I was going to start today's sermon by telling you that Ginger is wrong. But, because I do so love being married to her, I’ve reconsidered.
Instead, I’ll tell you what she told me after I told her what I was going to tell you. She said to me:
“No, I’m not wrong; you’re wrong. ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’ is a terrible song, and I don’t know why you like it.”
I can’t help it. It’s a catchy tune and a wonderfully ironic song, because the whole song is them talking about Bruno!
Also, much of what is sung displays the Madrigal family’s prejudice against, and misconceptions about, Bruno; but one verse, sung by cousin Dolores (that’s her on the right), contains the actual truth about Bruno—yet that one verse is sung twice as fast and at a whisper, making the truth hard to hear, much less understand. Instead, it’s the assumptions and misconceptions of the family members that stand out.
It’s a brilliant bit of songwriting.
In Jesus’ time, the song the Jews might have been singing was, “We don’t talk about Samaritans.” Parents would tell their children, “we don’t talk about Samaritans, and we certainly don’t talk to Samaritans…”
And then the parents would go off on a lecture filled with half-truths and assumptions, all about Samaritans, and why they were such bad people.
They live in the wrong region. They speak with a funny accent. They eat the wrong foods. They teach their children to hate Jews. They’re ugly!
And, they worship God in all the wrong ways. They believe that the best place to worship God is on a mountain, while the Jews believe that the best place to worship God is in Jerusalem.
The parents were just passing on the prejudices and misconceptions that they themselves had been taught. Their leaders emphasized over and over how evil the Samaritans were. They probably preached many sermons titled, “We Don’t Talk About Samaritans,” in which they did talk all about Samaritans, detailing all the reasons why people should not talk about Samaritans, or to Samaritans, or have anything to do with Samaritans…
So anytime we read in the Bible a story that involves a Samaritan, we need to remember all this.
Often, today, the news media will refer to someone as a “Good Samaritan,” someone who stopped to offer aid or assistance to a stranger.
But, Biblically speaking, the comparison would only apply if the person who stopped to offer aid was an adversary or enemy of the one they helped.
So if you’re, say, a Dodgers fan (I know we have a few), a “good Samaritan” would be a Giants fan who went out of their way to help. If you drive a hybrid car with Bernie Sanders bumper stickers, a “good Samaritan” would be a pickup truck with a confederate flag and Fox News bumper sticker stopping and showing extraordinary kindness to help.
It’s really an unimaginable thing, for someone in Jesus’ community to think of a Samaritan as “good.” Samaritans were NOT considered good, they were BAD in every possible way, and were to be avoided if at all possible.
—
In our story today it says that Jesus “had to go through Samaria.” That makes it sound like he had no other choice, that there was no other way to get to where he needed to go—which is what one would assume if he did, in fact, go through Samaria. Why would anyone do that, if they didn’t have to?
But actually, there was another way. There was a road that went around Samaria that he could have used. That’s what good Jews did, precisely so that they didn’t have to risk encountering a Samaritan while they traveled.
So, what does it mean, that Jesus had to go through Samaria?
It means that the Spirit was leading him through Samaria, that God wanted him to go through Samaria, that God had arranged an appointment for Jesus in Samaria (as I once heard James Forbes put it), and when God sets up an appointment for you, you don’t cancel.
So, Jesus had to go through Samaria.
And there, in the city of Sychar, he sat down by a well to rest.
This was at noon, right in the middle of the day.
No one came to wells in the middle of the day. It was hot; too hot for carrying water. If fetching water was on your to-do list, you’d do it early in the morning, when it was cool, and again in the evening. But not in the middle of the day.
Which means that Jesus would be spared having to interact with any Samaritan—or so one would think.
And yet, while he was sitting there, in the middle of the day—when all the other women from town were at home, perhaps taking a midday break from all their chores—this woman (this Samaritan woman!) appeared with her empty jug, to fetch some water.
And Jesus knew that this was the appointment that had been made for him.
I don’t know that the woman knew that. I imagine she was startled to see someone sitting by the well in the middle of the day—and even more startled to realize that it was a Jewish man. (“What is HE doing here?”)
It made her hesitate in her steps. It made her think about turning back, heading back home, except that she needed water; and she couldn’t (she just couldn’t) come later, when all the other women from town came to get their water.
Cautiously, she approached the well. Maybe he would leave her alone. Maybe she could fill her jug, and be on her way. Maybe—
“Give me a drink.”
Oh!
“How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman, of Samaria?”
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.”
Jesus knew why she was at the well at the middle of the day; he knew why she came now, instead of in the morning or the evening, when all the other women came.
It was because, in her community, she was the topic of gossip, the outcast, the one with a bad reputation, the one not welcome in any social circle.
By coming at the middle of the day, she could avoid the stares, the insults, the taunting. She could fetch her water in peace; and even though it was a lonely peace, it was better than being subject to the ridicule and bullying she received from her community.
Seeing this Jewish man there when she expected to be alone caught her off guard. She didn’t want to talk to this Jewish man. She knew that custom forbade talking to him, not only because he was a Jew, but also because he was a male and she was a female.
If he wanted to talk to her, the only proper way would be for him to go to her husband, tell the husband, and the husband would then (if he felt like it) pass that information on to her.
That was the way it worked, in a society where women were viewed more as property than as partners in life. It was not appropriate for a man to talk to a woman directly. He needed to talk to her husband.
But, the issue of her husband was long and complicated—and she certainly didn’t want to get into all that with this Jewish stranger. So she replied, “Sir, don’t talk to me about living water; you have no bucket, and the well is very deep.”
Skipping ahead a little bit—not because what comes next is unimportant, but simply because of time—Jesus says: “Go, call your husband.”
And she says, “Yeah, well, I have no husband.”
And Jesus says, “You are right. You’ve had five husbands, and the one you’re with now is not your husband.”
Bam! There it is. Conventional wisdom was that women were created for marriage. Marriage was their purpose; any interaction in the public arena was to take place through her husband.
But apparently, this woman had been dismissed by five separate men—we don’t know why. All this automatically disqualified her from any respect, any power, any recognition in any public arena.
She fully expected Jesus to dismiss her as someone not worth talking to.
But instead, Jesus continued talking to her, and not in any sort of derogatory way. Their conversation turned theological, if you can believe it—not all that different in form from the conversation we heard last week, between Jesus and the learned religious teacher Nicodemus.
The conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman was theological. It was academic! It was like they were both distinguished teachers, rabbis, sages.
No one had ever talked to her like that, as an equal, before.
And this conversation, recorded for us at length by John, allows us to see the truth about her that none of her neighbors could see: that she had dignity and worth, and that she was capable of being a true conversation partner in matters of religion and theology and doctrine; that any mistakes she may have committed or any indignities committed against her did not disqualify her from intelligent public discourse on important theological issues.
None of those who knew her could grasp this truth; either that, or they chose not to grasp this truth… in the same way that the Madrigal family couldn’t grasp the truth about Bruno, or chose not to grasp the truth about Bruno.
The conversation between Jesus and this Samaritan woman continued until eventually the disciples—who had gone to the city to buy some food—arrived; and they were astonished to find Jesus talking with this Samaritan woman, about issues of religion and theology and doctrine.
But to Jesus, the fact that she was a woman, or the fact that she was a Samaritan, or the fact that she had been divorced five times, did not disqualify her from being a conversation partner.
And this, the disciples found astonishing.
You know what’s really astonishing? That last week, five Southern Baptist churches—including Saddleback Church—were kicked out of their denomination, because they affirm women in ministerial leadership. Imagine, in 2023, thinking that women are unqualified to be teachers and preachers of the faith!
Imagine how much poorer we’d be if we didn’t have, say, the witness of Jerena Lee (pictured here), the first African-American preacher. Imagine how much poorer we’d be if we didn’t have the witness of our church’s current General Minister and President, Teresa Hord Owens, or her predecessor, Sharon Watkins. Imagine how much poorer we’d be if we didn’t have the witness of the Samaritan woman Jesus met at the well, or the Syrophoenician woman who corrected Jesus’ theology, or the women who saw the empty tomb and were the first ones to proclaim the good news of Christ’s resurrection…
I’m glad John gave so much space in his gospel to this story; and I’m glad that we got to hear it all, especially in this Women’s History Month.
Not only do we get to see this Samaritan woman engage in an intellectual, theological conversation with Jesus, we then get to see her rush back to her city, and tell everyone there about Jesus, and the living water he offers.
In other words, she ran back, and preached good news. And in doing so, she herself became a part of the good news.
And that is how it is in the kingdom of God. Those who are dismissed as being unworthy end up being the leaders. The ones who are kicked out of churches and denominations are often, in fact, the ones who possess the gospel.
And the ones we’re told not to talk about—whether it’s Bruno, or the Samaritan woman who has to go to the well in the middle of the day, or anyone else who is deemed unsuitable by judgmental, hypocritical authorities because of their gender or their race or their sexuality—they are the ones who can help us find the living water we long for.
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