In the early to mid 1970’s, Françoise d’Eaubonne and Vandana Shiva coined the term Ecofeminism. Ecofeminism was introducing a “theory and praxis that has committed to coming together with the conviction that dialogue will enrich both [feminism and environmentalism]”.1 Both nature and women are subjected to dominance, so Ecofeminism is an attempt to outline a “new utopian horizon, addressing the environmental issue from the categories of patriarchy, androcentrism, care, sexism and gender”2, and addressing the feminist issue from the categories of biodiversity, mutuality, interconnectedness and care. Ecofeminism is about the shared desire of liberation from domination. It is in and of itself an intersectional field, and ecofeminist theology is a spoke in the broad wheel. This framework will serve us exegetically for John 4:1-30 (New Revised Standard Version). For the sake of this exegesis, we will read the text with the following question as the guiding light: where is domination at play and how does ecofeminism offer liberation.
John 4:1-30
4 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John” 2 (although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized), 3 he left Judea and started back to Galilee. 4 But he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband,’ 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” 27 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?” 28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” 30 They left the city and were on their way to him.
The story begins with talk of baptism, and this leads Jesus to leave Judea. He “has to go through Samaria”. The reader must understand: Samaria is to be avoided at all costs. Despite that route being a more direct one between Galilee and Judea, Jews would take the longer and even more dangerous route through the mountains so as to avoid “halfbreed Samaritans”. Samaritans, during the Assyrian exile, intermarried and syncretised religions, creating a place of worship on Mount Gerizim. Thus, they were disdained by Jews.
We then encounter the Samaritan woman fetching water at noon. This is an unorthodox time to draw water, it is hot at noon. Water was drawn at the cooler times of the day. Why is she drawing water in the heat of the day?
As Jesus enters the scene, the first power dynamic is at play. The disciples have been sent off to get food, and the woman, in her vulnerability, finds herself alone with a Jewish man, without any witnesses. Then Jesus offers the first ecofeminist gesture of liberation. In the words of Dr. Brenda Salter-McNeil: “Jesus comes with power on his side. The Samaritan woman comes with no power except the right to refuse. Jesus asks her, “Will you give me a drink of water?” Helping seems to be such a humble thing to do, yet it is even more humbling to be the one who is helped. The helper has more power.”3 Jesus, in his vulnerability, meets the woman in hers. Water will care for both of them in their vulnerabilities.
Verses 6-15 introduce water as a prominent character in the story, and an intersectional character at that. Water is a physical, spiritual and political character. The conversation between the Samaritan woman and Jesus begins about physical water: the well, a bucket, drawing water, thirst, and needing a drink. Physical water is their first point of contact. Jesus then brings in the notion of water as spiritual: the spiritual significance of Jacob and his flock coming to this well, the idea of living water leading to quenchable thirst, and a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. Their conversation has pivoted to talking about needs deeper than physical thirst and literal fetching of water. The whole scene, furthermore, is couched in water as political: wells were historic places of marriage proposal. Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, Moses and Zipporah. Fetching water disproportionately fell on women. Water as a political character starts to answer our earlier question: why is the woman by herself at the well in the heat of the day? Verses 16-18 reveal that perhaps this woman fetches water isolated from the rest of the community, at an oppressively hot time, given her marital status. She has had 5 husbands and the 6th is a live-in boyfriend. We do not know if the husbands have died or have divorced her, but the current marital status is one without protection or social and religious approval. She is vulnerable, and rejected. Jesus presents a possibility for liberation: water is the desire and water reveals the even deeper desire, a desire for freedom and belonging. There is physical thirst, and then there is a thirst that runs much deeper. Water becomes the vector for liberation, because Jesus, an Ecofeminist, knows that water is how she will understand. He uses the language of water to show her the way to liberation. What does her liberation look like? She lays down her water-carrier and becomes the message-carrier. The first evangelist, a theologian who questions Jesus, a voice in the conversation, one to listen to. She finds a place in the community. Ultimately in the end she has something that defines her that is not her husbands.
The woman is subject to patriarchy, to climate conditions, and to hegemony. Jesus, through intersectional water, presents a new horizon where she has a place in the community of creation. She never gives him his drink of water. But she leaves her jug, so he can fetch his own damn water!
- Puleo Philosopher, A. H. (2016). What is Ecofeminism? Iemed.Org. https://www.iemed.org/publication/what-is-ecofeminism/ ↩︎
- Ibed. ↩︎
- A More Excellent Way: Race and Gender Reconciliation Through Christ – CBE International. (2022, June 15). CBE International. https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/more-excellent-way/ ↩︎
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