A Woman Who Knows Who She Is

A sermon preached with the people of Church of Our Saviour Episcopal in Akron, Ohio.

I was so honored to be invited to help mark Women’s History Month. And as it happens, this morning we find Jesus meeting one of the most famous women of scripture: the woman at the well.

It’s a meeting that reveals God’s dream of peace, as Jesus makes clear that the Kingdom of Heaven will be for all people – Jews and Samaritans alike; that there will be no room for prejudice, and that God will be present in worship in all places – Jerusalem, Sychar or anywhere else.

As they engage in conversation, it becomes clear to this woman that something big is happening here. That what is on offer is nothing less than eternal life. And Jesus sees this understanding taking root in her, and he tells her to go get her husband. And she says to him, candidly, “I have no husband.” And Jesus responds, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” 

She runs to her people and she says that this man “told me everything I have ever done.” And based on her testimony, they ask Jesus to stay with them for a while. And they too come to believe.

It’s a beautiful story. “But,” asks every generation of Christians since. “What about that five husbands and being in a relationship outside of marriage thing? Who is this woman, really?”

Some people think she couldn’t have biological children. And see her as a figure to be pitied, assuming one husband after the other divorced her for this reason. Some people think she was a woman with a terribly unlucky streak of being widowed. Some people think she was a concubine, a second or third wife – a polygamist. Some think she was an adulteress, unable or unwilling to remain with just one man. Some think she was a prostitute, plain and simple 

So, which is it: Is she a woman of terrible circumstance. A victim of oppression. A woman to be pitied. A woman Jesus has lifted out of the pit of despair?  

Or is she a woman of notorious sin. A woman to be shocked by. A woman Jesus has fixed, and convinced to live virtuously from now on?

We. Don’t. Know. We don’t know!

And yet, you can find articles and books and sermons, and social media posts that tell us, definitively, who she is. That choose an option and go with it. As fact.

Surely, her placement here in this important story must be for use as either a cautionary tale of a woman with loose morals, or a pitiful tale of a powerless woman in distress.

Surely, we have to decide whether her choices are virtuous or vicious. Relatable or reprehensible.

Because surely a woman’s heart and mind and story cannot ever belong just to her and to God.

And surely a woman can never be just a plain old person, just minding her business, and getting some water.

So, let’s let her speak, in her own words. “He told me everything I have ever done,” she says. When this woman, this apostle, goes to tell her people that she has seen the Messiah, this is her evidence. He knows me, she says. He knows who I am. He knows my story. He knows my heart. And my mind. All of it. In its complexity. The good, the bad and the ugly. He knows. me.

If that isn’t at the heart of the twofold joy and fright of God’s love for us, I don’t know what is. God knows us.

This is a story about a woman who knows who she is, and comes to understand that God does too.

Jesus does not rebuke or express sorrow or pity for this woman. But the church has, and the church does. Because a story about a woman who knows who she is, and comes to understand that God does too – without help, interference or outside interpretation – causes a glitch in the patriarchal system.  

Unmarried women. Women without children. Trans women. Women who raise children on their own. Women who access abortion care. Women who love women. Women who are divorced. Women who dress a certain way, look a certain way, or talk a certain way. Women are constantly being told who they really are; their stories constructed and interpreted as either horrifying or pitiful. Because fundamentally so many of us still do not believe that women’s identities belong to women. Or to God.

But this morning, I find strength in remembering that when we meet Jesus at the well, he reveals that this is a lie. Because when we tell Jesus who we are. When we tell Jesus our story, he tells it right back to us, fully intact and unedited – reminding us that it is ours. Ours and God’s.

What’s more, God entrusts God’s own story – God’s own true identity – to women. Women sing the story, believe the story, and preach the story. And they do it first.   

This morning, Jesus offers us – all of us – living water. The promise of everlasting life. Life in a kingdom where earthly systems of power and any kind of prejudice; any kind of -ism – dissolve.

And, he invites us to follow the lead of a great early apostle, who left her water jar at the well, and went out to tell the world.