In the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John there is a story about Jesus stopping near Jacob’s Well, near the city of Sychar. While at the well he met a woman and they had a conversation. Our story doesn’t tell us much of the content of the conversation, but it is clear that Jesus really listened to the woman as they spoke. You can learn a lot about people by simply listening when you have a rambling conversation. The Gospel story reports that by the end of the conversation the woman was convinced that Jesus had learned everything there was to know about her. She reported later to her friends, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!” The story also tells us that Jesus’ disciples were amazed at the conversation Jesus had with the woman.

As I calmed myself for my gratitude prayers as I got ready for bed, the story came to my mind. There are some conversations that leave you feeling like you really know someone. Of course we can never really know everything anyone else has ever done, but we can get to know enough about that person that they forever are distinct and wonderful in our memory.

Susan, who is a superb pastoral visitor, can make a first visit to someone and leave the visit with all kinds of knowledge and information about that person. I’ve watched her walk into a room and within a few moments the one who welcomed us will be telling stories for all of the photographs of the room. After the visit she can recall the siblings, children, and a lot of other people who are important in the life of the one she visited. She comes by that ability naturally. Her mother used to tell me all about the families of her butcher and her optician and the people who ran the Dutch bakery around the corner from their home. She knew who was related to whom in the entire church. When people told her their stories she really listened.

I have to work a bit harder than those two amazing women. I try to learn from their example and I have developed a bit of skill over time. One of the places where I have had some amazing “know everything a person has ever done” conversations is when I have gone to sit with people who are grieving a death. Through my work with survivors of suicide, there were a lot of people that I met for the first time within a few minutes of their having received some of the most devastating and traumatic news of their lives. Often I was given the challenge and blessing of being the one to carefully carry that precious news to them. After a while of just sitting with the news, it wasn’t uncommon for the stories to begin. Time and time again, I have been given the stories of a person that are dramatic and intimate and revealing.

I am quite sure that my belief in the resurrection stems as much from being with people in the midst of grief as it does from the theology and sacred stories of the Bible. When I sit with people, they begin to unfold their sacred stories in a powerful way. Even if the deceased was someone I had never met, which was often the case, after a couple of hours with their family they have become fully alive in my memory. The stories that have been entrusted to me are valuable beyond calculation. It was not a rare occasion for someone to come up to me after I have delivered a eulogy and comment that I must have known the person very well. I never know how to tell that person that I never met that person face to face, so I usually say, their family members, whose names I now know well, we so generous in sharing their stories and I was able to repeat a bit of what they told me.

I don’t know what happened at the well with Jesus and the woman. I do know how blessed Jesus must have felt to have had someone share such precious stories with him.

Last night I had dinner with friends who are my colleagues. We all live in different places. Some of these people I have met only over Zoom in the past. Some I have been in the same place working on the same project once or twice. But for most of them, If I were to be together with one of their children or one of their siblings, I would immediately recognize that person and know who they are because of the wonderful stories that my friends told me at dinner. I know their birth order and the stories of the births of their children. I know quite a bit about their parents and recognize some of the traits and practices that they have inherited from their forebears. I know stories of their successes and failures. I know about traumas they have endured. I feel like I know a great deal about them through the miraculous sacrament of sharing a meal together. These people are so generous with their stories.

And I have told them my stories as well. They know I cannot tell the story of my daughter’s wedding or of the birth of our grandchildren without weeping. They know how I came to change my mind about love at first sight. They know why I name every plane that flies low overhead. They not only gave me the gift of their stories, but also the grace of listening to mine. If they remember nothing else, they will remember that I have a lot of stories.

These people are ministers. They are church educators. It is no mistake that I connect with them so easily. I believe in their passions. I care about their causes. The stories we share are all part of a much bigger story.

Maybe the woman at the well and Jesus disciples never knew how blessed he was by the stories she told, but I know. The courage of Jesus crucifixion and the joy of his resurrection reflected countless stories he heard of death and grief and loss that were not the last stories of the people he met.

I may not have met a woman at the well, but I did meet some really fascinating people whose stories showed me the miracle of stories shared in a circle of friends.