Christ Church Cathedral

Christ Church Cathedral

Lent 3 (Proper A)
February 24, 2008

John 4:5 On the way to Jerusalem he came to the Samaritan town called Sychar

The presence of the Samaritans in the Gospels reminds us that the disputes such as that threatening the unity of the Anglican communion has a history in the life of the people of God that goes back more than 2 and a half millennia. Samaritans were direct descendants of the Joseph tribes of Ephraim and Mannessah which as part of the Northern Kingdom (Israel) disappeared with the Assyrian conquest of 721 BCE. Their disagreement with the jews living in Judah developed at the end of the 4th century BCE and led to the construction of a Temple on Mount Gerizim near the city of Shechem the modern day Nabulus which was completed in 330 BCE. They held that it was here that Abraham offered the sacrifice of his son Isaac and it should replace the Temple in Jerusalem. There final break with the Jews occurred in the second century BCE as a result of the Hellenization program of Antiochus IV Epiphanes when they asked him for protection and renounced all relationship with the Jews. This situation remained in Jesus days as reflected in the comment in today’s reading “Jews, in fact have no contact with Samaritans.” They retained their own version of the Torah Today the Samaritans (less than 800 their kind remain) are regarded as a Jewish sect and the group has a reserved seat in the Knisset. It is worth noting that the Jews living in what we now call the Holy Land were in Jesus time themselves a minority since the majority dwelled in the Diaspora and were in fact the successful respondent to the Hellenization begun by Antiochus IV.

Determining how they fit into John’s Gospel is another matter. It is possible to speculate that there were a series of stories about Jesus contact with this group circulating with the material that -was put together about his life and ministry. Matthew and Luke both contain other references to this group - only Mark, the earliest of the Gospels is silent on this matter. If significant of their numbers had become Jesus followers we could possible expect this would have been noted, in view of their inclusion in the Gospels. I have taken this apparent silence as an excuse for some deconstruction and reconstruction of his encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well.

The dispute under consideration has a remarkable likeness to those which have continued to plague the people of the Book. It is often single issue based and contains within it an idea or point of interpretation that is not without merit. The reaction it generates is all too often a violation of those lines from the Mikado - let the punishment fit the crime. The result is a need to defend positions no matter what. Although the tendency today is to think of such disputes as the outcome of Fundamentalism this is too simple - witness the rise of Sufism in Islam or Unitarianism within the Calvinist tradition. But once positions are established it is possible to construct an alternative world view which takes on a life of its own. One which is able to turn the request for a drink of water into an excuse for sectarian confrontation.

At another level, the Gospel of John contains several stories in which a conversation involving give and take is essential to the development of the narrative. Last, week’s story of Nicodemus is another example. These are not Dick and Jane encounters but clever repartee which shows re real degree of engagement between Jesus and the other person. Inserted into the dialogue with the Samaritan woman is series of stanza- like responses which seem as if they have been parachuted in but clearly take the discussion to a level which the participant did not expect.

The drink episode leads us to a transformation of the experience of thirst into a rather thinly veiled reference to Baptism much in the same vein as that found in the exchange with Nicodemus. At the same time, however the woman sees the possibility of flowing water as providing an end to her several times daily trudge to draw water from the well. Jesus response is to ask her to get her husband and return. What then follows is a clever exchange in which Jesus makes some observations about her life style . The response “I see you are a prophet, sir,” makes no sense in terms of what follows unless the woman is credited as having both a sense of humour. and piety. For, quite suddenly she raises out of nowhere the issue of the location of the temple.

The response does not continue the strife but transforms it by proclaiming:

God is spirit
Those who worship must worship in spirit and truth

The woman’s response must I think be seen as a carry-over from the pious entendre associated with the previous “I see you are a prophet” and so she is led to speculate about the promise of the Messiah. Here is the problem - to my knowledge the messianic expectation was not a part of the Samaritan tradition since it did not make use of the Writings and the Prophets. Is John’s implication that there is something self authenticating about Jesus words to the point that even those who are not expecting him still can recognize Him?

The arrival of the Disciples puts an end to the encounter as they mouth the expected dismissal of a Samaritan. The woman, however, goes back to town and continuing the reference to Jesus as prophet, tells how he knew all about her but adds “I wonder if he may be the Christ.” At this point, the Disciples raise the question of eating presumably since getting food had been their latest mission. Jesus response turns around the question of eating in much the same way as he had done with that of thirst

My food
is to do the will of the one who sent me,
and to complete his work

The section closes with a description of the response to Jesus by the Samaritan community which closes with the words

we have heard him for ourselves and we know that he is really is the Saviour of the world

which is a close parallel to the words of the woman in which we found the delicate hand of the Evangelist

I know that Messiah - that is, Christ - is coming and when he comes he will tell us everything.

That’s the end of the story or is it. Does the narrative have any real meaning or is it a clever script in which to set four sound bites? The encounter comes very early in the Gospel and forms a presentation which is quite distinct from the proclamation of the Sign and Wonders performed by Jesus which serve as organizing foci for the evangelist Possibly John is suggesting here in an almost trial fashion what he thinks may in fact be the words which provide the essential quality of the Messianic proclamation - ones which will be sufficiently obvious even to those who are outside of orthodox Jewry. Admittedly, the evangelist is taking a big risk, this may well be why the Samaritan section is so early in his narrative but at the same time since the Gospel itself is very late in reaching its final form - it may well reflect the situation of the Church in a Hellenic-Jewish world in which much of the cultural setting of Hebrew-speaking Judaism has very little meaning. he Jewish world of Jesus day was overwhelmingly Greek speaking and continued to be so.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I continue to be fascinated by the words living water. My food... God is spirit...While there is good reason to believe that for John as for those who constructed the liturgy of Baptism, the symbol reflected the power of the new life in the resurrected Jesus. At the same time, I think we can make too much of Baptism in the sense that while it may be our rite of initiation it is not the means of our identity to the world outside the community. It is, after all, a practice common to much of the non-Christian religious tradition and we must recognize that it reflects the most inner human longing for a wholeness which makes sense of death in the midst of life, Likewise, the desire to eat in its own way can be so obsessive that it overwhelms all of the dimensions which make us whole human beings while at the same time its absence makes life in the spirit nearly impossible. That God is spirit, notice the absence of the definite article, puts an end to the tiresome effort to give him a place. He does not require a heaven but he surely does need an earth. And that’s where He is to be found.

This short narrative highlights the dilemma of the Evangelist and the role of the Gospel in framing the life of Jesus . What words do you choose to bring out the good news. How do you make sure that their meaning is clear. How can they take us beyond the trivia and misunderstanding in which much of our lives are encased. Sometimes we seem to believe that unless we use the same words without change we are not answering these vital questions. Rather the words are symbols of the power that transforms the universal conditions of thirst, hunger and wonder into the presence of the Christ in our lives.