The Woman at the Well -- a Poem from 'Mortar Matters'
Jan and her husband, the Rev. Jerry Brown, have visited Faith Temple. They are my longtime friends and live in Bethlehem, Ga. My late wife, Carol, met Jan in 1965 when they were freshmen at Bob Jones University.
In “Mortar Matters,” Jan tells the stories of nine unnamed women who encountered Jesus. Her book title came from a day she was digging to plant flowers and found “rocks.” Her husband said those “rocks” were mortar dropped or cast aside by masons laying bricks for their house.
The “mortar” in Jan’s book represents folk who remain unknown, yet they help hold together God’s kingdom, working alongside people who are more publicly known (the “bricks”).
“There, kneeling on the ground, I realized my life’s work paralleled that of mortar,” Jan says.
Jan has been a pastor’s wife, a mother, grandmother, paraprofessional, a school teacher, a women’s ministries worker, and more as she worked “between the bricks.”
“Few people know my name or influence,” she says. “That is the way life is for many individuals. High-profile people are few compared to the millions and millions of us ordinary folk God created.”
Jan searched for unnamed women in the New Testament and chose nine. She says unknown women are of great value to our Lord, and “He just may use you to be the ‘mortar’ that ‘matters.’”
“The Woman at the Well” (John 4:3-42) is the first story in Jan’s book. At Faith Temple, Barbara read Jan’s poem (below) about that woman:
The Woman at the Well
I came to the well when it was midday,
Hoping to get water, then slip away
Unnoticed by any who would be in that place,
For I was a woman living in disgrace.
What a surprise it was to see
a Jewish man sitting there who spoke to me.
His manner was kind as He asked for a drink.
This was unusual. I didn’t know what to think!
He had no vessel or cup in His hand.
He spoke of living water.
I did not understand!
His conversation revealed He knew all about my life,
Even that I had been five different men’s wife.
Who could this be who knew my past?
Was it Messiah arrived at last?
Yes! I sensed in my heart and my soul.
Excited, I left my water pot and told
Everyone I could find along the way
It was Jesus, Messiah, I had met that day! (end)
Pharisees took the longer road through Peræa to avoid contact with Samaritans. Samaria lay between Judea (south) and Galilee (north). But Jesus “must needs go through Samaria” (John 4:4).
Why were Samaritans despised by the Jews of that time?
Around 722 B.C. Assyria conquered sinful Israel (the northern kingdom) and took most of its people to Assyria. Assyria brought in Gentile colonists from Babylon, Cuthah (southern Iraq), etc. to resettle the northern kingdom area. The foreign Gentiles brought their gods with them and intermarried with a remnant of Jews left by the Assyrians. Those “half-breeds” became the despised Samaritans.
Samaritans accepted only the first 5 books of the Bible and established a temple on Mount Gerizim, claiming it was where Moses had intended for Israelites to worship. (But 1 Kings 8:29 reveals that God placed his holy dwelling in the temple in Jerusalem on Mount Zion, also called Mount Moriah or the Temple Mount.)
The disciples walked 1/2 mile into Sychar for food as Jesus sat at Jacob’s well in Samaria. A Samaritan woman, possibly a social outcast because of 5 marriages and her living with a sixth man, came at noon to draw water. Jesus asked for a drink. (Strict Rabbis forbade a Rabbi to greet a woman in public, sources say. A Rabbi might not even speak to his own wife or daughter or sister in public. There were even Pharisees who were called “the bruised and bleeding Pharisees” because they shut their eyes when they saw a woman on the street and so walked into walls and houses, sources say.)
Jesus told the woman — who was despised even by Samaritans — “Whosoever drinks of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinks 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.”
The woman believed Jesus. The story of the woman at the well teaches us that God loves us in spite of our sins.
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