3rd Sunday in Lent, February 24, 2008 “Series A”
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, through your Son, Jesus the Christ, you have revealed your will and grace for all people. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, strengthen our faith, and inspire us to overcome our prejudice toward those who differ from us, that we might witness to your redeeming grace in Christ’s death and resurrection. This we ask in Christ’s holy name. Amen.
Our Gospel lesson for this morning is quite a story, and not just because of its length. At first glance, the story seems so simple, an easy story to grasp. Jesus is traveling through the heat of the day, when he tires and decides to rest by Jacob’s well. Being the noon hour, his disciples decide to go off to town to purchase some food and beverage.
Then comes this woman from town to draw water to carry back to her home. Jesus, being thirsty, asks her for a drink. It sounds like such a simple request, and serves to break the ice. As they talk, Jesus seizes the opportunity for ministry, to tell her about this spiritual sustenance called “living water,” which he can give to her.
The conversation continues, as they discuss religious topics, such as worship and the coming of God’s promised Messiah. They talk about her life, and the problems that she has faced over the years, including her present situation. And as a result of her encounter with Jesus, the woman’s faith is awakened. She begins to question whether Jesus might just be the Messiah, and goes off to tell others about her encounter with him, encouraging them to “come and see.”
As a result of the woman’s witness, many of the people in her community come to meet Jesus, and they, too, come to faith, believing that Jesus is the promised Messiah. Upon their urging, Jesus remained in their town for two days, where he continued to minister to the people, where even more come to faith in him.
At first glance, our lesson seems to be just a simple story about faith and witness. And, of course, on one level, it is. But when we look at the historical context in which this story was written, we find that it has a deeper, more profound dimension to it, a dimension that is easily missed by those of us who live in today’s culture.
The fact that Jesus initiated a conversation with this woman at the well was quite an unprecedented action, according to Dr. Raymond E. Brown, a leading scholar on the Gospel of John. In those days, men did not speak with women in public, especially men who were rabbis or religious leaders. In that society, women did not have equal rights, were not afforded the opportunity to engage in religious or theological debate, not permitted to speak during worship, nor even enter the inner court of the temple.
Although women had certain protections under Jewish law, more rights, I believe than did the women who lived in Afghanistan under the Telaban regime, our exposure to that society as a result of our nation being at war in that region, might help us to understand the impact of Jesus’ action. In fact, in verse 27 John tells us that Jesus’ disciples were astonished that he was speaking with this woman, though no one dared ask him, “Why are you speaking with her?”
Secondly, notice that this woman was a Samaritan. For the Jews of that day, the Samaritans, although not at “foreign” as the Gentiles, because of their intermarriage with the Assyrians, they were not considered “full-fledged members of the household of Israel,” either. Thus, they were religious and cultural outsiders whom the Jews regarded with a fair measure of suspicion and distrust.
As a result, the Jews of that day would not share meals, or utilize the same utensils that the Samaritan’s used. They were considered ritually impure. This distrust of the Samaritans was so widespread that the woman in the story is herself startled by Jesus’ initiative. She says to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”
And finally, notice the time of the day that this woman came to the well. Typically, people went to the well in the morning and the evening to avoid the heat of the noon day sun. Why, then, did this woman go at noon?
Dr. Brown suggests that perhaps she was trying to avoid something worse than the noontime heat. Perhaps she wanted to avoid the burning glances of those from the town who had shunned her, because she had had five husbands, and was now living in adultery. According to Brown, although men could have as many wives as they could afford, women were only permitted to have one husband at a time, and only be married three times.
Since this woman had been married five times and was now living with a man to whom she was not married, did more than provide grist for the gossip mill. She would have been marked as immoral, and shunned. So she went to the well at noon, to avoid the townspeople and their burning stares, who were scandalized by her lifestyle.
With Dr. Brown’s insight, we are given a new look at this “simple story,” and discover that there is a lot more going on than first meets the eye. Here, at Jacob’s well, we meet this Samaritan woman and this Jewish rabbi, as culturally separated from each other as night and day. And by his simple request for a drink of water, Jesus breaks down the barriers of gender and race and moral superiority.
Of course, at first the woman protests. If I might rephrase her comment in the language of the fifties and early sixties, for those of us who are old enough to remember, “You want me to give you a drink? Do you know what you are asking? Don’t you realize that for years your people and mine have drunk from different water fountains, eaten in separate restaurants, sat at different ends of the bus? How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? It’s against the rules. It goes against the grain of our society. Do you know what you are asking?”
Of course, Jesus did know what he was asking. He knew precisely what he was doing. By reaching out to this woman, this foreign woman of questionable morality, this outsider in her own world, Jesus extended the amazing grace of God to her, and through her witness, to those in her community. He was breaking down the barriers that serve to isolate and separate us from one another, as people whom God loves.
In fact, Jesus did this often in his ministry. By eating and drinking with outcasts, by forgiving sinners and calling all to repent and believe the Gospel, Jesus extended the kingdom of God beyond the boundaries that we human beings often create to separate us from one another. By breaking down the barriers of hatred and prejudice, Jesus shows us just how broad and deep and profound the grace of God truly is.
In the latest issue of The Lutheran, George S. Johnson, a retired E.L.C.A. pastor, wrote an article entitled, “Was Jesus Subversive? Considering the ‘other’ reason Jesus died on the cross.” It was an article that caused me to think and truly meditate on the significance of this simple story from John’s Gospel. Johnson writes: “When Jesus told his disciples to take up the cross and follow him, he was reminding us all that there will be times when our [Christian] witness and actions will meet resistance from those in power. Yes, the cross can cause us to… ‘tremble, tremble, tremble.’ The Jesus movement was, and is, countercultural. The proclamation of the Gospel includes a declaration of God’s justice: God’s action to bring about an alternative to violence, greed, hunger and domination. We preach grace – but not only grace…
Could it be that our fixation on ‘grace alone’ has left us deaf to God’s call to ‘do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with our God,’ [as recorded in Micah.] When Jesus did exactly this, he was considered a subversive… When we hear the words, ‘Do this for the remembrance of me,’ what are we to remember? God’s forgiveness, yes. But are we not also to remember that Jesus [also reached out across the boundaries of societal norms] that eating the bread and drinking the wine makes us part of his resistance movement [to bring the grace of God to those who are marginalized by society.]
Unfortunately, sexual and cultural and moral prejudice still exist in our world, even in the church that bears Christ’s name. And I sincerely doubt that the enactment of laws or the exercise of power will be able to change the conditions that give rise to the barriers that divide us. For in reality, prejudice is a matter of attitude, a matter of one’s heart.
But through the gift of God’s grace, and the power of his Holy Spirit, we can overcome prejudice. For God never tires of reaching out to us through his Word and sacraments, to lift us to new life and new possibilities. Through his Holy Spirit, God is able to increase our faith so that we might bear our cross as witnesses to the redeeming grace of God in Jesus the Christ, even to those who differ from us. May God give us eyes to see, not only his grace for our own lives, but also empower us to extend his grace to those around us.
Amen.
