Sharing the grace of God
Lent 3A | John 4:5-42
How did Jesus end up in this Samaritan city? In verses three and four, right before the start of this passage, it says
…“he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria.”
…he had to go…
That word, had, is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
The custom
What Judeans usually do, when traveling in the north is to go around Samaria. It adds time to the journey, of course, but it creates a different kind of convenience.
A counter example from our world: to go from Michigan to New York, for instance, the shortest route is through southern Ontario. It is much faster. But if we don’t have friendly border-crossings, we’d certainly have to go around.
That the expectation was that Jesus and the disciples would go around Samaria and avoid it is certain. So it is telling that they don’t.
When the narrator says that “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans” we should hear this as a tremendous understatement. Because, in this context, the evangelist means it literally. As in sharing a bucket for water. But the reader should know that it is about all the things. Like roads, space, and community.
The Samaritans in Jesus’s time were their nemeses. The McCoys to their Hatfields. They don’t share anything. Not even air.
What Had Implies
So what does the evangelist mean by Jesus had to travel through Samaria?
There are really two options. The first is our common use of the term, which is about as weasley linguistically as saying we need all the things we want.
Had becomes a shorthand for all the things we desire to take as given.
“We have to get this done today.”
“I have to speak with you.”
“You have to clean the bathroom this afternoon.”
This first vision of the word implies restraint and control. It limits possibilities and defines the terms. Which is exactly why we use it.
If I have a broken taillight and a police officer gives me a fix-it ticket, it is pretty fair to say I have to fix it. Because I don’t want to suffer the consequences. I may technically have a choice, but it isn’t a reasonable one.
But we also have to get something when we’re stopping at Starbucks, we have to get dessert because we’re out and they look so good, or we have to parent like our parents because “we turned out fine.”
This vision of have is the one we most often turn to. Because we are fixated on the concept of choice. And we can be obsessively technical. But more importantly, we also want to persuade and convince ourselves that there is no other choice.
The Evangelist, however, uses the other.
Had can also imply guidance, expectation, and purpose.
When a Muslim says that they have to pray five times a day, we say “Of course you do!” It isn’t a question of the technical, but of the expected.
How often do people say “Oh, I can’t say that; we’re in a church.” [Like we don’t know what naughty word you were about to use. Unless you were about to get really creative, there’s really only a handful…]
When Jesus had to go through Samaria, it wasn’t because the road leads him there. As if there were no other options. And it wasn’t to make himself feel better about his choice. It was because God leads him there. And therefore, he doesn’t have a choice.
And this works because of priority.
God’s will be done.
Jesus doesn’t just believe this. He makes it so.
He goes through Samaria because God leads him there. And because God is leading him there, he had to go.
And when he gets there, he’s worn out by noon and lounges by a well he shouldn’t be lounging by. He strikes up a conversation with a woman he shouldn’t be talking to. Then asks for something from her that he shouldn’t receive.
He had to go there. To transgress the boundaries. Of the border. Of the land and the customs. What divides these people and has divided them for centuries.
Our Boundaries
Now, speaking of boundaries, we have to at least recognize what we do to the woman in this story. And it is only fitting given that we celebrated International Women’s Day this week.
We need to talk about the boundaries around this woman. The ones imposed then and now. Sexual piety has, for centuries, been treated as a central tenant of Christianity. And for the last forty years, it has been treated by some as so central that they would declare war on fellow Christians. Therefore, we might have the entirely wrong impression of this encounter.
We might think that she feels shame. That Jesus wishes her to feel shame. Or that we, the readers, ought to impose shame onto her. This is entirely false.
A better example for us is a Jane Austen novel. Think Sense and Sensibility. This woman is trying to survive. And doing so in a culture that doesn’t allow her to do so without a husband.
And, let us remember, surviving in a culture with a sexual ethic that defines marriage by sex, not ceremony. Because women were to be seen only as property. And, ultimately, only the kind of property a man of at least some means could afford.
Jesus transgresses that boundary to expose her humanity, not impose a status as property. And he doesn’t protect that status. He frees her from it.
Seeing her
So when the woman says that Jesus told her everything she had ever done, she isn’t talking about sex. She’s talking about her attempts to survive. What she’s really saying is that he knows her. And unlike everyone else, he isn’t judging her. He’s willing to break boundaries to give God’s grace to her.
That’s what she tells the people about.
People who probably think they had to shame her. Or that they had no choice but to share nothing with her. Neighbors, friends, total strangers. People who are thinking they had to live like this.
And she tells them about a man who is different. Who transgresses those boundaries. Who has shown her that she doesn’t have to do things this way. Because he isn’t.
His knowing about her isn’t merely a trick. Because he doesn’t want something from her. He’s offering freedom instead.
So she tells people.
Of course they need to see it for themselves! She is telling them about this grace. Something so beautiful, so true, so important, so transformative for everyone, that she has to tell people.
This is why they first come to believe because she told them. And why that belief was transformed by their own encounters with him.
Because telling, sharing, communing with each other is our work. And Jesus does the rest.
Forget Need vs. Want
We must throw away that voice in our heads; the one of the teacher or the parent saying “that’s not a need, it’s a want.” That technical, persuasive, controlling voice that thinks only in objective reasoning vs. base desires. Trash it. Because it is preventing us from truly knowing the scope of God’s grace.
Jesus had to come to Samaria because that’s where the work was. That’s where he met the woman he could free through grace. And the people, thousands of people, separated from the faith, would be restored.
He had to. Just like the woman had to. Those people had to.
And Jesus invites his disciples to see that. Just as he invites us to see it now.
That we have to be here. In this neighborhood.
As our original building from 170 years ago, near 5th and Cherry and this one here, for 160 years served a small town growing into a city. Served the railroad station and the redlight district. Right in the heart of Sin City. Later, the country club set with their drivers and their colored servants. The Baby Boom and building up of the university. Then rusting belt, decline, and desperation. Sin City’s coming back!
And because we pray “your kingdom come, your will be done” we have to be here.
We might make too much of our own ideas and expectations. For how things are done around here. The one essential thing, however, is that we serve God first. And God is freeing us of all those other expectations.
Because we are here. The harvest is ready. And we have known the grace. We have to share it.