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            In our feminist age Jesus’ relations with the opposite sex have naturally attracted attention.  In today’s second reading (John 4:1-42) Jesus’ dialogue partner is unusual.  First of all, she is a Samaritan, and, as we are told (v. 9), Jews had no dealings with Samaritans, just as today Israelis generally don’t socialize with Palestinians.  The Jews considered the Samaritans as having been corrupted by mixing with the foreign peoples whom the Assyrians had settled, following the conquest of the Northern Kingdom.  The Samaritans considered themselves faithful adherents to the Mosaic tradition, but they looked with apprehension and resentment upon the possible revival of a Jewish state on their very doorstep. 
            Jesus knew that Samaritans, like other despised people, were capable of acts of great generosity, and in the parable which bears his name (Luke 10:30-37) it is the Samaritan who helps the man fallen among robbers on the way to Jericho, while the priest and the Levite pass by on the other side.  But when Jesus says to the woman, “Salvation is from the Jews,” and adds, “You worship what you do not know” (John 4:22), this can only be taken as a slap on the face. 
            Another reason why this conversation is unusual is because in the ancient Near East, as is still true today, unchaperoned contacts between men and women who were neither married nor related to each other were frowned upon.  When Jesus’ disciples appear on the scene, they marvel that he is talking with a woman (v. 27). 
            Finally, this woman was not just any woman.  Jesus’ prophetic insight (v. 19) revealed to him that she had an unusual marital history.  At first, the woman shifts the subject from her private life to theology: “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain (Gerizim), but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship”
(v. 20).  But later she overcomes her embarrassment and boasts to the people in the city, “Come see a man who told me all that I ever did!” (v. 29). 
            Jesus’ words touch something in the woman, and she confesses a belief which Jews and Samaritans held in common: the coming of the Messiah.  (In Samaritan Aramaic, the Messiah was called Ta’ev , “he who is coming.)  The woman’s confession elicits from Jesus his only acceptance in all four gospels of the Messiah title: “I who speak to you am he” (v. 26). 
            Mary Magdalene has been called “the apostle of the apostles,” since she was the first (despite Peter’s claim) to have seen the risen Lord and to have summoned the male disciples to the empty tomb (John 20:11-18). 
            In much the same way, the Samaritan woman brings the townspeople out of the city to see Jesus (v. 30).  But although the evangelist tells us that they believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony (v. 39), they ungraciously dismiss her mediation, saying to her, “It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves” (v. 42). 
            No matter!  As Paul wrote to the Philippians, “Only that in every way Christ is proclaimed”  (1:18).  And to think that it all started with a simple request, “Give me a drink” (John 4:7). 

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