Journeying by Stages

When my daughter was four years old, she accompanied me when I took my youth group to a Taizé worship service that included the opportunity to walk the labyrinth. Flute, violin, and cello supported the congregation’s soft voices gathered around the canvas labyrinth laid at the center of the worship space as they sang the beautiful, repeating, meditative chants.

I led my daughter to the entrance of the labyrinth and, hands on her shoulders, began directing her along the curves of the path, leading to the center, the heart of God. But she kept shaking off my hands, stepping across the lines, and generally resisting my guidance. In a moment of grace, I let her go. In awe, I watched her choose one of the youth and follow closely at her heels all the way to the center. There she rested until the young woman stood to walk again; she followed her, step-by-step, retracing the path out of the labyrinth and back to me.

I had a choice that night to make her experience about a singular encounter with rules and expectations (that would have resulted in a test and quarrel) or to let that experience be a step on a larger journey of faith, marked by trust and freedom. It seems Jesus has a similar choice as he encounters the woman at the well.

Jesus needs water to quench an immediate and temporary thirst. He could wait for the disciples to return, ignore the woman, maintain decorum, and uphold cultural expectations. Or he could let go, trust a stranger, cross lines of gender to extend an invitation of living water that will quench a lifetime of thirst. The risk, the connection, extended beyond one woman’s circumstance to the transformation of an entire community.