We don’t often read scripture as subversive literature but it is there hidden in plain sight. In particular, the many encounters where Jesus is in dialogue with feisty women. Women who refuse to be ignored, women who answer back, women who defy the conventions of the day by demanding to be recognised.

The Samaritan woman who Jesus meets by Jacob’s well is one such woman. She is certainly a woman of some character, like the Wife of Bath, she has had five husbands and the man she lives with now is not her husband. Jesus comes to the well at midday, the hottest time of day, and is thirsty. Usually one would not expect to find anyone there at that time of day but this woman is a social outcast, no respectable woman would want to be seen with her. Jesus asks her for water, and she challenges him.

‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria’ John 4: 9

Not only is Jesus creating a scandal by talking to this woman but breaking the long-held rules of racial segregation as Jews and Samaritans had no dealings with each other. The Samaritan woman continues with another provocative question:

‘Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well?’

John 4: 12

Clearly, she is not going to submissively agree with this strange man. Again she raises the temperature, to divert attention, I think, from the thorny topic of her ‘Relationship status’.

‘Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem’ John 4: 26

Theological talk was reserved for men and yet she broaches one of the most divisive issues of the day, the correct place where God should be worshipped. An issue as divisive in Israel today as then!

Women, like this, step out of the pages of the gospel throughout the ministry of Christ. The Syro Phonesian woman, the woman with an issue of blood, the woman who gatecrashes a dinner party to anoint the feet of Jesus with her hair, the women who risk arrest by going to the tomb of Jesus when the other disciples are hiding away in the upper room. All defy convention and custom by calling into question the religious taboos of the time. This is subversive literature looking at life from the underside.

Artemisia Gentileschi was a woman very much in this mold. A student of Carravagio she was a prodigious talent but her art is a statement of her fierce independence as a woman in a man’s world. Of the fifty-seven known works, forty-nine are of women, and of her religious paintings, none feature the Madonna or any woman in the role of submissive obedience. All her women, Judith, Esther, Bathsheba, Jael, Cleopatra, and her own self-portraits are of women in control!

Controversially it has been suggested that this was the result of the trauma of rape and the subsequent trial in which she and not the rapist was tortured so as to verify her testimony. The rapist was never punished and Artemisia had to flee Rome to escape.

Could it be that the four paintings that she did of the ‘Judith slaying Holofernes’ owed something to this experience?

I don’t think Artemisisa ever found peace and happiness in her life but carried the trauma of her experience to the end. She stands for the many women through history who have raised their voices but did unlike the Samaritan woman had no one to answer their questions.

We do know the happy ending of the Samaritan woman’s story. John records that though it is Jesus who asks her for water it is she who is thirsty for answers. She draws water for Jesus but it is she who finds that her thirst is quenched as Jesus offers

‘the water gushing up to eternal life’ John 4: 14. She comes to the well for water but in reality, she is thirsty for truth.

Each generation is asking anew questions that are raised by the conventions of the day. Often the voices raised are angry at past wrongs, present abuse, or perceived injustices. Often the victim's voice goes unheard or ignored but if like the Samaritan woman, we are to find healing then the anger must be listened to before the healing can begin.

‘Where are we?’ ‘Who are we?’, ‘What’s wrong?’, ‘what’s the remedy?’

Past generations have assumed that the answers to these questions were self-evident.

Jews and Samaritans both lived in a world where the answers seemed self-evident. Both lived in a secure world, satisfied that they had the answers to life’s questions. These answers however did satisfy those who chose to defy the institutional religion of their time. To the Samaritan woman and many like her, Jesus reached out with not new answers but with healing for the hurts of the past and hope for the future.

Where are we? Not Jerusalem or Samaria, neither East nor West, whether on the right side of history or the wrong side we are all equally loved before Jesus.

Who are we? Whether victim or abuser, whether oppressor or oppressed we are in need of healing by Jesus.

What’s wrong? The unheard voices, the untreated wounds, and the hidden crimes all come into the light of Jesus Christ.

What’s the remedy? Anger and protest have their place but healing comes as we seek not angry independence but forgiveness and healing for ourselves and others.

Behind this discussion lies an important question, ‘What is God like?’ Is He a God confined to a particular shrine, place, or culture? Is he a God who does not hear the raised voices of the angry? Is he a God who knows nothing of the pain and anguish of the victim? No! He is the God who we know in Jesus Christ who comes to seek us where we are, to listen to us as we ask questions, and to gently reveal to us where our wounds need to be healed.

The God who offers us the water of life. He is the God who comes to us in spirit and truth as we worship him.

Rev. Simon Brignall

Please pray for Elizbeth and her family as they mourn the passing of Ray.

May he rest in peace and rise in glory

Prayer for Ukraine

God of peace and justice

we pray for the people of Ukraine today,

and the laying down of weapons.

we pray for all those who fear for tomorrow,

that your spirit of comfort would draw near to them.

We pray for those with power over war and peace,

for wisdom, discernment, and compassion to guide their decisions

Above all, we pray for all your precious children at risk and in fear,

That you would hold and protect them.

We pray in the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

Amen