It would appear that I have been somewhat occupied tending to parishioners in my 170sq mile charge. Loving it. Fabulous folk, gorgeous parish - currently looking like Narnia. We dug ourselves out of our homes and dug our way through the snow to get to church this morning - where we worshipped God, pondered 'living water', and reflected on the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Here's the sermon:
Reading:
John 4:1-42 The woman at the well.
Let us pray:
May the words
of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.
Amen.
Two people.
A woman.
A man.
Given what we
learn of her background,
her life
experiences,
she’s
probably older than him.
He’s a young man.
A teacher,
a rabbi,
in the early
stages of his ministry,
wandering the
countryside with his band of disciples.
Two people.
Two
different, yet similar cultures.
Cultures that
are...antagonistic
towards one
another.
An antagonism
that demonstrates that they have a past history.
Two cultures
that had,
many hundreds
of years ago,
been one culture
until
stronger neighbours
effectively
caused a schism.
A schism
that, as the years rolled by,
widened into
a chasm of misunderstanding;
that
misunderstanding resulting
in mutual
suspicion and open hostility.
Two cultures
that perhaps, were really more like an estranged family.
Instead of
working towards reconciliation -
of
celebrating the many things
they had in
common,
these two
cultures - Jews and Samaritans -
focused
instead upon their differences;
distinguished
their own identities by
not being
like ‘them over there.’
Part of the
‘us’ versus ‘them’ strategy included a very common tactic still used today:
using
language to lessen the ‘other’ -
to dehumanise
them.
So, for
Jewish people, for example,
Samaritans
were thought of as animals,
and described
as such:
they were
labelled, not as a people,
but as ‘a
herd’.
The worst
insult a Jew could make against another Jew was to call them a ‘Samaritan’.
Samaritans
were outsiders:
not like
‘us’.
And the
interesting thing, when you begin to dehumanise someone who is different,
who is other,
is that
there’s a knock-on effect in the way that you interact with them,
in the way
that you treat them.
When you tell
yourself that your enemy is not even human, you find yourself justifying all
sorts of inhuman behaviour upon them.
In this case,
behaviour that resulted in burning down the Samaritan holy place -
the temple on
Mt Gerazim by Jewish people.
Or behaviour
that resulted in Samaritans lying in wait to attack Jews travelling
from Galilee
to Jerusalem -
which is why
Galileans tended to use the longer road on the other side of the Jordan River:
they feared for their lives.
Such
division,
such a deep well of bitterness.
But back at our well in Samaria, to:
two people.
A man.
A woman.
From two
cultures that mutually
despise each
other
and if at all
possible,
try to have
nothing at all to do with each other.
Two people
now face to
face,
having to
look each other in the eye,
and see
each other.
Really see each other.
And, in the
seeing,
recognising
their common humanity.
In this story
of outsiders,
ironically,
it’s Jesus who is the outsider -
he’s the
foreigner, the stranger,
stepping into
Samaritan lands
because it
was the quickest route
to get to his
actual destination.
The riskier route.
And, he’s
alone, initially.
The disciples
have headed off into town
on a shopping
trip.
It’s the 6th
hour of the day -
in our
reckoning, midday -
and he’s been
walking,
and walking
the dusty
roads.
He’s weary.
Bone-crushingly
so.
And he pauses
to rest.
A stranger,..
alone, ...
and tired.
Three reasons
in and of themselves
that make him
vulnerable.
She - and we
never learn her name -
she comes to
the well at midday.
It’s not the
usual time to gather water,
for that’s
normally done in the cool of the morning or early evening
in the
company of other women.
We don’t know
why she goes alone to the well - the
text doesn’t give us the reason.
But she, too,
is vulnerable.
She’s a
woman.
She’s alone.
And she’s
just turned up to this place
and finds
herself face to face with a man...
and a Jewish
one, at that.
Perhaps as
she looks at him, she thinks:
‘ah, he’s
really just a laddie, I can handle him’
She’s got
experience of having to handle men.
Often, when
this story comes up,
this unnamed
Samaritan woman is described as a less than moral character -
promiscuous.
This, based
on the number of husbands,
and of her
current domestic arrangement.
Certainly,
that’s one way to look at her.
But there are
cultural contexts here that are not a part of our lives now,
and we need
to take these on board.
It was a
culture where women
were
virtually property -
a culture
where women who found themselves alone were especially vulnerable:
a woman
needed the protection of a man.
This
particular woman could easily have been widowed, abandoned, divorced - and it
was very easy for men to get a divorce.
She could
also have had a series of Levirate marriages - married to her deceased first
husbands brother, or brothers, in order to procure him an heir.
For whatever
reason, this woman found herself repeatedly vulnerable and needing
protection.
She married.
She may have
been immoral,
or she may
have had
a simply
hellish and tragic life.
There’s no
hint at all in the text that Jesus
sees her in terms of ‘a sinner’
Nor is there
any sense that he’s absolving her of guilt from a shameful past.
It’s just not
in the text.
I wonder if
the tragedy of her life is what Jesus sees, when he looks at her?
Talks with
her?
Comments upon
her life?
She doesn’t
take his comment in any way
as a
judgement call.
He’s seen to
the heart of things
seen beyond
easy, shaming labels,
has seen her for who she truly is.
Her response?
He speaks the
truth he couldn’t
possibly have
known -
‘I see you are a prophet.’
Perhaps
there’s almost a confession of faith
in her
comment?
By the well,
these two strangers have a deep, profound conversation.
It’s the
longest recorded conversation Jesus has with anyone.
It’s a
barrier-breaking conversation:
between Jew
and Samaritan,
between male
and female.
People, who
in normal, everyday contexts would not give each other the time of day.
It’s a life-giving
conversation
about
thirst-quenching water:
the water of
eternal life.
Water, that
was previously thought to be available only for the Jewish nation.
Water that
bubbles and flows and is available for all who will drink from this deep well.
In this Week
of Prayer for Christian Unity, we are invited to go to the well,
the place
where barriers are broken
the place
where we can see beyond labels
beyond
differences of race,
of gender or
orientation,
beyond
differences of religion
beyond even
differences within our own faith.
Here, at the
well, we are invited to drink deeply of the living water,
and to go and
share this water with others -
to invite
them to ‘come and see’.
Come and see
the One who sees us fully.
And, as we
are seen, so too, we see one another fully,
and realise
that we are united
in our common
humanity;
and that each
of us is
‘seen by Jesus,
loved by Jesus,
and has the capacity to bear witness
to the one who comes to enlighten our
lives and world
and to give us living water that will satisfy even our deepest
thirst.’ (David Lose)
Let’s pray:
God of life,
Shower us in your living water,
bringing us
to new life, fresh and clean.
Walk with us
as we share the knowledge
of your
living water with others,
so that all
might live. Amen.
