Why did Jesus really ask the Samaritan woman for a drink?

One of the great 'meeting Jesus' stories of the New Testament is in John 4, where he encounters the woman at the well. He has every reason not to speak to her or she to him, but their conversation is profound and moving.

In his book Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes (SPCK), Kenneth Bailey, who lived and worked in the area for many years, unpacks the 'surprises' in the story. One of them is the way Jesus breaks taboos against talking to women – culturally inappropriate in the Middle Eastern setting of the time – and Samaritans. The hostility between the two communities went back centuries. The Greeks had used Samaria as a base for controlling Jewish territory and the Jews had destroyed the Samaritans' temple on Mount Gerizim. The Samaritans had responded by defiling the Jewish temple in Jerusalem with the bones of the dead just before Passover so it could not be used. Jesus broke with both the gender taboo and the bitterness of history.

However, says Bailey, even more surprisingly, when he asks the woman for a drink he intentionally places himself in need of what she could offer. He quotes the great Sri Lankan theologian DT Niles, who says of Jesus: 'He was a true servant because he was at the mercy of those whom he came to serve...This weakness of Jesus, we as his disciples must share. To serve from a position of power is not true service but beneficence.'

Niles talks about the importance of churches not trying to meet people's needs from a position of strength. Like Jesus, the Church is there to be served and to be a receiver as well as a giver. And this is not just true of the local church and its community – it's about how Christian organisations and churches relate to each other, too. As Bailey says, 'In our day, a style of mission appears to continue to flow from the developed nations to the developing world that affirms the strength of the giver and the weakness of the receiver.' He speaks of the technological help that developed nations can give, saying: 'This tends to stimulate pride in the giver and humiliation in the receiver.'

And in asking for the woman's help, says Bailey, he was blessing her. 'Only the strong are able to give to others. The woman's dignity is affirmed by being asked to help Jesus out of her available resources.'