Thursday, March 15, 2012

The Ides of March

John 4:15-19

THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA

"I do not have a husband."

It was not a defiant challenge this time. There was no fire in my eyes nor spirit in my voice. There was only a kind of numb sorrow. Disappointment. The only man to really look at me in years had only done so because he didn't know that I was the black widow of Samaria. And even when he did, he didn't really see who I was. I fell for some two-bit magician's trick, and he would never even know how deeply he hurt me. Kind eyes that had seemed to see me and find me worthy. But only because he had no idea.

"You are right in saying, 'I do not have a husband.' For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband."

I blinked. He knew?

"What you have said is true."

I have tried many times to find words for what I felt in that moment. I sucked in a ragged breath, and if he had not caught the rope, my jar would have been lost in the well. It was some time before I let the breath out. Some time in which I tried desperately to make it make sense - to comprehend that He, a holy man, a prophet of God, could know every sin I had made and still to look at me as He had - with love and respect and belief that I could - the I could be worthy of living water, the blessings of God.

I couldn't do it. "Sir, I can see that you are a prophet."

So why? Why do you come to me? Not to a worthy woman of the town, full of honor and piety and holiness. Reaching out for such as You day and night, whereas I stopped daring to reach out for anyone oh, so long ago.

Then I blinked. There came the thought: was everything we had thought about religion wrong? Were the rules and the bindings and the judgments, were they all false?

I started with a slightly less foundation-shaking question, only the central one of our collective existence, Samaritan and Jew, for centuries. "Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim the place to worship is in Jerusalem."

His answer was an answer to the question I asked, but also to the one I did not yet dare.

"Woman, believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and is now come when true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in the spirit and in truth."

I blinked. The world looked the same, but everything had changed.