So there's this story in the Bible that I am really rather fond of. In fact it might be my favorite story in all the books in the Bible combined. I know you may not be a "church person" or consider yourself a "Christian", but this is where the story starts. In the Bible. Just wanted to say that up front so you know where this is going. I'm not gonna get all "preachy", but it's a pretty sweet story. Anyhow, the story is found in the 4th chapter of the book of "John". It's usually titled something like: "Jesus talks to a Samaritan woman", or "The Woman at the Well", or something of that sort. Since I grew up going to church, I'd heard the story many times before. I knew how it went, what it was supposed to mean, and all that jazz. But then...a couple springs ago (May 2009 It think), this story exploded my world. I finally got it and it changed me completely.
I'll post the text from the Bible at the end of the story so you can read it if you want to, but for now, let me just give you a summary. So basically you should know that in the ancient Jewish culture that Jesus lived in, the Jews were an ethnic group that hated an ethnic group called Samaritans. The Samaritans were like half-breeds. Their ancestors were Jews who had married into other cultures. They had their own rules about what it was supposed to look like to worship the Jewish God and they lived next door to nation of Israel. The nation of Samaria was almost in the middle of the nation of Israel and instead of traveling through Samaria to get from northern Jewish towns to southern Jewish towns (or vice versa), Jews would take a road all the way around Samaria just so they could avoid the people there. And when all you have are donkeys, camels, and your feet for transportation, that adds probably a day to your journey. Not only that, but Jew considered Samaritans dirty. So dirty that they would not eat or drink out of the same dishes that Samaritans used, and they certainly wouldn't stay in their homes. But what was even worse than a Samaritan? A Samaritan woman. Woman unfortunately were still considered property and had a lesser status in many of these ancient cultures...Jewish and Samaritan cultures alike. The Jewish men considered Samaritan women so dirty, that they claimed that they menstruated 24/7. All the time. So while they wanted to avoid interacting with a Samaritan in general, they certainly didn't want to be around a Samaritan woman. So, that's the culture Jesus lived in. He was a Jewish teacher (called a Rabbi) and so for him, culturally it would have been even more inappropriate for him to interact with Samaritans. Ok...now to get into the actual story.
So Jesus and his "trainees" (also called disciples) were in southern Israel and were traveling to northern Israel. Instead of going on the usual road around Samaria, Jesus decides to go through Samaria. Whoa. His disciples must have been like "Um...you know this isn't normal right? You do know where this road goes through right? Um...Jesus???" Anyhow, they come to this little town called Sychar. It's about noon, and it is really really hot outside at noon in the desert. Being that it's about lunch time Jesus tells his disciples to go into the town and buy some food. Meanwhile, since he's been walking all day and is understandably hot and tired, he sits down on the well just outside of the town. You know...kind of like the gas station just outside of city limits before the corn fields start. Interestingly enough this is the same well that the Jewish ancestor (named Jacob) had dug. Generations ago when the Jewish people where just starting off, Jacob lived in the place that was now Samaria and had dug a well and had given it as part of an inheritance to his son Joseph (who was his favorite son by the way). So that's the setting. At around noon, Jesus finds himself alone at his ancestor Jacob's well just outside this little Samaritan town, hot and tired.
Then it gets interesting. The Bible casually reads at this point: "When a Samaritan woman came to draw water..." Ok pause. It's noon. I don't know if you've ever been in a desert at noon. My grandparents live in Arizona. And let me tell you, when it is hot, it is really "Oh-my-freaking-gosh-my-skin-is-going-boil-off-hot". So what do the smart people do? They stay inside during the day in their safe air-conditioning. During the middle of the day is not when you want to be outside taking a jog. Same thing in the years Jesus lived. In the blistering heat of noon, the people stayed indoors or in the shade as much as possible. The normal time for women to come to the well for their daily water supply was in the morning...or perhaps the evening...when it was cooler. But this woman is coming to get water at noon. Very strange indeed. I've heard a lot of Christians say this is because the woman was a prostitute and that's sort of a "rendezvous" sort of place to be. You wanna hook up with someone...go to the well in the middle of the day. It's just out of town...no one else will be there. I don't know...maybe. But at this point we have no suggestion that the woman is promiscuous at all...she's just at the well at a really weird time.
And Jesus starts to talk to her. He asks her for a drink of water from the well. (Read: A Jewish Rabbi MAN just initiated conversation with a Samarian WOMAN and asked her to give him a drink from her Samaritan water jug.) HOLY COW. Talk about breaking all kinds of social, gender and ethnic boundaries. If I was the woman I would have been shocked out of my mind. HE is asking HER for help...he is at the mercy of her decision. Naturally the woman is like: "What the HECK??? How can you ask me for a drink? Hellooooooo. Sa-mar-it-an WOMAN mister. What are you on??" The Bible is writes it less dramatically: "The Samaritan woman said to him. 'You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?' "
At this point, I think Jesus's tone is so very gentle with her. I'll explain later, but just hear the gentleness and sincerity in his voice. He tells her, that if she knew what God could give her right then and if she knew who she was really talking to (Jesus is God in human form), then she would have been the one asking him for God's gift and He would have given it to her. Jesus calls the gift "living water" which could be translated "flowing water". So opposite of still well water.
Not surprisingly, the woman in not convinced. She only has several generations of hatred, prejudice, and hurt sitting on her shoulders. No biggie. Yeah. Like she's going to trust a Jewish teacher and believe him. So she's like, "Uh. I don't know if you've noticed, but this well is really deep. You don't have a jar with you. How the heck are you going to get flowing water out of here. Hmmm? Do you think you're greater than our ancestor Jacob who gave us this well, where he, his sons, and his flocks drank from?
Lemme pause again for a moment. Other than her skepticism (getting flowing water from a well without a jar...yeah, not going to happen.) and what I read as sarcasm, we finally learn some about her, something about who she is at her core. She has identity issues and identity pain. The Jews have hurt her and her people. They've been told over and over again how they're not as good as the Jews...they're dirty, they're half breeds, they worship God wrong. She's grown up with that. And yet she has so much pride in her culture. Dang it - that is who she is. She's confronting a Jewish man who has an authority position as a teacher. She's telling him off. "Who do you think you are? You keep telling me and my people that we're nothing. But guess what? This well. THIS WAS JACOB'S WELL. He is our ancestor too. He drank out of it, his sons and descendants drank out of it, his animals drank out of it. He freakin' gave it to his favorite son Joseph. We have value too. We have part in his inheritance too. Do you think you're better than us? You think you can get flowing water out of this well without a jar? Are you any greater than my ancestor Jacob who put the well here in the first place? Yeah no. I don't think so." (Ok, that's my paraphrase, but you get the point.) She is clinging to her identity as a Samaritan. Otherwise she wouldn't have reacted so strongly. Ok. Whew. So there's a lot of tension in the air around Jesus right now needless to say.
Jesus doesn't argue or fight the point with her. He refocuses the conversation. He's like: hey ma'am, so the water from this well, you've gotta keep coming back here every day because you need water every day right? I mean you still get thirsty- you know? But the water I could give you...it would satisfy you and you wouldn't need to keep being thirsty anymore. In fact, the water I could give you would be like a fountain inside you that floods over so you'll live forever. (At this point Jesus is going all metaphorical, but I'm not sure the woman gets that yet.) I think he just really wants to give her his gift and is trying to make her curious. But look at what he's saying..."hey ma'am...I have something that will satisfy you...you won't have to be thirsty anymore"...Oh man. Keep reading, this all comes full circle in the end.
So the woman, still not convinced, is like: Ok, fine. Give me the water. Prove it to me. Give me water that won't make me thirsty anymore. I'd really rather not come here every day if I can help it. (I read lots of sarcasm there...but maybe that's just me.)
So how does Jesus respond to that. He simply says "Go, call your husband and come back." Whoa, Jesus. That's kinda random. Fine, men usually talk with men, but you've already been talking with her so you already crossed social/gender line. Whaaa??? (I imagine he said that very gently again and perhaps quietly.) To understand why he asks that we have to read on.
The woman responds (maybe caught off guard?), "I have no husband". Jesus again responds to her and this is the part that gets me every time.
Jesus, because he's God, knows this woman's story already. He knows her past and her present situation. He knows her heart and all the things weighing on her mind. So he says and I quote, "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is quite true." Ok. Pause.
I've heard lots of people take this part of the story and say that she's lived a promiscuous life. And wow, Jesus was talking to a prostitute and that's why this story is amazing. No. Look at that again. See who this woman really is. This woman has been married five times. She's had five husbands, five weddings, five divorces. Now she has five ex-husbands. In ancient cultures, a lot of times the husbands could divorce wives for whatever reason they wanted. This woman has been kicked to the curb five times. She has been promised love, protection, and provision and five times that hasn't come true. I don't know what happened...maybe she couldn't give her husbands children, maybe they thought she was ugly, maybe she had annoying habits...but what ever it was...she has been unworthy, not good enough, FIVE TIMES. Sure, she could have slept around and been unfaithful to her husbands...but would she really have been married five times then? Who in ancient culture would have married an adulteress...after all it was a very shameful label back then. I imagine in a smallish town like Sychar, people know people pretty well. They would have known who she was. She was the woman who couldn't make her man happy for whatever reason. She was the woman who kept getting passed around. You think her family was proud to have her as a daughter? I bet not. Especially because now she was living (and probably sleeping) with a man she wasn't married to (why else would he keep her around?). Back then, women didn't have "careers". Marriage was a way for them to be protected and provided for by their husbands. They had children, did housework, had loving relationships with their husband, friends, and family, but they didn't go to work and support themselves. Single woman were often poor and very unpopular. It meant no one wanted to marry them. So consider this woman. Which of us girls has ever dreamed of having five divorces and 1) being told you're not good enough for a man to love you and take care of you, 2) having to resort to the shame of living with a man who isn't married to you...shaming your family along the way because there's no one else who will provide for you 3) being told from childhood that your culture and your gender are dirty, worthless, and wrong. This woman...oh this woman...she is so hurt, so bruised, so jaded. She's like white trash in everyone's eyes. It makes sense that she would come to the well at noon. She can avoid the gossip and furtive glances of all the other women at the well in the morning. Of course she clings to being a Samaritan as her identity...what else does she have to hold on to? What is her view of her self-worth and self-value? I can't imagine it was very high. This woman...oh my heart just broke for this woman when her situation dawned on me.
And Jesus. Jesus sees this woman's story. I think his heart broke for her too. This is why I think he didn't argue with her, why he was affirming (he said twice...you're right, what you have said is true...), why he didn't condemn her, why he initiated conversation with her, why he wanted so badly to give her his gift. This is why I read his tone as very gentle and kind. He knew how broken and hurt and rejected she was. So he dared to touch where it hurt..."Go, call your husband and come back." He dared to say, I know, I know where you've been, I know what's been said about you...and I still want to talk with you. I still want to cross all these social/cultural/ethnic/gender boundaries to get be with you. He dared to touch where it hurt so he could start to heal those heart wounds.
Ok, real quick. To finish the story, the woman is kinda freaked out and thinks Jesus is a prophet. Whether she wants to get the spotlight off her hurt, or whether she wants to get her questions answered and share about her ethnic hurt as well, for whatever reason she starts asking about why the Jews keep telling the Samaritans that they can't worship God in the way the want. (Why do your people say my people aren't good enough?) And Jesus flings open the door and says that the time has finally come when it doesn't matter if someone is a Jew, Samaritan, or any other background...they can now worship God from wherever because God's spirit and his truth will be in them. He accepts her and includes her. Then he plainly tells her that yes, he is indeed God's Son, the one the Jews and Samaritans have both been waiting for to set them free (they called that person "Messiah" historically) . Then she goes back to her town (took a lot of courage I imagine with her background) and tells them that she has found the Messiah and they all need to meet him because he told her everything she'd ever done. So they all go out to meet him, and they learn from Jesus, he stays in their town for two days and they believe he is who he says he is and that he really is the "Savior of the world".
So I'm reading this story a couple springs ago, and I was crying. Because Jesus showed this woman so so much love. He saw her hurt, her shame, her identity issues, her self-worth struggle and he still wanted to be with her...heal her. His gift of "living water" (or flowing water) was of himself and of God's spirit bringing her satisfaction so that she wouldn't have to feel empty and thirsty in life anymore. She's tried to fill herself with relationships to find love, to fill her emptiness, to find her self-worth. And over and over and over again, it's failed. She's had six lovers: Five she was married to and the sixth that she isn't married to. None of them can satisfy her But Jesus...he's the seventh man in the story. (Here's where I can finally get to the title of my blog.) In Jewish culture (and mind you the book of John in the Bible was written by a Jew so this would have stood out and been important to him as a Jewish author) the number 7 was a special symbolic number. To the ancient Jews, the number 7 was a sign of perfection and completeness. And Jesus is the Seventh Man!!!! He's the perfect one! He can complete her! He can satisfy her! He can LOVE her the way she was meant to be LOVED!!! Oh my goodness!
And the thing is, I can relate to this woman so much. I have struggled with my own identity and self-worth for so many years I can't even tell you when it began. I longed, yearned, desired so badly for other people to love me...but I never felt love. I always felt that people were my friends out of proximity, or convenience, or because they had to be...I never knew I was loved...it never clicked in my heart. I couldn't, couldn't believe someone wanted to really love me. My heart and mind were so blinded by lies of the devil my enemy. The lies told me I was worthless, that I was less than others, that I had to be ever fearful that people would leave me if I messed up. For the longest time my identity was wholly wrapped up in who wanted to be with me, and who didn't...what my friends thought of me and trying to be perfect before them. I remember getting to the point where I told myself, 'You know what...Some people were made to be loved, but you're not one of them. When you get to Heaven you'll be loved...but here...that's just a struggle you're going to have to deal with. Learn how to be happy and ok without love.' I was trying so hard like the woman, to find my worth in relationships. I felt so confused about who I was and wishing I was someone else. I was never satisfied...never knew real love.
And then Jesus. And then Jesus broke through to me with this story. Like the woman...he LOVES me. I knew it for the first time. I had always felt like I had to hang my head before God...because I always mess up and he forgives me, but I always felt ashamed before him. I never knew in my heart that he LOVED me. Just like the woman. He knows my story and yours. He knows my struggles and failures and still LOVES me. And he can satisfy and heal me. Just like the woman. He his my Seventh Man. He completes me. He protects, provides, satisfies, and loves me like a husband would to a beloved wife. And that. And that is the new identity that he is building in me.
So that is the story behind the title of my blog. I love Jesus because he first LOVED me. He has healed me and set me free. I am his and he is mine. He is my Seventh Man. That's just how he LOVES people...no matter where you or I have been in life...he is there to LOVE us...and satisfy us...and heal us. He is....I have no words to really describe it. He is just amazing. So I am all about LOVE. Loving people like Jesus, my Seventh Man, loved me. Loving people for who they are, where they are, no matter what...and sharing with them that Jesus loves and yearns for them, like he loves and yearns for me. So yeah. "LOVE and The Seventh Man". That's what I'm about. :)
Here's the actual Bible text if you wanted to read it:
John 4: 4-26
Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
