Lent
March 18, 2017
Scripture Reading: John 4:5-42
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’ –John 4:7-15
My mother was interested in genealogy and I inherited some of that interest. In graduate school, I reported to my field placement and was introduced around the office on my first day. I soon met a woman whose last name was the same as my maternal grandmother’s maiden name. As I greeted her I mentioned that fact to which she replied, “Oh, I must tell my husband he is really into genealogy.” I told her my mother did genealogy also and we soon had them corresponding with each other. They were cousins several times removed.
The Samaritan’s residing on what is now called the West Bank were similarly distant cousins of the Jews who returned from Babylon. The Samaritans were not among the ones taken into slavery. While they shared the ancestral faith-link passed down through the children of Jacob, their styles of worship and understandings of God differed from those of their distant cousins who returned from Babylon to the homeland. I am sure they both thought theirs was the right truth. Their relationship was strained to say the least. Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.
Jesus’ talking to an unknown woman was taboo as was conversing with a Samaritan. It is hard to break away from such long-held attitudes and perceptions. In the United States differences are subtler, but they run deep under the surface of our exterior communications. Nevertheless, all humans are cousins to some degree. Hard to imagine, isn’t it? The relatively new technique of analyzing DNA to identify heredity patterns causes us to realize how interrelated we all are. Since we were young children we have heard the story of Adam and Eve, and have taken seriously the events that led to the beginning of sin. We may not pay enough attention to the implications of the story that we are all kin.
Prayer: Creator of all, help us to see your image in each of our fellow humans. Let your presence heal the breaches that may have formed over time so that we can learn to live together as your family. Amen.