What Do You Think You Are Doing?

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?" (John 4:27 NRSV)

I want to explore a little more that may possibly have been going on in the minds of the disciples when they came walking up the trail from town with some food and observed from a distance the intense interaction going on between Jesus and this foreign lady who seemed to not be a most reliable person due to her unusual timing for drawing water. I want to view some of the facts that would have been likely obvious in the minds of these men and that would have contributed to the necessity of recording the things found in this verse.

First of all, Jesus was a rather young man unmarried and in His early thirties, and they had left Him alone at a well while they went shopping. They were in an area where all the people living around there were considered lest than honorable, even suspicious by most Jews. These men may have been even rather hesitant to leave Jesus alone there but decided that since He was their teacher and leader that they should be able to trust Him to not get into trouble. All of these men were quite young in age and so all of the natural emotions and urges of young men in general would have been likely present in their feelings when faced with attractive women. I know this is not usually talked about in connection with this story, but it may be difficult to really understand this verse if this part of the scene is not taken into consideration.

While it may not be provable, I rather imagine that since this woman had been married five times that she was no unattractive woman. There are some women that just have a certain charisma about them both physically and emotionally that can really grab the attention of the average male. These are often the ones that have difficulty staying in an intimate relationship long-term and often feel unsatisfied, looking for love and fulfillment in one relationship after another with great intensity but after awhile realizing that they cannot find a man that can really satisfy their deepest cravings. It is likely, at least in my mind, that this woman may well have been something like one of those. She had an atmosphere about her that would cause many men to instantly label her as dangerous because of the ability that she had to attract men's attention to herself so easily.

By this time in her life this woman had likely been through so many painful broken relationships for various reasons that she may have come to believe that no man could ever be trusted with her heart again. She would have developed a thick shell of cynicism about men in general to protect her deeply wounded heart from as much further attack as possible by those around her who often seemed ready to remind her of her failed past. It may have been evident to nearly everyone that this woman simply could not settle down, could not properly fill the role of a dutiful wife who was willing to stay in her place and not keep looking for something that was not meant to be for her.

She may have been considered a loose cannon of sorts that her community by this time had chosen to marginalize from mainstream society. At this point in her life she had settled for living in a loose relationship with a man without bothering with the formality of getting married. Why should she after all? Every other marriage had fallen apart for one reason or another and maybe it was just safer for her heart to remain detached in that respect. But still she could not stand living alone and so she found someone willing to live in a relationship of convenience or maybe as an adjun ct to a current wife and just put up with all the gossip and disdain that would surly be produced by such a choice.

At least some of this pain and shame would have been difficult to miss just by looking at her and observing her demeanor. She was not the sort of lady one would want to be found hanging out with very long and certainly not alone. Every decent respectable person would have assumed that any man of good moral character could see what was rather obvious to everyone else and would keep a safe distance from such a woman to avoid becoming contaminated by her reputation. This should not need to be explained to anyone; it would have simply been the obvious social expectation that everyone would assume any man should just understand and with which he would comply.

So when the disciples came walking back from town and noticed from a distance that Jesus was engaged in very serious and intense conversation with a woman of this caliber, there very well may have been raised serious questions in their minds about His ability to discern character and His willingness to protect His own reputation with others. His choice to even have any words at all with a woman in public period was against social norms, but to have an extended and intense personal conversation with a woman of this class was absolutely insane – even political and religious suicide in some people's opinions. Because of this there was immediately an issue of trust raised in the hearts of these young men, some of whom may likely have still been teenagers themselves. What in the world was Jesus thinking after all, getting tangled up with such a questionable character out in the country all alone with a woman like this? Why didn't He just do what any other reasonable, self-respecting man would have done and turned His back toward her until she had finished her business and left?

The questions raised in this verse seem to strongly indicate things someone would have felt compelled to say to a man who was evidently oblivious to the fact that He was way out of line with social and moral norms. These are the kinds of comments that would be addressed to reprimand someone who had overstepped proper boundaries and needed to be checked before they got themselves into too much trouble. This verse seems to indicate an incensed frustration and even shock that a young man who claimed to be a representative of God on earth would allow Himself to be so compromised and come so close to ruining His reputation, especially so soon after just launching His career as a respected teacher and leader in society. In their minds Jesus was in serious danger of blowing His chances of being accepted by His people if He allowed Himself to make such major social blunders and become associated with such questionable characters in the minds of the public.

Maybe their teacher was in need of some correction and guidance Himself. Maybe He was too naïve to realize the far-reaching consequences of hanging out with such people that could seriously tarnish His reputation. Maybe His idealism and emotions and unusual ways of relating to people needed to be checked and He needed some stern reminders of what proper and upright young men should act like around women of questionable reputation.

But whatever they were thinking – and this verse makes quite clear that they were indeed thinking along these lines – they chose to restrain their astonishment and dismay at the compromising situation Jesus was gotten Himself into and risk letting Him make some potential blunders without interfering in His personal choices. They decided to give Him a little more space and maybe deal with this issue later when things had cooled down a bit and reason might again take control.

It is hard to tell from the context whether both of these questions if verbalized would have been intended for Jesus alone or whether the first question might have been directed toward the woman. Either way, it seems clear from the context that the disciples were shocked and confused and concerned by the compromising situation that they found their master in upon their return and felt compelled to question His motives and apparently poor choices socially. They did not really know Jesus all that well yet at this early point in their relationship with Him and so they chose to see how this might play out without their input. They may have thought that at least they had shown up just in time to slow down whatever was going on between Jesus and this woman before things got completely out of hand. Maybe that would be enough to bring Jesus back into line and give Him some time to get His emotions back under control and realize how close He had come to falling into serious trouble. Maybe it was providential that they had come along just in the nick of time to keep Him from making the mistake of a lifetime before He had even gotten started in His budding career as an aspiring leader in Israel.

I realize that this is not typically what people talk about when they read this story. But I can't help but see all of this lurking behind these statements and going on inside the disciple's heads if this verse actually says what it appears to be saying. It is often too easy to gloss over many things in the Bible that give us clues to things that we would rather not think about that makes the stories very messy more than they already appear. But God ways are not our ways and the disciples were beginning to find that out quite clearly even here in this early story in their relationship to Jesus.