3rd Sunday in Lent
Texts: John 4:5-42;
Romans 5:1-11
YouTube version: https://youtu.be/6rjEA0_5fy4
THE ‘LIVING WATER’ WHICH HEALS DEEP-SEATED HATE
In two weeks, on March 26, it will be the 42nd anniversary of my first sermon, delivered at my seminary teaching parish in Gary, IN. Given that the lectionary has a three-year cycle, I’m near completing my 14th time through the lectionary. One would think that after 14 times through with a set of scripture readings, there’d be nothing new. But I’m happy to report that this week I encountered a reading of today’s Gospel that adds new layers of meaning to an already rich text.
The reading itself has been around for a while: Luther Seminary (our largest ELCA seminary) Professor Craig Koester offered it in 1990. But other more dominant readings have been around for hundreds of years, and they are the ones which tend to dominate the scene — a scene dominated by white male scholars for centuries. Something fresh has happened over the past 50 years since the voices of women scholars and scholars of color have become more prominent. So it is that a story about a Samaritan woman might receive fresh readings from fresh eyes.
[Extemporize following sections]
Recap our Readings in Lent
• First Sunday in Lent: The symbol of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis 2-3 conveys that the sin of Us-vs-Them thinking has been a key component of human sin since our origins.
• Second Sunday in Lent: Nicodemus, a leader of how Us-vs-Them thinking plays out in his Jewish culture, is told by Jesus that he must be born again from above in order to enter God’s reign. Born again from above means Human Being 2.0 in which our human thinking takes on God’s perspective of loving everything and everyone — no Us-vs-Them thinking. (See today’s reading from Romans 5 in which God lovingly sent Jesus to save us while we were still enemies.) God’s perspective is akin to an astronaut viewing the earth from above — no lines dividing nations and peoples.
• Today we have a story of Jesus overcoming one of the most insidious forms of Us-vs-Them thinking in his culture: the bitter hatred between Jews and Samaritans.
Background on Jews and Samaritans
• Samaria was a region between Judea, and its capital city of Jerusalem in the south, and Jesus’ home of Galilee in the north.
• A thousand years earlier under King David it had all marked the nation comprised of the twelve tribes of Israel (from the twelves sons of Jacob). Jews and Samaritans, in short, were both descended from the sons of Jacob. It was a bitter ‘sibling rivalry.’
• After David and Solomon, Israel split into a Northern Kingdom, comprised mostly of what became Samaria, and a Southern Kingdom, comprised of what became known as Judea. So for 900 years before Jesus their histories had diverged — once all Israelites, Jews and Samaritans became bitter enemies.
• The ‘final nail in the coffin’ came in 128 BCE when John Hyrcanus, high priest and ruler of the Jews, destroyed the capital city of Shechem and destroyed the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerazim.
Setting the Scene for the Fresh Reading
• The fresh reading centers on vv. 16-19 in which Jesus reveals her having five husbands and currently living with a man not her husband — first, some context.
• In Jesus’ time, Jews hated Samaritans so much that they generally went around Samaria when traveling between Judea and Galilee.
• Jesus chooses to go directly thru Samaria and then does something unthinkable: engages a Samaritan woman in conversation.
• At a well, no less! Historically, a place of marriage betrothals: Moses and his wife Zipporah, Jacob and Rachel, and many others. What was Jesus thinking!
Fresh Reading: Jesus Brings Reconciliation of Jews and Samaritans
• vv. 16-19 are not just about the woman’s personal history of five husbands but symbolic of Samaria’s culture history of inter-marrying with five other cultures and then currently ‘living with’ the Roman occupation.
• Key background bible verse: 2 Kings 17:24: “The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria in place of the people of Israel; they took possession of Samaria and settled in its cities.” Human beings, with our Us-vs-Them thinking have the habit of finding quotes from scripture to justify our hatreds and prejudices. Other example: pre-Civil War southerners using the curse of Ham in Gen 9:18-25 to justify enslaving Africans.
• This reading also better fits the context of Jesus having a heady discussion with the woman about living water and places of worship: bottom line, that Jesus came to help us transcend such things that we might live in harmony. No Us-vs-Them; only Us.
Paul J. Nuechterlein
Bethlehem Lutheran Church,
Muskego, WI, March 12, 2023
YouTube version: https://youtu.be/6rjEA0_5fy4
