Once upon a time I used to be a high school teacher. That’s right, I did four years hard time as a high school teacher. That is how I know I’m going straight to heaven when I die – whatever mistakes I made, I have paid for them and then some. Just kidding. There was a lot about teaching high school that I liked, but it was truly one of the hardest jobs I had ever had. The principle at the school was a godsend to me during my teaching years, especially the early years. She was a seasoned teacher with many years of experience and many pithy sayings that I find so very true and helpful even to this day. One of the things she said to me was, “The students will not always remember the things you say, but they will always remember how you made them feel”. From that moment on I tried to be less concerned about what I said to them and more concerned about how I said it. Because it’s the how that makes all the difference.
Every little girl that gets her hair brushed by her mom doesn’t’ want her hair brushed when mom is in a bad mood right? Right, because it’s not just about what you do, but how you do it that matters. This is especially true in caregiving of any kind. If somebody puts a glass of water in front of you when you’re thirsty, you can tell if they’re doing it with love or without. If somebody is giving you your medicine, you can tell if they are doing it with love or without. If they are helping you brush your teeth or comb your hair or take a shower, you can tell if they are doing it with love or without. If somebody is going to stick a needle in you to take blood, you can tell if they are doing it with love or without and it sure makes a difference doesn’t it?
I once watched a video of this young boy being dragged into the doctor’s office by his mother. He didn’t want to be there because he had had bad experiences with being at the doctor’s office before. In particular, he did not like needles. This doctor was different, though. She got the young boy talking about something he was really interested in, she put him at ease and gave him the shot without him hardly even noticing it. Hopefully this little boy learned a very valuable lesson from this doctor – that it’s not what you do but how you do it that makes all the difference.
I was recently listening to an ex-con describe the years he spent in prison. He was saying the worst thing about prison is that the guards, the people who provide you with your basic needs – food, clothing, medicine – are trained not to like you even as they care for you. Wow. Can you imagine? In Prison, the have to care for you, but they are not supposed to like you. They are actually trained to dislike you even as they care for you.
I tried to pass on to my students the same lesson that my principle had taught me – that their words were powerful and how something is said is more important than what is said. Teenagers can be very cruel sometimes, especially with their words. And when you call them on it, one of the things they like to say is “Well, I was just being honest”. And they think that will get them off the hook because we teach them that honesty is important. One thing I tried to convey to them is that not all virtues are created equal. Like the apostle Paul said, “In the end three things remain, faith hope and love and the greatest of these is love.” In the end, love is the most important virtue. It is far more important than honesty and truth even. So I would tell the students that honesty was important, but Love and kindness were more important. Honesty is strong medicine. Truth can hurt. If you are going to be honest and truthful with someone, you better be like that doctor who was able to give the little boy a shot without him even knowing it. You only have the right to tell someone the truth if you can do it with love.
Today’s Gospel is a good example of Jesus telling the truth in love. It’s not what Jesus says but how he says it that turns this woman’s life around.
The story is about a woman who is coming to draw water from the well at noontime – the hottest part of the day. Very peculiar. Nobody draws water during the hottest part of the day and so nobody else is at the well either, except Jesus. Jesus comes to this woman as Jesus often appears to us, as a person in need. And when we respond to Jesus as a person in need, we realize that Jesus also has something to offer us. The same is true for this woman. When Jesus starts speaking to her, she is a bit put off by him because Jesus is breaking all kinds of social rules simply by asking her for a drink. For one, she is a Samaritan, one of the arch-enemies of the Jewish people, and for another, she is a woman. She challenges him on it and says, “Who are you to ask me for a drink”, to which Jesus replies, “If only you knew who was asking you, you would ask him for a drink of living water…Whoever drinks of the water I give will never thirst”. “Give me this water so that I don’t have to keep coming back to the well”, she says.
And this is where it gets interesting. Jesus tells her to go get her husband and come back to which she replies that she has no husband. And Jesus says, “You are right in saying you have no husband. You have had fives husbands and the man you have now is not your husband.”
Now everything in the story becomes clear. She was what some people would call a “loose” woman. She would have been despised among the other women in her community. And it now makes sense why she is drawing water at the well in the hottest part of the day. All of the other women would have come to the well together early in the morning, but she was not welcome. Drawing water wasn’t just a chore but it was a social event, and she was not welcome in their social circle. This was a time and place where community and social bonds were everything. To be cast out from the community was a fate worse than death. This woman must have truly suffered.
The part of the Gospel that really strikes me this time around is when Jesus says, “You are right in saying that you have no husband. You have had five husbands and the man you are with now is not your husband.” There are two ways you can say this statement – with love or without. You could say it in a “gotcha” kind of way. You could say, “You are not fooling me. I know what kind of sinful person you really are!” Or you could say it like this, “I know who you are. I know what suffering you have gone though at the hands of 5 husbands. I know the longings of your heart having spendt your whole life looking for love and not finding it. I know how you have been excluded from the only family you know and how deeply your loneliness hurts. I know how it feels to be you and how hard it is. I know who you are. And I love you.”
Can you see the difference? How do you think Jesus said it, the first way or the second? You can’t hear the inflection in Jesus’ voice simply by reading it, but we know that Jesus’ words were backed by love and compassion not condemnation and judgement. We know this because of how the woman reacted. If she would have felt condemned and Judged by Jesus she would have slinked away with her head bowed in shame just as she did when she was judged and condemned by everyone else. But how does the scripture say she responded to Jesus exposing her for who she was? This woman who normally avoided all people leaves her water jar at the well and runs back to the town proclaiming to everyone that she met a man who told her everything she had ever done – and she was happy about that! If somebody had reminded me of all the times I have fallen short I sure wouldn’t be proclaiming it from the housetops. But here she was doing just that. She felt she had been finally set free, not because of the knowledge that Jesus had about her, but because of the love that he had for her. The truth he said to her was backed with such great love that the painful truth was not only no longer painful but was actually the source now of her great joy.
It’s not what you say but how you say it that makes all the difference.
Mother Teresa used to say, “We do no great things. Only small things with great love”.
Like my old principle used to say, “The kids will forget what you say, but they will remember how you made them feel”. It’s hard to imagine the level of joy the woman at the well must have felt, but it’s easy to imagine how she would never forget it.
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