The Whore at the Well

Jesus went to the well for a drink in the Gospel reading I meditated on today (John 4:1-26). While there, a woman approached to draw water. The woman had had five husbands and was living with another man who was not her husband. As she came close, Jesus said, “Give me a drink.” They had a conversation, and the only time He references her person, He says, “Believe me, woman.”

In His kindness and love for the woman, He doesn’t say, “Believe me, adulteress,” or “Believe me, whore.” He calls her what God created her to be, a woman (which is also the term He uses for His own Blessed Mother in the Gospel of John). He does not call her what her sin has made her. This example set by Jesus reminds the Church how to approach and communicate with those living in sinful situations. If we label them as their sin, as the culture does, we may cut off their ability to escape this false identity and reclaim their God-given one. 

In first grade, I was in the coat closet at school when a classmate yelled the word “fag” at me. I had no idea what this word meant, but I could tell that he was not yelling a compliment at me. Because I was still early on in my formation as a human being, I took this in, kept it to myself, and went on with life. It became part of how I viewed myself despite not knowing what it meant.

It didn’t take long for others to begin using this word in reference to me, reinforcing it in my mind as defining me. Soon after, I discovered what it meant: I liked boys the way other boys liked girls—which was strange because I didn’t like boys. I liked girls. 

In elementary school, we often went on field trips, and during those trips, we each had to buddy up with someone else whose hand we would hold. There were two girls, Lynette and Keesha, who I would do my best to sit close to so theirs would be the hands I got to hold. When this worked out according to my plan, I would get a warm feeling in my chest, my hands would sweat a bit, and my heart would race.

I had a crush on both of them, but how could this be since I was labeled gay, which meant I liked boys? I didn’t want to hold the boys’ hands or be close to them, but the label was given to me nonetheless, and it began to stick.

By the end of sixth grade, I’d been exposed to pornography, which taught me that sex was for pleasure and that people, male and female, were a collection of body parts used for pleasure. When I began middle school, there was a girl I was very attracted to, but I didn’t know how to approach her, so I kept my distance. I thought about her often and looked at her as much as possible in a shy, awkward, teenage way.

One day, during science class, she was standing nearby with another girl, Amy. They were talking, and I was staring at her. I heard Amy say, “I think Garrett likes you.” I quickly diverted my eyes away, but I heard her response: “Garrett is gay!” I was crushed. I didn’t understand how I could be something without knowing it myself. I soon found out how. 

Being quiet is not normal for boys. Neither is enjoying reading or being shy. These untrue “truths,” along with rejection by most of my male peers and more exposure to graphic pornography, pushed me into thinking, “Maybe those who call me gay know something about me that I don’t. Maybe I am gay?” My mind was now open to an idea I’d never considered before. The devil, and my distorted view of myself, led me not only to begin to sexualize men but also to see myself as being more like a woman than a man.

Soon after, I started looking at the men in porn rather than the women—not because I wanted to but because I’d learned that bodies were just for pleasure. Why not use men’s bodies since I hadn’t learned how else to connect with men? It was because of this early childhood labeling and exposure to the evil of pornography that I was engaging in behavior that started to make me what I hadn’t been up until engaging in that behavior—a gay man. 

“Gay” is not a God-given identity. Gay refers to sexual activity between two people of the same sex. It is a sinful action or behavior that can change a person’s identity from what God intends, but it is not an identity unto itself. Without same-sex sexual activity, it does not exist.

Jesus mercifully did not refer to the woman at the well as her sin, so why do we in the Church do this with people who are attracted to the same sex? If this scene had been Jesus with a man caught having sex with another man, would He say, “Believe me, sodomite,” or “Believe me, queer?” No! If He addressed their person, it would be as a man for the same reason He did with the woman at the well: to help the true, God-given identity that sinful choices have hidden become apparent again. So, why do many in the Church do differently?  Jesus mercifully did not refer to the woman at the well as her sin, so why do we in the Church do this with people who are attracted to the same sex? Tweet This

I believe one of the reasons is they still wrongly associate certain God-given traits and nonsexual behaviors with the gay sex act and resulting gay identity, as does the world in general. They are wrong to do so, as are the nonreligious leaders of our time. They need to be made aware of the incorrect understanding of what defines us as sexual beings that they inadvertently perpetuate so they can then teach the world the truth. 

Many traits and preferences that have nothing to do with sex have been assigned a sexual meaning, including those I mentioned earlier, as well as being artistic or musical, uncoordinated, and more sensitive for men and more sporty, assertive, and less interested in beauty and fashion for women. Because these traits and others have been accepted as being a sign of a person who wants to have sex with the same sex, we then tell ourselves that the sexual act is part of an identity, so we think we do good by acknowledging this. But in reality, we have been deceived. 

Men who like dance and music do not inherently have a natural inclination toward sex with other men. They may be more sensitive and want to be close to a man in a more intimate physical way than a less sensitive man, but this does not mean he wants to have sex with men. Wanting a hug rather than a handshake does not mean you want sex. If we don’t tell him this is what it means, through the words of loved ones, entertainment, and school lessons, he will not naturally make this choice. So, what we do by affirming the assumed sexual preference, because we think it is already established because of the traits we see, actually ends up bringing on behaviors that act to develop the identity that wasn’t present to begin with. In our presumption, we create an identity where there isn’t one. 

Was the woman at the well exhibiting traits at a young age that people associated with promiscuity, so they treated her as if this was her identity? Did this then push her into behavior that she would never have engaged in if not for people making incorrect assumptions about her personhood, as I believe it did with me? It is possible; and just the possibility should be a wake-up call to those inside and outside the Church, leaders and lay people alike. 

The hierarchy would never call someone a whore, an adulterer, or a masturbator. They know better than to take something we’ve done sexually and label us as that, even though it has become a shaper of our identity by our engagement in it. They know that in all other sinful situations, we need to be reminded of our God-given identity, not our sin-created one. Why is it different for people who have engaged in same-sex actions? Because in these situations, the world’s lies have snuck past the doorkeepers of our Faith. 

The world has adopted the notion that sinful activity is part of our God-given identity. Men and women who believe this have been allowed to gain influence in the Church, so we have our current situation of Church leaders calling people homosexual or gay. Many use these terms because the people who have engaged in same-sex activity or have feelings of same-sex attraction want to be referred to this way. But is this what is best for them? Will this lead them to the truth of their being and closer to Jesus? What would our Lord do in such a situation? 

If the woman at the well told Jesus, “I prefer to be called a whore rather than a woman,” do you think Jesus would have accommodated her? I don’t. Her statement might have brought about a scenario like the woman saying these words with her eyes downcast and Jesus tilting His head and looking at her compassionately. He might reach out His hand and lift her head so their eyes meet. He would shake His head no and say, “My child, you have been deceived, and so you live as something you were not created to be. You are a woman, not a whore.” This is the kind of compassionate truth we need from the Church.  

Suppose the woman at the well also happened to be great at art and showed more sensitivity than other women. Would the leaders of that time have associated those traits with her sinful behavior and assigned it as her identity? Would they have then assumed that any woman who was artistic and sensitive was also an adulteress and so created a new identity for people?

So if people were raising children and noticed that one of their daughters was more sensitive, they would begin to tell her she was a whore because the religious leaders perpetuated this false identity. She would then be guided into sinful behavior detrimental to her soul by the people who are supposed to lead her in the other direction. Many lay people in the Church and our leaders do this when they refer to us as gay or homosexual. This is a spiritual poison that the Church needs to stop participating in perpetuating under a false sense and understanding of compassion and mercy. 

Sexual behavior does help form our identity, but those inside the Church should not assign God-given traits that are not sexual a sexual meaning. This confuses people, and they begin to believe that a nonsexual trait means something about their sexuality, pushing them into behavior that leads them to take on an identity contrary to their God-given one. To link God-given traits with immoral sexual acts and disordered attractions is to lead people into the very sin the Church is supposed to be freeing us from. 

There is a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation about this floating around today because of seeds of deception planted years ago, before and during the “sexual revolution,” which was actually a sexual rebellion. The world needs the Church to do what she has always done in the past: stand firmly for the truth no matter the storms that blow.

The “LGBTQ” storm that is blowing right now is strong, in part because many in the Church no longer know or understand the truth. The seeds of the beautiful truth of our identity need to be replanted by our priests and bishops so we in the current generation can reclaim our true identity and so those in the next generation don’t grow up with the same distorted and harmful understandings. 

[Image: “Christ and the Samaritan Woman” by Annibale Carracci]