I imagine she looks a bit bent over-bent over from the heat, bent over with the weight of isolation and ostracism-bent over with those sorts of emotions that keep us down, emotions loaded up on our backs from the mouths of others.  Her eyes too, are downcast...if she were to show up in church, which would be a small miracle in and of itself, she would be the one with clothes that are too big, arms tired from self-protection, and she would shuffle ever so carefully forward to receive the gift of bread and wine.  I imagine her as like some who pass through our doors each Sunday who don't stay for coffee hour, but sneak down the back staircase, out the door, back into streets of loneliness. 

She's good at being invisible until Jesus comes into her life. Meeting Jesus eye to eye changes her story, changes her and changes her community.  With the simple words, "Give me a drink of water," Jesus invites her into a new story, and a whole new understanding of herself.

Such a strange introduction these two have.  She replies: "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria"?  It's awkward...the words seem to have sharp edges, as when people are afraid of being hurt again.  And yet, what a simple request...a mere drink of water--during the hottest part of the day.  Jesus looked at her and saw not her limitations, but her possibilities; he looked past the many complications of her life, including the many reasons she could have had five husbands.  Perhaps the woman, like Tamar in Genesis 38, was passed by in the train-wrecks of arranged family marriages when the last male in the family line refused to marry her.  It bears noticing that although the reasons for the woman's marital history intrigue contemporary commentators, and political pundits would serve this up as a main course for public consumption, this detail does not seem to concern Jesus.  Nor does Jesus pass moral judgment on the woman.  He states the facts. He names her plight.  What others had seen as a dead end Jesus sees as an opening into a redemptive future.

This is a moment of revelation for the woman, a moment not just when she is able to see Jesus with new eyes, as a Jewish religious teacher who is not judgmental and self-righteous, but even more importantly when she's able to see herself and her future with new eyes!  And just as is the case with us in moments of therapeutic insight, this new knowledge is empowering, so much so that she's emboldened to remain in conversation with Jesus. 

Not only is the Samaritan woman the first character in the Gospel of John to engage in serious theological conversation with Jesus, she also serves as the first female evangelist about Jesus to her community.  On the basis of her telling the story of Jesus to her people many of the Samaritan villagers believe in Jesus and go to meet him for themselves.  In the Gospel of John, telling of our encounters with God, talking about our relationship with Jesus, is one of the primary marks of discipleship, of being a follower of the Way.  John, you see, understood the pattern and power of stories told and heard.  We go and tell of our experience to others, others come to experience what is being told, and not only do they grow, but we discover in the telling what has happened in our own lives, and we begin to live into a future that is already in process of becoming different.

"Come and see", she says to her villagers.  Just as Jesus invited the disciples of John to come and see where he lives, so the Samaritan woman invites her own community to come and see the Jesus who changed her life.  She offers them the chance to "come and see" what their own lives might look like when freed from the power of the past. The Samaritan woman's transformation, made complete in her act of witness, reveals a faith strong enough to risk ridicule and anger from her community. Her story holds the promise of growth and freedom, even for those whose oppression is deeply internalized.