Appealing to Authority

The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us." (John 4:25)

I wonder why this woman suddenly made this statement at this point in the conversation. Jesus was sharing with her heart and mind some of the most profound truths and insights ever given to humanity and she was feeling the impact of these deep in her soul as He was speaking. Yet it did not seem to be enough that the things He was sharing with her had the clarion ring of truth and that His presence clearly exuded the love and healing that her heart craved and was already beginning to experience.

For some reason she felt compelled to almost discount what He was saying to her on the basis of a lack of proper title or authority. It was almost as if she were saying that until the right One came who would be duly authorized to speak on God's behalf, until it was clear that the one declaring new truths was clearly the Messiah promised in the Scriptures, that no matter how profound someone's teachings might be they simply could not be trusted completely. Only the recognized, authorized Messiah would have the credibility to teach new truths, to speak on behalf of God, to make such radical claims that would challenge the status quo before people could feel safe to believe Him.

In a way it almost seems like an excuse for unbelief in some respects. I am not trying to imply that she was mired in unbelief like nearly everyone else that Jesus dealt with, but there does seem to be some indications that she was struggling with the tension between hope and fear, between trust and unbelief. Clearly all throughout this conversation she tended to jump off the line of thought as soon as it became too uncomfortable. At times she would engage and take some bait offered to her by Jesus but then when it started to become obvious that there might be accountability involved she would change direction.

Yet through all of this Jesus did not chide her or fault her for her discomfort with what He was revealing to her. Though He made it clear that He knew much more about what was inside of her than she wanted Him to know, He did not force her to face her fears or expose her; He simply moved with the changes of direction and kept offering her more. Jesus was focused on revealing the goodness of God rather than on getting people to get their act together first as we tend to do. And though she, like so many others, tended to feel resistant and cautious about believing such wonderful things that sounded too good to be true, Jesus knew that deep in her heart was a longing for God that would supersede all her fears and would respond to love when she encountered the real thing.

But I still find it helpful to flush out some of the fears and hesitations that she had in order to better identify with her in my own experience and in understanding other people better. Jesus' way of dealing with this woman is a very important example for me to study to understand how Jesus through me can reach similar people who are hurting, full of fear and making excuse after excuse for not moving forward. Jesus dealt so tactfully with each resistant step this woman needed to take to discover the joy of the gospel. I too find many places of resistance inside of myself and I see similar symptoms of resistance in others I talk to. I want to better understand how God relates to our resistance and the best ways to move past them so we can enjoy the wonder and joy of experiencing the real gospel in our own lives.

First this woman started out with the assumptions of prejudice between men and women and also between Samaritans and Jews. Jesus brushed right past that one by simply demonstrating with His demeanor and kindness that He had no part in such silly, futile thinking. She seemed to accept His unspoken answer on that issue and immediately became fascinated with His offer of living water.

Jesus also seemed to engage this woman with enough interesting details to keep her guessing so that He could continue to hold her in conversation long enough to begin forming a useful bond with her. He did not jump right to the profound but only shared small details or requests to get her feedback and interaction. I could certainly learn a great deal from just that one thing in this story. Jesus kept saying things, throwing things out that were very tantalizing, that aroused intense curiosity, that invited questions, that made the woman begin to think for herself and would then prod her to think much deeper than she might typically do.

Very quickly He tapped into the issue of identity. He did not start out by making claims of who He really was and why He was here in this world. He carefully followed a path of thought that allowed this woman to decide how far she would be willing to go to discover His real identity. She might have become too uncomfortable at any point and turned away from finishing the conversation. In fact, at the end she sort of did that very thing in her possible discomfort at the approach of the disciples. But also by that time she was experiencing so much excitement that she couldn't take much more until she unloaded some of it on others.

But as I look at it I see that this whole conversation really revolved around the issue of identity in two parallel ways. Jesus was slowly giving this woman compelling clues about who He might be and at the same time she was being challenged from the very start to reevaluate her own identity and abilities and her own relationship to her community. Previous to this conversation I don't think she would have felt motivated at all to run around her town talking to all the men excitedly about the coming Messiah. Before this she had no compelling things to say about Messiah or anything else in religion more than what most other people already knew. Her current sense of identity had been largely shaped by what others had said about her, by the condemnation she felt from most of the people who knew her and her own feelings from her previous marriages.

Jesus was challenging her assumptions both about His identity and her evaluation of who she was at the same time. She was familiar with many of the ways in which we assume identities for ourselves and others and typical beliefs about the issue of who has the authority to make such determinations. Society on this earth has very powerful and oppressive ways of imposing false ideas about value and identity that are highly effective in perpetuating lies about both ourselves and about God. Jesus came to challenge this whole setup and to reveal that God is strikingly different than we usually think He is and that we are far more valuable than we ever thought possible.

In her mind the issue of authority was deeply ingrained as the dominant issue that had to faced before one could believe much of anything. No matter how compelling or exciting something might be, if that person was not a recognized authority in their field, then anything they might say would carry very little weight no matter how profound it might seem. She brought this issue up in her question about Jesus compared to her ancestor Jacob and the recognition of his authority in the minds of her religious leaders. But interestingly Jesus did not even offer an answer that question at all but simply kept bringing her more intriguing statements to keep her thinking and wondering and interacting with Him.

After Jesus' revealing comment about her marital situation she was ready to cede that He might possibly have the credibility of a prophet. She was beginning to acknowledge that He might be worthy of being recognized as possibly having that much authority based on His ability to perceive things not normally known by strangers. But as far as her own identity was concerned she was still not prepared to allow the conversation to get that uncomfortable so she pushed in a different direction to avoid dealing with her painful misconceptions about her own value based on her past.

This issue of value and identity in relation to her marital status was far more significant in her society than we can usually comprehend. Women were almost always viewed almost exclusively in relationship to the identity of the men they were married to with very little regard for who they were themselves. Their worth was measured primarily on how well they kept their husband happy and satisfied and what he thought about them, not on their own value apart from him. All women were expected to find a husband and to serve him without question or resistance. Failure to do this was to bring on the woman enormous and life-long shame which would cause her to feel very worthless.

So when Jesus pointed out the fact that she had been married five times and was now living with a sixth man unmarried, He was touching the most sensitive area of her life directly connected to her sense of identity and value both in her own mind and in the culture of those around her. Everyone in any position of authority at all had likely already denounced her as a loose woman, a failure, a menace to society even and a person who had no hope of ever becoming a respected member of the community again. She was considered hopeless and dangerous and was marginalized by nearly everyone she knew. This was why she was drawing water at a most inconvenient time of the day in order to avoid the harsh treatment of other women who would come at more normal times to get water for their families.

But she was still wired to think along the same lines of religion as most others around her. She, like everyone else, was conditioned to accept the opinions of those in authority and to embrace their words as the truth. People not in authority were not supposed to try to figure things out for themselves, they were simply supposed to listen and go along with whatever those above them decided was truth. It was a very hierarchal society but not unlike what is still very much in place today in many respects. Only those with the proper training and credentials were considered to be capable of determining what was true and what was right or wrong. Their decisions and expostulations were considered to be more accurate than the thoughts of the common person or especially the ideas of someone at the bottom of society like this woman represented. If anyone had any authority at all this woman was the furtherest from having any.

Living in a strictly rigid society that put so much emphasis on authority, this woman was feeling a lot of discomfort listening to such amazing and compelling ideas from a complete stranger. She may have even felt guilty to some extent for allowing herself to get so involved in such a conversation that would have been soundly condemned by her religious leaders for many reasons. Yet something about this man was so magnetic, so affirming, so touching in the deepest places of her soul that no one had ever affected before that she couldn't pull herself away. But at this point in the conversation when she was beginning to realize that this person was taking her where no one had dared go before in areas of life and religion, she may have felt compelled by her cultural upbringing to raise the issue of only getting information from the right authority.

Since there was no history of what a Messiah would be like or what He would do in particular, there was no clear definition of how people should recognize Him when He should come. There was certainly a great deal speculation and grand expostulations about what the Messiah was presumed to be coming to do, but even in this there was not much agreement, especially between the Jews and the Samaritans. So to appeal to the authority of the Messiah was like a wild shot in the dark in a way. It might have been her way of going over the heads of everyone presently asserting authority in religious and even civil affairs and appealing to God Himself to sort out all the confusing issues that kept people from experiencing life harmoniously. Many people were putting their hopes in the authority of the coming Messiah for very many different reasons. This woman was one of those who was hoping that the Messiah might help bring healing where the real problems existed, both internally and also for cleaning up the mess that culture and generations of mistakes had created.

So, why did this woman appeal to the authority of the coming Messiah before she was willing to embrace the wonderful things Jesus was saying to her? All of the above reasons may have played into this choice. When something sounds too good to be true and yet it is so compelling that we just can't pull our minds and hearts away from it, the issue of proper authority and accountability is usually the issue that always comes up first. What do those with more experience have to say about this? What do our leaders, teachers, politicians, elders have to counsel us in this regard? We are supposed to submit to those in authority over us so we have to get their opinion before we can make any decision ourself.

Wow! That line of reasoning is scary even as I read it myself. How many times have we missed out on incredible things God is eager to share with us because we insist on giving more credence to the “experts” and those in authority than in listening to God Himself. I am not saying there is no place for authority, but I am saying that this issue is so abused and misunderstood that it sometimes becomes an excuse to avoid embracing truth as much as it is a check to keep us from becoming deluded. I believe that we need to have a much better understanding of how to properly relate to authority and still be ready to defer to the authority of the Messiah and obey God above the demands of all other earthly authorities. Of course the critical issue in this is when to know when the two are in conflict.

Fortunately this appeal to authority by this woman actually turned out to be beneficial to her by the direct revelation of Jesus that He was the very one that she was appealing to. To her shock and amazed joy she discovered that the very coming Messiah in whom she had placed all her hopes for many years when everyone else had failed her had come to meet with her personally. Of course it still remained an issue of faith whether she would believe His assertion that He was indeed the Messiah without any corroborating support from other religious authorities. But she accepted His claim, not based on credentials or endorsements from anyone else but by the reality and confirmation of what His presence and words were already doing deep in her heart and soul.