What If We Gave Up Division For Lent
In the Gospel of John 4:5-42 we read the story of Jesus’ encounter
with the Samaritan Woman at Jacob’s well.
As I reflect on this story in the middle of the season of Lent, I wonder
what lessons we can draw from this scripture.
Not just for the people of Jesus’ time, or even for the people living some
seventy years later at the time the Gospel was written, but what lessons can we
draw for those of us who
live in another place and time.
It seems to me that we can learn something from this confrontation
about how and where to worship; about how to treat other people; and maybe even a little bit about who Jesus is. We may, in fact, learn something about our
relationship to God and others in a world full if divisions and conflict. How does our relationship with God affect our
relationships with those with whom we differ or with whom we have honest, and
at times, serious conflicts?
To begin with, Jesus found himself, or perhaps put himself, in an
awkward situation. One in which he, a
Jewish man, was with a person he should have ignored: a Samaritan and a
woman. The first major conflict to surface
was about where to worship, about the validity and importance of one’s religion:
1 9The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I
see that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshipped on
this mountain, but you say that the place where
people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ 21Jesus said to her,
‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither
on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You worship what you do
not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23But, the hour is
coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in
spirit and truth . . . .
It is so easy for us to believe that our understanding of faith,
of who God is and how we relate to God is the one and only way. I believe this confrontation about where to
worship has a lot to say to 21st Century people as well: that God is
bigger than most of us believe God to be; that God is not a Christian and that
other avenues of access to God are as valid as ours is and that there is
certainly more than one way or one place in which and from which to worship
God. This is not to say that all religions are alike, but to say
that, “the hour is coming, and is now here,
when the true worshippers will worship the Father (God) in spirit and truth.”John
4:23
This relationship with God leads directly into our relationship
with others. Jesus did talk to a woman and a
Samaritan. In fact, he talked with many
Samaritans when they came out to see the man the woman told them about. I believe Jesus has set us an example of how
we are to treat and respect others, even when they differ from us in race,
religion, sexuality, and politics. We
cannot change our race, our ethnicity, our gender, or our sexual orientation. There are some things that are changeable but
often with great difficulty: our religion, our political beliefs and our opinions. What we can do in the latter cases is “love
the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength, and love
our neighbor, and even the stranger, as ourselves.” And yes, this includes not only Christians
and Jews, but Buddhists, Hindus, atheists and Muslims. Yes, even Muslims. And no, they do not all want to destroy “us”
anymore than all Christians or all
Americans want to destroy them.
Our world is
complicated. The world has always been
complicated. Our goal in a world like
this is not to have all the truth, but to seek the truth wherever it may be
found, and to “worship the Lord in spirit and in truth.
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