Preaching Paths 12 March 2023

Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary

The standard reading of Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well presents the woman as an incorrigible “repeat offender.”  Jesus notes she has “had five husbands, and the man you have is not your husband.” Notably, he does not adjure her to “repent.” Yet, reading this through a modern Western lens, we automatically assume that this woman is a predator, tossing off husbands that no longer interest her like a series of out-of-fashion dresses.

But this would have been impossible in her social context.  It was not any woman’s prerogative to “choose” one man after another. Jewish law and custom dictated that only males could initiate marriage contracts. These were chiefly economic arrangements. Women who were not attached to a male-headed household were highly vulnerable, economically, unless independently wealthy.

This Samaritan woman’s multiple marriages could have ended in one of two ways: with the death of her husbands, or because one or more had divorced her. (As is frequently pointed out, the school of Rabbi Hillel ruled that a woman could be divorced for something as trivial as burning dinner.)

It was common knowledge that a woman widowed or divorced – thus, unattached to any male head-of-household–was consigned to a life of poverty. The law of levirate marriage dictated that it was the duty of a brother of the deceased to marry his widow, although it is unclear if this was scrupulously followed. If no brother was available, another man might marry her. On the other hand, if she had been divorced by her husband—again, strictly a male prerogative—another man could marry her, although it  might well be less likely. Her chief value to a household would be her labor and that of any children she might already have, or bear to a new husband.

The Samaritan woman now lives with a man without the protective benefits of marriage. This could well have been a desperate arrangement prompted by abject poverty. Was she a “sinner” in such a situation? Undoubtedly;  but no more so than the one who had “taken” her but refused to bestow on her the dignity of legal marriage.

Little wonder she comes to the well in the parching heat of high noon—an hour of the day that most sensible and upright people would avoid.

Jesus reveals that he knows her situation, but is his intent to condemn her? It seems to be the opposite: to convey that she is known but NOT condemned. Jesus engages this lowly woman in conversation in a public place – a shocking departure from custom. Recognizing that she is hungry for spiritual knowledge, Jesus takes her seriously. She becomes an evangelist to her neighbors, hurrying back to town to declare, as did Philip to Nathanael, “Come and see!” 

Might the kingdom of heaven—and even its proclamation!—belong to those we are most inclined to condemn and dismiss as unqualified?