We are not Empty Wells…
We are the Wells.
I was disappointed that there was no mention of International Women’s Day, or Women’s History Month, or even a nod towards the Woman at the Well as I sat in a space, hoping to hear all three of these things on Sunday.
I have wondered this week what churches had to say about these dates on the calendar and the text in the lectionary from the gospel of John.1
Where did other male ‘preachers and pastors’ lead the women in congregations as they sat with hands folded and eyes fixed forward? Listening for how this story might be placed in our modern day context.
Would it be pushed like the Epstein files under the carpet? Was it told in ways that makes the woman in the story appear like she had done something wrong?
If you heard the story of the woman at the well from:
A single mother’s perspective…
A disabled woman’s perspective…
An immigrant woman’s perspective…
A gay woman’s perspective…
A divorced woman’s perspective…
A trafficked woman’s perspective…
Or any marginalized woman’s perspective… I would love to hear your thoughts. What you heard in the message. What changed you as you listened.
As marginalized women at our own wells, what is the invitation from Jesus to us?
What is inside the story that makes us come to gather water when no one else is around? When no one else is there to engage with or remind us of our story?We go alone. We walk a path by ourselves. Hoping that others will not ask us for a drink.
If we can’t survive many days without water, is there something that we as women intuitively know about this deep well?
We do not know her name or her story. The gospel of John does not give us that information. Did she leave multiple abusive relationships? Did her partners die? Was she forced or expected to engage with men that were “assigned” to her?
As I hold this story of the woman at the well and apply a posture of ‘Expansive Theology’2 I hear voices, stories, and realities of how and why women arrive at wells by themselves.
In my holy imagination, there’s more to this biblical story than what has been written about her.
Perhaps this is the root of my disappointment this week.
That I keep returning to broken cisterns, empty wells, hearing stories of unnamed women, marginalized voices. Stories that only cast forms of judgment onto the backs of women as they march or crawl to the next well or cistern to experience more of the same.
Perhaps this is the root of my disappointment.
The way the story is written in the gospel of John chapter 4 might want us to believe and see that Jesus became her savior.
The way the words are placed on the page of a holy text, might want us to believe that women need to be saved from themselves.
The way the story has been told for thousands of years might want us to believe that we need to hear, or be reminded as women, that our flaws are the main point of this story.
Here’s what I read… Jesus asked for a drink…
In spite of the culture.
In spite of the noon day heat.
In spite of what the boys would say when they found him talking to her.
In spite of her past or her present relationships.
In spite of her questions about ancestors, prophets and current day legal systems.
In spite of her femininity.
In spite of her status.
In spite of her own spiritual depth or lack of.
In spite of her decision to stay engaged with him.
In spite of it all…
Jesus asked for a drink and then became her well… and she like a desert flower blooming at high noon, opened herself to a drink of water that she had never tasted before.
A well inside of herself.
A well where the Good lives.
A well that calls us to expand into, soak into, or dive into new life. New breath. A new and better story of resurrection.
You may ask me how I know this. Why I believe this, and I would say…
Jesus and the woman at the well is our story, my story, and your story.
Jesus didn’t come to the woman at the well as a savior.
He didn’t come to the woman at the well to save her from herself.
He didn’t come to the woman at the well to remind her of her past.
Jesus doesn’t come in these ways.
Not to her.
Not to me.
Not to us.
This I know like a deep, deep reservoir inside my own body. In deep wells of love and compassion he met her…
He met me… and perhaps you as well, asking for a drink.
“You don’t invite people to water by yelling about thirst… you become the well.”3
Love Expands the Table ~ Shelly
Table Conversations
Join table this week where we will make space for your story. If you know someone who has been going to the well alone, please invite them to use the link below to join Table.
Go here to Table Chat on Substack and introduce yourself. You will receive the Zoom details for our Wednesday Table Conversations
The Woman at the Well Story in Second Testament. John 4:5-42.
Expansive Theology - The practice of using holy imagination to tell a better story about what was left out, burned, or deemed unholy by patriarchy.
Quote from Substack writer. I did not capture the name to give this quote credit to.
This was a balm to my divine feminine soul, my friend.