Reading
Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet.’…then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!’
John 4:16-19, 28-29
Reflection
Part of my journey towards spiritual maturity has been learning about emotions and how to deal with them in healthy ways. A major part of my healing came about when I began to follow Brené Brown’s work. If you’re unfamiliar with her, Brown is a shame researcher. That’s right, you can become rich and famous by researching and writing about shame. I think her popularity stems from the fact that she has helped thousands, if not millions, of people understand what drives their behavior and destructive patterns—shame.
According to Brown, “there is a profound difference between shame and guilt. I believe that guilt is adaptive and helpful—it’s holding something we’ve done or failed to do up against our values and feeling psychological discomfort. I define shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging—something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection. I don’t believe shame is helpful or productive. In fact, I think shame is much more likely to be the source of destructive, hurtful behavior than the solution or cure. I think the fear of disconnection can make us dangerous.”
In other words:
Guilt = I did something bad.
Shame = I am bad.
Those shameful feelings of being bad are often the result of internalizing the emotions, judgments, expectations, and responses of others. When we are drowning in shame and the emotional weight of other people’s expectations, we struggle to see things as they really are. We can’t be honest with ourselves because it would require confronting those carried emotions.
One of the reasons I love the story of Jesus with the woman at the well is that he has this way of helping people confront reality without using shame or condemnation. When Jesus prompts the woman to go get her husband, he already knew she had no husband. He is presenting her with an opportunity to explore the depths of her reality in the safety of his presence.
She responds “I have no husband.” This is an objectively truthful statement, but it’s not the whole truth. I think it’s possible that she wasn’t trying to lie or conceal anything from Jesus. For whatever reason, she had already had five husbands and was with a sixth man who was not her husband. The text doesn’t explicitly tell us why she had so many husbands, but we can imagine that a succession of five marriages likely included some measure of loss, pain, or disappointment that would be hard to confront.
So, Jesus affirms the truth that she has shared with him, and then goes on to name the whole truth without condemning her for it. Through his compassionate response, she begins to see that her truth is safe with Jesus.
She runs off to tell anyone who will listen about this Jesus who has “told me everything I have ever done.” Jesus already knows everything we have ever done. When we struggle to be honest with ourselves in Jesus’ presence, we are only deceiving ourselves.
What half-truth have you been telling yourself…and Jesus?
I invite you to read all of John 4:1-42 meditatively. Put yourself in the scene somewhere. Notice how Jesus speaks to the woman. Once you get a good sense of Jesus in this story, bring yourself into his presence. Let his knowledge of your whole truth wash over you. In the safety of his presence, be honest with yourself…really.
