The First Thing He Said to Her Was a Request

Somebody counted, once, out of curiosity, and could not find one in eighteen months.

Not one occasion where somebody in her family had asked her for something rather than told her. There had been plenty of requests, in the grammatical sense: could you, would you mind, are you free. But every one of them was an instruction with a question mark on the end, and she could not have said no to any of them, and both parties knew that when it was said.

Being asked is different. Being asked means the other person might not get what they want. It means a real thing has been put in your hands and you have been trusted with it.

And a person who has never been asked for anything, only told, develops a specific quality that is very hard to describe. They are useful and they are not present. They have never had to be, because nothing has ever depended on their actual answer.

The longest conversation Jesus has with anybody in the Gospels begins with Him asking a favor.

The opening line is four words and it is a request

Here is how it begins, and the setup matters.

Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (John 4:6-7, King James Version)

Give me to drink.

He is tired, He has no bucket, and she has one. The need is real. This is not a rhetorical device; He actually cannot reach the water and she actually can.

And that is the first thing said to a woman who, by every social measure available in that scene, was in no position to be asked for anything by anybody like Him. He does not open with an offer, or a diagnosis, or a teaching. He opens by needing something she has.

You are addressed with a request before anything is offered to you. John 4:7 has the first words being an ask rather than a teaching, and it is by the Spirit, John 16:14, who takes what is Christ's and shows it, that any encounter with Him lands as itself.

Her first answer is a question about categories

And she does not hand over the water. That is worth noticing too.

Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? (John 4:9)

She pushes back. She names the two categories that make the request impossible, and she names them accurately, and she is not being difficult; she is genuinely startled.

And He does not apologize for the request or withdraw it. The conversation carries on for another twenty verses and becomes the longest one recorded with anybody, and it becomes that because she answered back rather than complying.

That is the difference an actual request makes. A person who is told does the thing and the exchange ends. A person who is asked can answer, and answering is where a conversation starts.

You are able to answer back, and being asked is what makes that possible. John 4:9 has her questioning the request rather than complying with it, and it is the Spirit of truth, John 16:13, who guides into a conversation rather than delivering a verdict.

What He offers is a source rather than a supply

Then the offer, and the image He chooses is about ownership.

But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. (John 4:14)

In him a well of water springing up.

Not: I will bring you water. Not: come back to this well and I will meet you here. A well, inside a person, springing, which is to say a source rather than a delivery.

That is exactly the right offer for somebody whose whole life has been being the supply for other people. She carries water; that is her job in this scene and probably her position in her community. And what she is offered is not relief from carrying. It is a source of her own.

I would put that next to somebody who has been useful and absent for eighteen months. The offer is not that people stop asking things of them. It is that there is something in them that is not being drawn from a bucket they have to keep refilling.

You are offered a source rather than a delivery, and the well is described as being in you. John 4:14 says a well of water springing up in him, and it is the Holy Spirit, John 7:39, who is named as what that water was spoken of.

And He receives what she says

There is a moment in the middle where the conversation gets difficult, and what He does with her answer is the thing that undoes her.

She says a short sentence that is technically true and conceals a great deal, and He answers by naming what it concealed, without contempt, and then adds:

Thou hast well said, I have no husband. (John 4:17)

Thou hast well said.

He commends the accuracy of the sentence she used to avoid the subject. That is a strange and very tender move: He is not letting her hide, and He is also affirming that what she actually said was true.

And her response afterward, to the whole town, is not about the water.

Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? (John 4:29)

She does not lead with the theology, which was substantial and which she had received. She leads with being known.

You are able to be seen through and commended in the same sentence. John 4:17 does both at once, and it is the Spirit who searches all things, 1 Corinthians 2:10, in a knowing that is not an exposure.

The knowledge in Psalm 139 has the same shape

The psalm that describes this kind of knowing has a verse about speech specifically.

For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether. (Psalm 139:4)

Not a word in my tongue. Including the ones not said. Including the technically true sentence used to close a subject.

And what follows, two verses later, is not fear.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. (Psalm 139:6)

Wonderful. That is the reaction recorded, and it is the reaction of the woman at the well too, who goes and tells a town about being known by somebody.

If being useful and unasked has become heavier than a frustration, if it has got to the place where you would not be missed and are not sure you want to be here, say it out loud to a doctor, a counselor, a social worker, or a pastor you trust. In the United States the 988 crisis line is answered by a real person at any hour, and it is not a lack of faith to call it.

You are known down to the words not said, and the reaction on record is wonder. Psalm 139:4 says not a word in my tongue but thou knowest it altogether, and it is the Spirit who searches all things, 1 Corinthians 2:10, in the same knowing.