Industries, located in Boyle Heights, one of the most violent areas in Los Angeles. Previously, Father Boyle was Pastor of Dolores Mission Church from 1986-1992. Dolores Mission is the poorest parish in the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese. The parish is compromised of the largest public housing developments west of the Mississippi (Pico Gardens and Aliso Village). These housing projects have the highest concentration of gang activity in the entire city.
Homeboy Industries is an employment referral center and economic development program for at-risk and gang-involved youth. While pastoring at Dolores Mission Father Greg, or G as his homies affectionately call him, witnessed the violent gang activity that was destroying his neighborhood. After months of saying funeral masses for the children in his midst, Greg decided to do something about it. He founded Homeboy Industries, a sort of gang rehab, to help young men and women who wanted to leave gang life. A huge problem Greg noted was the inability for ex-gang members to find employment, especially if they had juvenile or prison records. A huge dimension of Homeboy Industries' work is their job referral program, which also includes job readiness, job training, and even buying clothing for the ex-gang members to wear to interviews and work. They also offer free tattoo removal of gang tattoos, a service that has a 9-month waiting list. Homeboy Industries also runs four businesses: a bakery, t-shirt silk-screening, merchandising, and graffiti removal. Over 1000 gang members, looking to leave the cycle of violence and poverty, stop monthly into Homeboy Industries.
I have heard Greg speak of his ministry and I do not dare attempt to put his moving words into my own. What has always amazed me about Greg is his ability to see the full humanity of young men and women who are seen as the refuse of our society, forgotten youth often described as animals. Last October Greg spoke at Loyola Marymount University and said, "I have stopped trying to be a holy as the people I serve." I was moved to tears by his radical testimony, for he finds worthiness in those seen as unworthy. Greg always brings some of his homies with him when he speaks, and I remember talking to one of them, a 21 year-old, about the weeks he spent in solitary confinement while serving time for a violent crime. We were standing outside a rather fancy reception the University held for Greg, and this young man was clearly uncomfortable with his surroundings. It tuned out that he had never set foot on a college campus. At 21 I had graduated from Georgetown.
Latin American Liberation theologians speak of the preferential option for the poor, calling us to view the world through the eyes of the poor and give their perspective a privileged hermeneutic role in our lives. It is grounded in a Christian vision of humanity where the last comes first. Greg Boyle lives the preferential option for the poor. He also lives in a state of voluntary poverty, a notion Asian theologians have developed in order to speak of the renunciation of privilege in order to empower those without privilege. When you go to Homeboy Industries you do not hear much Christian language, yet the vision, the mission, the very impulse behind this organization is Christian. Standing in Homeboy Industries you are confronted by the radical call of Christian discipleship. You see the Church in a forgotten space, an undesirable space, and you see the Church truly being Church. Like the woman's evangelic witness in Samaria, Greg Boyle and Homeboy Industries is a witness of the Church not just on the boundary, but having crossed the border to minister in a space inhabited by the undesirables of society.
The last ecclesial theme I would like to lift from the story is its implications for the missionary enterprise, for the story of the Samaritan woman teaches the Church that evangelization must always be in the voice of the evangelized.
In March of last year I had the opportunity to participate on a trip to Guatemala with a group of undergraduate students from my university. As someone who teaches and writes in the area of liberation theologies and having never visited this country, I jumped at the opportunity. During my Masters I was able to visit Latin America under similar conditions. I thought I knew what was in store for me. I did not. I saw my role on this trip as a mentor, a guide, and a resource for what I knew would be a transformative experience for these students. I did not for once consider that it would be a transformative experience for me.
We spent a week in a small town called San Lucas Toliman, nestled between two volcanoes on Lake Atitlan. It is my understanding that Loyola Chicago also offers a similar immersion experience at San Lucas. The natural beauty of our surroundings presented a sharp contrast to the overwhelming poverty of the town. Our visit was hosted through the Catholic parish in town, a parish that for forty years has been in active outreach and ministry to the poor of the area. Sponsored by the diocese of New Ulm in Minnesota, the parish has opened a school, a clinic, and an orphanage; supported a water program and an organic farming project; organized a co-op of local coffee growers who now receive better than fair trade prices for their coffee (over three times the national average). More importantly, the parish has purchased and given Guatemala's most precious commodity to the Indigenous of San Lucas, land. One does not have to be a Catholic to receive parish resources. Their ministry, while grounded in a Catholic vision of social justice, is for all.
In San Lucas one does not talk much of liberation theology. Sure, if you press the priests they will discuss the theoretical and theological foundation that underlies their ministry. However, when you speak to the people of San Lucas they do not speak of the preferential option for the poor, hermeneutics of suspicion, or the epistemic break that is demanded by a true acceptance of liberationist perspectives. They speak of the food on their tables, the homes they have been able to build, the education of their children, the healthcare and the overall impact the church has had on their daily lives.
I have been profoundly moved by the time I have spent in San Lucas. In fact, since my trip last Spring I have returned twice to volunteer at the mission on my own and am currently writing an article on the parish. Besides the concrete transformations I have seen in the lives of the people of the town due to the mission's work, what has impressed me the most is the spirit in which it is done. I must admit, I was at first skeptical and confused when I heard priests from Minnesota were running this program. However, after spending time there, my prejudices have been erased. For in this ministry the church is at the service of the poor in a spirit of humility. The community is not told what to do, instead church leaders listen to the community and attempt to aid in the implementation of programs and services that the community desires. A parish council, made up mostly of Indigenous in the town, meet daily with the parish priests. Lay groups, from Social Action to charismatic Catholics, thrive within the community. In fact, each evening I am surprised to find the church illuminated with prayer and song, almost always led exclusively by lay leadership. I have also been moved by the deep respect of Mayan culture and religion, quite prevalent in a town where 85% of the population is Indigenous.
I share the story of San Lucas not only because it has had such a profound impact on me, but also because I cannot help but connect it to the story of the Samaritan woman. In this ministry I see the Church responding to the needs of a marginalized people, yet doing so in their own voice instead of attempting to impose a voice from the outside. I see the Church at the service of a community, one that is in dire need of both the concrete resources and the spiritual life that Catholicism offers. To put it bluntly, in San Lucas I see the Church as it should be.
These vignettes represent places and times where the Church has responded to and engaged the challenges of the Samaritan woman's story. In my eyes, they represent the Church at its best, embodying a dangerous ministry. However, while these isolated incidents offer me comfort and hope, I am well aware that this is not the norm. Therefore, I not only challenge the Church, but I challenge us in this room, I challenge myself, to listen to the voices of those unexpected evangelizers, to cross boundaries into those spaces deemed taboo, and to accept true discipleship in a spirit of humility and justice. Thank you.