“Will you give me a drink?”
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (John 4, NIV)
A special kind of encounter between individuals is possible when one appears in an unexpected place, each by their background characteristics expects that the other will avoid engagement, and one (the right one) takes initiative with an opening and waits for a response that indicates willingness to engage.
It is the Teacher who takes initiative, giving away control in the process of gaining connection. It is a less comfortable position. We may hear things that we do not wish to hear.
“All people … strongly seek states of interpersonal connectedness and the failure to achieve connectedness … [has] a profound effect on the body, brain, behavior, and experience in the moment and over time.” (E.Z. Tronick, Why is Connection with Others so Critical?, 2004) That is the case even when the interaction between children and others is broken even briefly, and when children have suffered such a break for long periods, they supply their own explanations. They account for their very survival using these explanations (and that is the root of lying, a behavior generally found in these kids).
“I don’t care: what does that have to do with me?” is something we often hear. “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” is that kind of a response.
What we offer is not necessarily visible or perceived. “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep.”
That response indicates some movement in the Teacher’s direction, and it is an opportunity to raise the stakes in the conversation.
But, when pressure mounts, there is dissembling. “I have no husband,” she replied (her own explanation that has so far been adequate).
The transformation in the relationship: connection takes place, in this case, through a sign. “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”
“The goal,” write Corbett and Fikkert in When Helping Hurts, “is to see people restored to being what God created them to be: people with the gifts, abilities, and capacity to make decisions and to effect change in the world around them; and people who steward their lives, communities, resources, and relationships in order to bring glory to God. These things tend to happen in highly relational, process-focused ministries.”
Thomas V. Jahl, Headmaster, Cono Christian School