Anxiety and the Samaritan Woman

Our gospel read­ing for the Ves­pers Rais­ing of Incense on the Fourth Sun­day of the Great Lent, the Sun­day of the Samar­i­tan Woman, came from the Ser­mon on the Mount in the Gospel accord­ing to St. Luke 12:22–31. Our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us not to worry or have any anx­i­ety about what we will eat and drink, our bod­ies, or our cloth­ing. Instead, our Lord teaches us to “seek the king­dom of God, and all these things shall be added to [us].” In other words, our Lord teaches us here not to feel anx­i­ety about the things of the world, but instead, to focus on the King­dom of God above all other things. This gospel read­ing relates to the Samar­i­tan woman in the fol­low­ing ways.

(1) Anx­i­ety about the Judg­ment of Others

Firstly, we see that the Samar­i­tan woman felt anx­i­ety about the judg­ment of oth­ers. She was wor­ried about what peo­ple would say about her in light of the life she lived. In the gospel account of her encounter with Christ from John 4, we see in verse 7 how the Samar­i­tan woman came to the well at the sixth hour. The Jew­ish day started at 6:00 a.m. and ended at 6:00 p.m. So, the first hour is 6:00 a.m., the third hour is 9:00 a.m. and the sixth hour is 12:00 p.m. This means that the Samar­i­tan woman went to draw water from the well at the hottest time of the day, when the sun was directly over­head. She did this because she was afraid of the judg­ment of the peo­ple. She knew very well that she did not live a vir­tu­ous life and that oth­ers around her were aware of this. Because of this, she wanted to hide from every­one. She was anx­ious about their opin­ions and judgments.

She felt this fear and anx­i­ety, of course, before she had the encounter with our Lord Jesus Christ. What about afterwards?

After she encoun­tered the Lord face to face, her anx­i­ety about the words and judg­ments of oth­ers melted away com­pletely. Verse 28 says, “The woman then left her water­pot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” Then they went out of the city and came to Him.” (John 4:28–30) No longer was she ashamed to be seen by the peo­ple; no longer did she worry about their judg­ments and whis­pers con­cern­ing her and the life she led. Instead, her anx­i­ety melted in the Face of Christ. When she tasted the pure and sweet Liv­ing Water He offered her, she sought the King­dom of God over her anx­i­ety about what peo­ple would say or how they would judge her.

Not only that, but how did the peo­ple respond? Keep in mind that these peo­ple clearly had been judg­men­tal to her in the past. Oth­er­wise, why would she want to avoid them? How­ever, after she ran down to them with all con­fi­dence, embrac­ing the light of Christ and preach­ing the Liv­ing Water, the gospel tells us that “many of the Samar­i­tans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who tes­ti­fied, “He told me all that I ever did.”” (John 4:39) Let us med­i­tate on this amaz­ing real­ity, how faith in the Lord can trans­form an anx­ious woman liv­ing in sin to a great evan­ge­list who con­verts many peo­ple. This is pos­si­ble only if we seek the King­dom of God first in our lives.

(2) Anx­i­ety about Spouses

Sec­ondly, the Samar­i­tan woman felt anx­i­ety over who she should marry. In the story, we hear she had five hus­bands and the man with whom she was liv­ing was not her hus­band. Clearly, this woman felt a need to con­stantly be attached to some­one. This anx­i­ety caused her to make the wrong choices. The gospel does not tell us what hap­pened to the five hus­bands, but we know, at the very least, that the last per­son she was liv­ing with was not her hus­band. This anx­i­ety she had to be with some­one led her to lead a sin­ful life in liv­ing with a man who was not her husband.

This anx­i­ety is very com­mon among our youth and young pro­fes­sion­als today. Young men and women become so focused on who they will marry, who will be their spouse, that they fall into sin in the midst of their anx­i­ety. Why? Because in their anx­i­ety, they become attached to the wrong peo­ple for the wrong reasons.

For exam­ple, many young peo­ple today express a desire to have a boyfriend or girl­friend even when they are very young, like those in junior high, high school, and col­lege. They don’t real­ize that they do not have the men­tal, emo­tional, and spir­i­tual matu­rity to choose the right per­son for them. They don’t real­ize that their mind­sets and spir­i­tual lev­els while in junior high are very dif­fer­ent than their mind­sets and spir­i­tual lev­els after fin­ish­ing their edu­ca­tion or work­ing in the world. Things con­stantly change as they develop and mature. If this is the case, what is the point in com­mit­ting to some­one today who will not be around tomor­row? It only causes pain and leads to sin.

Another exam­ple are those who are of the right age and matu­rity to get mar­ried, but nonethe­less choose a spouse based on the wrong rea­son, such as phys­i­cal appear­ance, wealth, or nation­al­ity. I am always sad­dened when I hear our young peo­ple say things like, “I will never marry an Egypt­ian” or “I will only marry an Amer­i­can.” It is not for us to close these doors, because when we do, we force God out of the deci­sion. St. Gre­gory the The­olo­gian teaches us that we should include God in this impor­tant deci­sion of our lives, say­ing, “When you mean to take a [spouse], don’t go run­ning to peo­ple, but to God. Tell God, ‘Appoint for me the one whom You have pre­pared for me in Your Prov­i­dence.’ Entrust this mat­ter to God, and He will reward you for grant­ing such a great honor to Him.”

The Samar­i­tan woman did not entrust this deci­sion to God, but rather, she kept mak­ing her own deci­sions, going from hus­band to hus­band. What was the result? Did she find hap­pi­ness? No, but rather, she ended up liv­ing with a man who was not her hus­band. She ended up hav­ing to go through great suf­fer­ing and afflic­tion every day to get water from the well at the hottest time of the day to avoid the judg­ments of peo­ple around her. She ended up con­stantly get­ting water that did not quench her thirst.

She lived with this anx­i­ety before her encounter with the Lord, but what about afterwards?

After she met the Lord face to face, her anx­i­ety about her spouse melted away. She was no longer con­cerned with spouses, because she found the True Hus­band of Our Souls, as the Scholar Ori­gen says. Christ touched her heart and attracted her to Him more than any hus­band could have done. Accord­ing to tra­di­tion, the Samar­i­tan woman, whose name is St. Pho­tini, became a mis­sion­ary with her seven chil­dren after this encounter until all of her chil­dren were beheaded by the Emperor Nero. A short while after­wards, she her­self departed in peace. Notice, how­ever, that she had no hus­band with her in this new life as a mis­sion­ary, for she found Christ, the True Hus­band of our Souls, and no longer had any anx­i­ety about earthly attachments.

(3) Con­clu­sion

The only way we can over­come anx­i­ety is to ded­i­cate our­selves com­pletely to the prov­i­dence of God and His lov­ingkind­ness. We must see God act­ing in every aspect of our lives. God shapes human his­tory for your ben­e­fit and sal­va­tion, and for that of the world.

To apply this in our lives, we must first have con­fi­dence in our rela­tion­ship with God. We must have con­fi­dence that we are liv­ing the gospel and imi­tat­ing the exam­ple of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is why the first verse of the gospel says, “There­fore I say to you, do not worry about your life” (Luke 12:22). We will not worry about our lives if we are con­fi­dent that we are liv­ing our lives in the right way. Sec­ondly, we must have con­fi­dence in the love and care of God, Whom we wor­ship and glo­rify. This is why, in the ver­sion of the Ser­mon on the Mount from the Gospel accord­ing to St. Matthew, the pas­sage ends with, “Take no thought for tomor­row.” We will not worry about tomor­row if we have com­plete faith that tomor­row is in God’s hands.

May our Lord Jesus Christ, the True Hus­band of our Souls, grant us the faith and abil­ity to grow in our present rela­tion­ship with Him and focus on the King­dom of Heaven more than the cares of tomorrow.

Related Posts:

1. On Riches and Discipleship
2. Car­ry­ing our Cross through Love