The story of the Samaritan woman in John 4 is a powerful testament to God’s inclusiveness, that God will take people who have been relegated to outsider status and open the door for them to become saints.
The scripture itself underscores how boundary-crossing Jesus’ encounter with the women is. “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.” Jewish people regarded Samaritans as a lower class of people, not as holy as they were. The scripture also mentions that Jesus’ disciples “were astonished that Jesus was talking to a woman.” So this was a double violation of the norms to which Jesus was expected to conform.
Note the frank, toe-to-toe nature of the conversation, with Jesus telling her that if she knew who was asking her for water, “you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water,” and she responding, “Sir, you have no bucket…Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well?”
But after Jesus shares that he knows her life story of having had five husbands and now living unmarried with a sixth—note that Jesus here renders no judgment, and it is quite likely given how women were treated in that culture at that time that she was doing what she had to in order to survive—the conversation turns, and she transforms from a skeptic to an evangelist. “Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony,” the passage says.
While the woman is not named in the Bible, she is known as Photini or Photine. It means “luminous one.” She is revered as a saint, especially in Eastern Orthodox and Catholic traditions. For many, she is an example of a woman who was equal to the name apostles in the power of her evangelism. Many Eastern Orthodox churches teach that Photini’s success in bringing people to the Christian faith in parts of northern Africa controlled by the Roman Empire caught the attention and ire of Emperor Nero, who summoned her to Rome. Photini is said to have repeatedly defied Nero’s orders to stop her evangelizing, and Nero had her tortured and eventually put to death.
If anyone tells you that Jesus doesn’t want to meet you where you are as who you are, that Jesus doesn’t want to hear your skepticism and incredulousness, and that when it is all said and done Jesus can’t use you as a powerful minister of his love and truth, don’t listen. Think of Photini and what her journey from marginalization to sainthood could mean in your own life.