Hard borders and high walls

 ‘… If you knew the gift of God …..’ (John 4:10)

John 4:5-42 (Year A: Third Sunday of Lent Sunday 19^th March 2017)

Typical of Lent as we draw closer to The Great Feast of Easter the tone and length of Sunday gospel reading become heavier and longer.   Enter John this Sunday.  Jesus crosses a ‘frictionless and seamless border’ as he left Judea and started back to Galilee going through Samaria. 

(It might be akin to someone travelling from Donegal to Dublin and passing through County Tyrone.  You have to do that to get to the south unless you go around a long way that hours to your journey.)

Now we are sitting near a well in a place called Sychar. It is a special place of religious significance. It is in the middle of the day. A traveller stops there for rest and for some of that precious cool water.  ‘Give me a drink’ says the traveller.  That was fairly direct and concise!  The conversation opens up. There is a play on words with deep, deep significance like the well of Jacob.  Jesus reveals himself as an unusual Jew. He is speaking in a public place to a woman and a Samaritan woman at that (‘They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman’ - v. 7).  Now, Samaritans were a somewhat different breed to the Jews but not that different as not to share Jacob as their common ancestor and the first five books of what we know as the Bible as authoritative scripture. In other words, they were very much outside the pale as far as Jews were concerned but they were frustratingly near enough in theology, expectation and ethnic roots. Does any of this even sound remotely familiar to an observer of religious-political-ethnic identity on the island of Ireland?

What do I thirst for?

When Jesus said to the Samaritan woman ‘Give me a drink’ he was about to prompt a discussion that lead from the ordinary and immediate thirst for water to a deeper, spiritual and lasting thirst for new life. On the latter point, it is us – the Samaritan woman and everyone no matter what tribe or creed or colour or orientation – who thirst. We thirst to be understood. We thirst to be set free of the images and representations that others may try to incarcerate us (or that we try to apply to ourselves If we only knew that it is that God is offering us beyond and underneath the conversations and actions of others including those who hurt us or mistreat us or who are different to us and do not belong to our ‘tribe’ (or ‘identity’ to use a more sociological term).

The conversation at the well leads to a realisation on the part of the Samaritan that she is speaking to someone extraordinary. She returns to her family and tribe and something has started. Other outsiders from this Samaritan tribe seek out this unusual Jew.  They invite him to stay in their town and Jesus ‘stayed there for two days’.  We have no further details but we may assume that, according to John, at least, there were some interesting conversations happening over 48 hours or so.  They knew, also, that they had encountered something wonderful and precious for ‘many more believed because of his word’ (v. 41). 

They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world. (v. 42). 

There are many strands to this story from the 4^th chapter of John but we should not miss that point that Jesus is, here, signalling a new departure from the religious culture he grew up in.  He is reaching out to other tribes and ‘religions’

Talking and hanging out with the ‘wrong’ people

Talking to people who are very different by reason of background, orientation, status or outlook in life says something about us. Not infrequently to be seen talking and associating with the wrong people – people who do not belong to ‘us’ or who come from the opposite or even enemy side in whatever stance, struggle or contestation ‘we’ are part of – attracts negative comment. Taken to its extreme, expulsion or marginalisation may be the price of ‘talking to the other side’ or sharing in their feasts. Hard borders and high walls run deep in our societies and in our hearts. The physical and visible borders and walls are not even as significant as those invisible ones that separate us from each other. This is where enmity and strife oirginate.

The unfortunate aspect of many human associations and belongings is that such belonging can be exclusive, excluding and sectarian. We are right; they are wrong. Justice and truth is on our side; wickedness, folly and betrayal is on the other.

Even today, many who claim to follow Jesus operate like as if they are part of a doctrinally pure, liturgically valid-only and error-excluding self-contained island. The One True Island with the drawbridges pulled up and everyone safe and cosy on the inside.  Sharing the Table of our Master’s Word let alone his Bread is seen as betrayal of first principles. One must ask what principles and whose principles?

Honesty with ourselves

For the week that is this we might reflect on the very first line of the ‘Confessions’ of the spiritual patron of our island:

I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to man

(see also 1 Timothy 1:15).

Perhaps a ruthlessly honest appraisal of where one is at is the best antidote to sectarianism, superiority, presumption and exclusion.

We would do well to aim to live by the Wesleyian maxim of ‘friends of all; enemies of none’ even if it is not possible to fulfil this at all times and with all peoples. It is worth the try.

Entering into a deep and respectful dialogue with the other is an exercise of compassion as much to ourselves as to the other. It liberates us from our preconceived notions and set assumptions. In this way, truth, beauty and goodness may have a chance of emerging in our encounters and conversations.