“Tearing down the barriers”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Saturday, March 4, 2023
John 4:1-26 (Forward, p. 34) CEV p. 1104
We moderns really don’t understand just how unusual, and just how radical, this encounter was. For one thing, most Jews avoided Samaria like a plague, choosing instead to make a long detour to the west rather than enter its territory. Likewise, it was unusual for Jewish believers to enter a Samaritan village to buy food, as the two communities were at enmity with each other, which erupted into occasional ‘bouts’ of violence. And as for buying food handled by the supposed unclean Samaritans, the woman here reminds Jesus that the two communities won’t even share the same utensils or vessels.
And then there is the matter of the woman herself. Proper rabbis, we are told, avoided any contact with women in public, even such close relatives as their mothers, daughters or wives. Some rabbis went to such lengths as to walk into walls—ending up in bloody noses—rather than acknowledge the presence of a woman in public. Why, even Jesus’ disciples, who by now should not have been very surprised at Jesus’ actions, were surprised to see Him speaking with a woman (see verse 27).
But there is far more here in this encounter in terms of Jesus breaking down the barriers. Firstly, He initiates the conversation with the woman, something she would have never even dared to do. And He in essence lowers Himself by asking, not demanding, a favour of her, thereby putting Himself at her disposal and yet putting her on the spot. Here was a man, who by all the cultural and religious norms of the day, was her superior, asking something of her, something that presumably only she could give.
And then, Jesus throws out a bunch of ‘teasers’, in His quips about the living water. And then He throws her a loop with His remark about her husband or husbands. No wonder she wants to change the topic and that, very quickly. But already, Jesus has broken down a whole raft of barriers. Already He has ‘brought her on board’, as it were. Already her curiosity is aroused. Already she is intrigued and wants to know more.
And that is not all: later in the story we hear that Jesus actually stayed over in this Samaritan village. That meant that He slept in their beds, ate their food, and presumably talked with them at length—all things that we absolutely unheard of for a proper, practicing, conscientious Jew!
Paul Little, in his now famous book, How to Give Away Your Faith, suggests that this encounter might well be a template for how we might share our faith with others: getting to know our neighbours, spending time with them, having conversations with them, asking for their help, getting in touch with their concerns and issues etc.
A problem for many Christians is that they really don’t know that many people who aren’t practicing, or at least nominal, Christians. And so, to use some of Jesus’ images, the salt just never gets out of the saltshaker to where it’s needed, the light is never exposed to the darkness, the leaven is never given a chance to permeate and transform the loaf. So, maybe this Lent might be a time to reassess this and see how we might do better, how we might tear down the barriers, even as Jesus did.
Forward notes: “The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans)” (verse 9).
“The time is coming, Jesus tells the woman at the well, when worship will be by spirit and truth and not by location.
“I used to sit on a local interfaith organization’s board of directors. Each year, the organization held an interfaith prayer breakfast. One year, three different practitioners— one Christian, one Muslim, and one Buddhist—led the group in prayers according to the tradition of each. Guess what? God showed up, even in the Buddhist silence not intentionally directed toward God. God above me, God beneath me, God beside me.
“So many people of faith imagine God to be theirs and theirs alone, but here Jesus is, correcting his own people by welcoming the outsider Samaritans. God values those who worship with heart, in spirit, and in truth.”
MOVING FORWARD: “What might the world look like if we chose not to parse God?”
A concluding note or two: Our author is undoubtedly correct in stating that God is present, even within other faith traditions, and certainly God has, and is, at work there, speaking to them, and offering tantalizing bridges to a fuller understanding of Himself. But then, Jesus also says to the woman, ‘we Jews know the God we worship, whereas you don’t.’ And so, while not excluding the Samaritans or saying that they aren’t ‘on the way’, or saying that the Jews ‘own’ God, have God as their special possession, He is saying that the Jews have a special privilege, a special access to God. They have a relationship with God and actually know Him, which is something quite special, but available to everyone.