Tuesday March 29, 2011

Happy Birthday Amy Bolis!

John 4:8-10

"Jesus' disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, 'How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?' (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, 'If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, "Give me a drink," you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.'"

This is quickly starting to become "Defend the Samaritan Woman Week." Which is ironic, of course, because apparently we are still doing this same thing to this woman, now making her a pastiche of superficiality and misunderstanding of religion.

And yes, I suppose the Samaritan woman doesn't understand Jesus immediately or anything, but I think that her understanding of Him and appreciation for Him grows by lengths and bounds - an impressive rate of revelation any way you strike it. As Fulton J. Sheen details, she goes from calling Him "Jew" to "sir" to "prophet" to "Messiah" in what I imagine is record time. All because her heart and her mind were wide open. And, again, I can't help but think that she opened up to Jesus so quickly and so fully because of how He treated her - like a person.

But I've said all that before.

She had other reasons to wonder at Him. And this is the first (besides His ability to look at her and see the beautiful child of God that she was, just as she is): that Jesus refuses even to be aware of prejudice and divide amongst His people. He will not be hampered by the societal taboos we have established to keep ourselves from our brothers and sisters.

But that's not all the answer He gives. He doesn't just say, "Don't be silly about the whole Samaritan/Jew thing, I've been wanting to explain for centuries that you people were being stubborn ninnies about that whole thing," (although of course He would be more profound) but rather, "There is a bigger dichotomy that I am bringing down. If you understood that, you would not ask me how I manage to bridge the gap between Samaritan and Jew and ask me how I can help you to reach a greater unity with God."

Maybe she wasn't asking, as I would like to believe, how He manages to overcome the prejudices and societal norms which she considers a fact of life - which in their other forms have so wrought her life and reputation - but His answer is that Jesus came to effect an even bigger change. He came down to offer her the living waters of heaven. If she knew to Whom she spoke, she would not wonder that a Jew was bridging the gap to a Samaritan, she would wonder that God Himself was eliminating the divide between Himself and mankind. She would be shocked at such a revolution of the way of things - far beyond what she could imagine when she could not even understand how He bridged earthly gaps - and awed by His love in attempting to do so.

The barriers between Jews and Samaritans, the barriers between her and the rest of her village, were as nothing to Jesus, because the barrier He had crossed by being born, the barrier He destroyed by His death and resurrection, was so much more profound but breaking down all the same.

His response to her was that He came down to change more than the state of affairs on earth, He came to renegotiate the direct contact between Earth and Heaven.

And the Samaritan woman does have trouble making this leap, to understanding this new boundary-altering gift of God. But, well, who could blame her for that? It's not a metaphor she's failing to grasp, it's the idea of God becoming human and dying that she can't wrap her head around. Can any of us really? That's what faith is for. That's what love is for. It doesn't compute, and I know it only boggles my mind.

Dear Lord, help us while we are here on earth to remember that anything which keeps us from our brothers and sisters in You is false, help us to remember that we can always help and we can always reach out in love. Thank You, Lord, for all that You did, all that You suffered, in order to be close to us in our world and in our lives. May we always be blessed to remember Your blessings and be near You.