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The Samaritan Woman At The Well





4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])

 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

 17 “I have no husband,” she replied.

   Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

   21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”


-John 4: 4-26

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A Reflection on the Story of Zacchaeus , the Tax Collector:




This reading from Luke’s Gospel is yet another example of the Sacred Author describing the faith experience of those who encountered Jesus during his earthly ministry.  Luke does not describe mighty works nor the action of eyewitnesses in these passages.  Rather, he emphasizes the faith-driven responses of those individuals who encounter Jesus and recognize him as the Christ.    Other passages that are similar include the “ten lepers” (Lk 17:11-19) and the “pharisee and the tax collector” (Lk 18:9-14).

Notable in this passage is the fact that Zacchaeus is comfortably removed from Jesus and his entourage, as he prefers to observe from a tree.  It is Jesus who calls Zacchaeus down from the tree.  More ironic is the business-like conversation that Jesus undertakes with Zacchaeus.  Jesus does not speak to him of faith or God, but rather tells Zacchaeus matter-of-factly, “I must stay at your house.”

It is Zacchaeus who responds to both Jesus and the sniggering of the crowd with the promise that, I will give half of my possessions to the poor,
and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over!

The encounter with Christ has initiated a conversion of heart in Zacchaeus, which is caused not so much by the words of Jesus as it is by the faith that Zacchaeus has.

History and tradition suggest that Jericho, where this story took place, was a center of balsam trade. Zacchaeus would have collected taxes on the balsam for the benefit of the state.

The Eastern and Russian Orthodox hold a long-standing tradition that Matthias, the apostle elected to replace Judas, is in fact “Zacchaeus Matthias.” This tradition has its origins in the writings of Clement of Alexandria.  He argues that in the second century that Zaccaeus the Tax Collector is surnamed Matthias.

There are divergent traditions about the missionary work of Zacchaeus Matthias.  Some hold that he went to Rome with Peter, and that he was executed in Rome.  Other traditions suggest Zacchaeus Matthias preached in Egypt and Ethiopia, then returned to Galilee or Jerusalem, where he was stoned to death.

http://kingofages.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/zacchaeus-the-tax-collector-in-luke-19/


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