[tang-soo]

Clearly this women was an outcast from her peers - implied because of her past. In the 6th hour is not the time to come to the well unless you didn't socialize with the other women, who did so during the cooler morning hours. The 6th hour was the hottest part of the day. The morning gathering of water was a social event for the women of the area - unless you had reason to avoid the other women.

Thank God for her position in the community, because it provided her the opportunity to meet Christ.

[muawiyah]

Yin and Yan. The first shall be last. The last shall be first. This woman was, at best, a charity case ~ a woman repeatedly married to elderly men who had the wherewithal to care for her. She is there at the well alone ~ so where are her children?

I don't think you could be more alone and outcast in the Classical World than to be a woman without support, on her own, and with no children.

Yet this lowest of the low in a community (the Samaritans) looked down upon by every Jew ~ met God Himself at the well ~ just asking her for a drink of her water.

That message is there in highly compressed form ~ but what does it mean?

In other passages Jesus discusses what that means and ties it to Classical standards of morality as well as personal salvation. Sermon on the Mount comes to mind.

There's the widow who gave her mite ~ which was her all. SImilar to this woman ~ she has nothing to give but a drink of water which she does without question ~ then Jesus reveals his identity to her.

I said I'd leave the feminist deconstruction for later, but it's there in compressed format ~ and by drawing out the message from the text Jesus is illuminated. He is not just compassionate, he is just, and he's also some fellow who asked for water ~ from the "least of these".

I begin to see a comprehensive unity of the message in the Gospels ~ and what I will need to do to find out how to hang onto it. And tell others.

There is much work to be done before my next, and probably final, bout with blindness.