Going to the Well for All We Need

This past week, Sue and I have been attending an online retreat created by the new Office of Ignatian Spirituality of the Jesuit Central and Southern Province. Hosted by Fr. Hung Pham SJ and a host of lay colleagues, the retreat has challenged us to “Fall in Love with Jesus,” a theme adopted from the well-known prayer attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe SJ, 28th superior general (1965–83) of the Society of Jesus, that begins:

Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.

If you don’t know the whole prayer, click on the link above. It’ll be worth it. 

On Wednesday, we were led by Mona Snider of the Ignatian Spirituality Center in Kansas City in a beautiful meditation of John 4:4-29, the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well. The story is important for a number of reasons, not the least of which is just that it happened in the first place —  that Jesus had this intimate, telling conversation with a non-Jewish woman, that he would ask for her help, that he would open up for her a new understanding of God. That he would offer to change her life. It’s a powerful story about Jesus’ openness to all, and perhaps especially to women. 

But obviously it’s a story for all of us, too, so I thought this morning I would revisit the story, take out the gender pronouns, references to Jews and Samaritans and women, and just open up my imagination (and hopefully yours) to a new experience of the story. I trust neither John nor Jesus will mind. 

Put yourself in the story…

I go to the well at mid-day, as I always do, when the sun is high and hot and the crowd has thinned. I’m an outsider, so I don’t like to fight for a place in line with the regulars. The ones who ignore me anyway. I’m better off going it alone. 

Stop, ask yourself: When do I feel like an outsider? Ever?

I walk the dusty approach to the well, the one they call “Jacob’s Well,” because it’s near the piece of land that Jacob gave to Joseph. I’ve heard the story. My head drops to my chest as I approach, tired from the long walk with the jar, and I look up to see someone else already there. A man, clearly a holy person, which I am not. I know from experience he will want nothing to do with me. I come closer and set down my jar. I nod meekly at him, and he looks up and smiles at me. I wasn’t expecting that. 

“Can you help me get a drink?” he asks. “My friends have gone into town to buy food and left me here with nothing. Not even a bucket or a cup. Some friends. I’m thirsty.”

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. “Uh, you talking to me?” 

He knows what I mean. Holy people use nothing in common with the likes of me, and certainly not a cup. He smiles and speaks again:

“If only you knew the gift of God here with you. If only you knew who I am, you would ask ME for water and I would give you something special. Living water.” 

“Like you told me,” I say, “you don’t even have a bucket and the well is deep. What do you have in mind? Where are you going to get this living water? I mean, just who do you think you are?” 

I think I might have overstepped myself there. But he just laughs.

“Here’s the thing,” he says. “Everyone who drinks the water from this well will be thirsty again. You’ll be back here tomorrow again, right? But whoever drinks the water I can give will never thirst; that water will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Well sign me up, I think. “I’ll have what you’re giving,” is what I say. “Not having to come here every day would be fine by me and my aching back.”

He smiles again, like he knows me. And then he does something strange. He tells me the dark secret that I hold inside. The one nobody knows about. Yeah, that one. 

Stop, ask yourself: What does Jesus know about me that I keep buried deep inside? Listen to him as he speaks the words. Tell him how you feel. Ask for forgiveness if you need to. 

I just linger there at the well with him. I take my time. I go deep and let it out. No more secrets.

I get up to leave. I fill my jar from the well and give him some from the small cup I keep tied to my belt. Living water or not, we still need to drink cool water from the well on a hot day.

“That hits the spot,” he says. “Thank you for your kindness. The time will come when these boundaries will not separate us all. The day will come when we will all worship the Father together in spirit and in truth.”

“From your lips to God’s ear,” is what I want to say, but something tells me not to, that it’s not necessary.  

“You have shown me both spirit and truth today,” I reply. “You’re the One who is coming, the one I need. Am I right?”  

“That’s me,” he says. “Nice to meet you. I’ll be here by the well if you ever need me.” 

I turn to see his friends coming up the path and, if they are a little shocked that he is just sitting here talking to me, they keep it to themselves. That’s nice of them. Maybe the beginning of something new. But I’m so shaken and changed by this whole thing that I run off, leaving my water jug sitting beside the well but knowing that I will never again be the same. 

He knew everything about me. Knew me inside and out. He has to be the One. 

Stop, ask yourself:  Am I open to this kind of intimacy with Jesus? What happens when I open up and let him in? What am I yearning for right now? What do I need from the well?