Scripture Readings: Exodus 17:1-7, Psalm 95:6-11, Romans 5:1-11, John 4:5-26, 39-42

Collect: Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen

The Samaritan woman stepped out of the house in which she was living in the middle of the day. She looked both ways to be sure no one was there to torment or taunt her. She was always careful when she left the house for her daily chores. She chose this time of the day particularly because all the other women had finished their morning chores and they were safely home, sheltered from the heat of mid day. These other women of the city met and shared their duties together in the early morning around the community well. The house the woman lived in was not technically her home and she knew that she was the subject of much of the “sharing” that happened around the well in the cool morning times. That is why she always waited until the coast was clear and the day was so hot and miserable that no one would be there to point and whisper.

When she stepped out of that house on that day; she had no inkling – there was not even the tiniest clue that anything would be different. She knew the society in which she lived. She knew her place in that society – and as uncomfortable as it was, she definitely knew the impossibility of changing her position in that town. The situation in which she lived and the choices she had made in her life left little room for hope. (She may have felt as empty and parched inside as the desert landscape upon which she looked.)

The first factors in her bleak life had nothing to do with her choices, however. She inherited her racial and cultural place in the social structure of Israel. She was a Samaritan. As a Samaritan, she was subject to the stereotypes and prejudices of the day. Samaritans were not considered to be “true Jews”.

How did this animosity between Samaritans and the “true Jews” come about? It started about 700 years earlier when the nation of Israel was taken into captivity by the Babylonians. In this captivity, many, but not all the people were carried away into Babylon to become slaves. Not all the Israelites were taken away, though. A few groups and individuals were left behind. After the defeated people were moved out, the Babylonian victors moved other conquered people into the area. During the 70 years of captivity, the Israelites that were left behind intermarried with the new people brought in and that resulted in a “mixed-blood” race that were part Jew and part Gentile.

To make this situation even worse, this race of “half-breeds” practiced a blended form of the Jewish religion. They only accepted a portion of the religious writings – the Pentateuch – the first five books of our Bible which were attributed to Moses. On top of that they incorporated some practices of the pagan religions of these other groups. This blended practice of Judaism offended the “pure” Jews, so when they returned from exile, they systematically drove these “blended cultures” into the area north of Jerusalem called Samaria.

Six hundred thirty years!!!  Six hundred thirty years after the exile!! This was a deep seated prejudice that had been held on to for generations. Devour Jews would not have anything to do with the Samaritans. They would not touch them, they would not talk to them and they would not even willingly walk through the area in which the Samaritans lived. These were, for the woman cautiously peering from her doorway, obviously insurmountable problems of racial, cultural and religious prejudice.

Added to this though was a personal factor over which she had no control. She was a woman in a time and place completely dominated by men. As a woman of those times, her value and societal status were directly related to the value and status of the men in her life (father, husband, and even brothers). Women at that time were expected to keep in their place – silent and invisible - to the ruling culture.

Finally, she was bound by her personal situation. This woman, who was sneaking out of the house in the hottest part of the day so she could avoid the gaze and gossip of her neighbors, had been in five disastrous marriages. We have no more details about those marriages, but they must have ended either in divorce or the death of her spouse. I imagine that whichever circumstances were involved, each event would have been devastating. Was it personal choice? Was it just plain bad luck? Was it really her fault? We will never know. But I am sure that this was a topic among the others around that well in the mornings. We do know that whatever brought her to the current place, she was now living in a relationship without the legal security or religious and social benefits of marriage.

She was for all practical purposes, a truly insignificant person: racially mixed, culturally inferior, by gender invisible and mute and by personal and sexual situations an outcast.

Imagine her surprise, as she approached that day, to see a figure sitting and resting by the well. She had planned to the best of her ability to avoid all contact. She must have shrunk even more into herself when she realized that it was a man and not just any man but on top of that a Jewish man. Eyes down, make yourself invisible, you can draw your water quickly and escape back to the solitude and security of the house.

Then the utter shock of it—the Jewish man spoke to her. She was so taken aback when Jesus asked her for a drink of water that she must have totally forgotten her place. She spoke back to him, “Why are you talking to me?” “How is it that you, (a man and) a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria? (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)” This just wasn’t done, especially in the open by the public well. This just wasn’t done.

The conversation that followed broke down many barriers. I started with two people from very different background, potentially enemies. They started from two very different assumptions and sets of life experiences. The woman knows something about Jews and their relationship with Samaritans and the gentile world. She expected Jesus to behave toward her like others have behaved.  Jesus, also knows something about Samaritans and starts the conversation by assuming that she is ignorant. He said, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink’…. If you knew about God!!

This unlikely conversation continues. What starts out with comments and responses from opposite perceptions of the other and their expected behavior and knowledge progresses through the point where each begins to realize that the other has something to say.  The woman begins to see Jesus as an individual, not just a stereotypical Jewish male. She even reveals something personal about herself when she responds at a point, “I have no husband.”

Jesus begins to recognize that the woman is a truthful person with some knowledge and faith as she discusses the differences in Samaritan and Jewish worship practices. He appreciates her as worthy of a religious debate. A careful reading of this interaction between these two, in the hot sun around the well, shows a lively interchange of ideas. This is not an example of a much more knowledgeable rabbi or priest imparting superior knowledge. It is a give and take discussion of the meaning of worship and a persons relationship to God. This is not unlike other instances where the teen-aged Jesus became immersed in debate with priests in the temple at Jerusalem and forgot to meet his parents for the return to their home in Nazareth, or Jesus debating the young Pharisee man about the meaning of wealth and its relationship to God’s kingdom.

What began as a startling request for a drink of water progressed to an intimate sharing of the nature of God, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth”, followed by the recognition that this stranger resting by the community well was indeed the “expected Messiah”.  Barriers were broken, stereotypes were shattered, only then could the conversation continue into those deeper levels.

The personal conversation continued and expanded even more into that entire Samaritan city because the woman, overcame her personal fears and ignored the barriers she experienced in that community. She dropped the water jar where she stood, she forgot the daily chores she had come to perform and reported the event to the people in her city. She did not hide behind her personal shame but openly declared  ”Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!” The spreading of this spiritual conversation continued because “Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony. So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

We each painfully know, just as those Samaritans knew, our own inadequacies and faults. But are we building barriers based on our own fears? Are we building barriers based on prejudice of racial, gender, sexual, religious or cultural differences?

God is always challenging our thinking and assumptions, Jesus’ ministry, not just this example at the well in Samaria, but throughout his entire earthly ministry can be seen in that way. He ate with sinners, he spoke to women, he healed on the Sabbath and did all sorts of things which shook up the power structure.  He did this not because he liked to upset people, Jesus challenged those around him to see the world from a larger view, to accept those outside our comfort zone. Jesus was acting as an agent of God to the despised and downtrodden, to recognize those outside our social circle as fellow children of God. Jesus acted to break down the barriers that they and we have erected to protect ourselves from the other.

All these barriers can be overcome, if we desire. It is not easy, but it can be done if we as Jesus did, first “Move out of our comfort zone.” Secondly, we must “look outside of and move beyond our social circle.” Finally, we must “be prepared to go it alone.”

Each of us can be useful to God in challenging and changing the stereotypes and prejudices that we encounter. We don’t have to be perfect to do so.  The Samaritan woman was not perfect, she was painfully aware of it as our story began. In the end, though, her barriers were broken down.  And she also became instrumental in breaking down the barriers for her community.

I invite you, as we continue in this season of Lenten reflection, to explore where you may have built barriers; to find places in your life where you could move out of your comfort zone and become an agent of positive change in your own life and the lives of those with whom you share this planet.

 Amen.