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Sermon - The Samaritan Woman - 24th February 2008
St Alban’s Epping 7:00am, 8.00 am
Readings: Exodus 17:1-7 Psalm 95 Romans 5:1-11 John 4:5-42
The story of the Samaritan woman transforms conventional expectations and challenges the status quo. The setting of this story in Samaria is a scandal that would have been noted by first-century readers. Jesus openly challenges and breaks open two: the boundary between "chosen people" and "re jected people," between male and female.
This story can be read alongside the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:29-37. In Luke, the scandal is that the despised Samaritan is the neighbour, the agent of mercy. The Samaritan traveller touches the injured man's wounds as he nurses him, an obvious violation of the restriction against contact between Jews and Samaritans. In Luke, Jesus holds up the Samaritan traveller as an example, suggesting that acts of mercy should be governed by need and compassion, not by society’s conventions and fears. This mornings reading shows a similar challenge but in a more radical form, because it is not a character in a parable who upsets social conventions but Jesus himself. Jesus initiates contact with a Samaritan, asking her to attend to his need. He then offers the Samaritan woman the gift of God and reveals his identity to her. He treats the Samaritan woman and later the Samaritan villagers, as a full human beings, a worthy recipient of the grace of God, not as the despised enemy from whom to fear contamination.
The idea of protecting boundaries between the chosen and the despised peoples is not limited to the Samaritan/Jewish conflict of the first century. Throughout human history, people and nations have defined themselves over against other groups. The history of race relations in Australia, the White Australia policy, the notion of racial purity that was at the ideological heart of Hitler's Germany, the ethnic wars that wax and wane across the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe all have their roots in the same fears that divided Jews from Samaritans: the fear of contamination, the fear of sharing one's gift and privileged call with others.
The reading calls the church and us as individual Christians, to stop shaping our life according to society’s definitions of who is acceptable and to show the same openness to those who are different that Jesus did when he travelled in Samaria. We are asked to cross boundaries as Jesus does instead of constructing them. It does no good to cling to notions of a privileged people or a privileged place, because Jesus has already ushered in a time when "you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem".
The story also challenges boundaries constructed on the basis of gender. The disciples' astonishment does not derive from ethnic considerations but because Jesus speaks with a woman. Jesus will not be governed by those fears and prejudices, either and so he treats the woman as fully human.
The ways in which the woman's role in this story has been misinterpreted because of imported assumptions about women's sexuality, intellect and interests. The Samaritan woman is never judged as a sinner. On the contrary, she is portrayed as a model of growing faith. As the story unfolds, we see the woman's faith grow as she comes to consider the possibility that Jesus might be the Messiah. Of even greater significance, however, the woman is portrayed as a witness. She invited her fellow townspeople to come and see Jesus.
The Samaritan woman's successful evangelisation of her town belies the myth of the privileged position of men as witnesses and disciples. Because of her witness, the number of persons who bel ieve in Jesus grows. Jesus treats her as a serious conversation partner, the first person in the Gospel to whom he makes a bold statement of self-revelation. The Samaritan woman's story summons churches to re-examine the boundaries they set around women's witness and work. Just this week I had a startling example of the invisibility of women in our Diocesan offices. Ruth Shatford, Peter Deall and I had an interview with a number of Diocesan officers and I was stunned in the manner that Ruth was treated, whether intentionally or not. It was as if she was invisible. I felt hurt for her by such rudeness and lack of understanding that men and women are made in the image of God, not women in the image of men!
Jesus' actions as he embraces both Samaritans and women, are one example of the way this story challenges the status quo. Jesus models alternatives for people of faith and show how human interrelationships are transformed in the light of the resurrected Christ. Jesus' words in this passage also challenge the status quo. They do not attack it directly, but, like his actions, suggest what is possible in the new reality ushered in by his presence.
Jesus' words overflow with metaphor: living water, the hour, food, harvest. Each of these metaphors attempts to open reality in fresh ways to make contact with people. Jesus wants to open the eyes of the Samaritan woman and his disciples so that they can see what is being offered to them in the present instead of continuing to view everything through the lens of old realities. Jesus wants the Samaritan woman to see who is speaking with her at this moment and the gifts that he offers. He wants her to see that the present moment is the time of salvation. Jesus wants his disciples to see that the harvest is ready now, contrary to popular understandings of being sometime in the future. Jesus takes familiar images and fills them with new meaning in order to open up for his listeners the possibilities of a life defined by God's gifts. The metaphors keep the terms of the conversations always fresh, always suggestive, always open to new meanings in changing circumstances.
Everything is to be newly defined by the arrival of the encounter with Jesus. God's salvation is available now, to all who will receive it. Salvation will be offered on God's own terms, however, not necessarily in the form that those who wait on it have determined in advance. The Samaritans' acclamation of Jesus as saviour of the world reminds us of that. The saviour in whom we put our faith does not conform to prior expectations. The reality of God's Spirit filled presence in Jesus means that faith in him “is new every morning”. We cannot fit the God who is beyond all names and shapes into preconceived definitions.
The woman, the disciples and the Samaritan villagers all received more from Jesus than their conventions and assumptions had led them to expect. We could say that once again Jesus transformed ordinary water into wine. An incredulous Samaritan woman becomes a witness to the gospel, Jesus’ questioning disciples become co-workers in the harvest, the despised Samaritans spend two days with the "saviour of the world." This story is a story of promise, of expectations overturned and surpassed. It suggests that the life of faith and discipleship will be refreshed and reanimated by attending to Jesus' vision of transformed reality and, most important, to Jesus himself. Jesus' metaphors of living water and worship in spirit and truth invite us to a new relationship to God and to one another through his incarnate presence amongst us.
This story is recorded for us so that we too, can sense that we have heard Jesus for ourselves. As a result of story, we may come to recognize ourselves as a "Samaritan", one to whom the good news has come in unexpected places at unexpected times.
Reference: The New Interpreter’s Bible Vol IX. Abingdon Press.