HOW DO WE LIVE IN RELATIONSHIP?

(Preached on Sunday, February 24, 2008)

Jesus said to her, AGo, call your husband, and come back.@  The woman answered him, AI have no husband.@  Jesus aid to her, AYou are right in saying, >I have no husband=; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.  What you have said is true!@                          -John 4:16-18

 

Jesus talks longer to the woman at the well than he does to anyone else in all the Gospels  C longer than he talks to any of his disciples, longer than he talks to any of his accusers, longer than he talks to any of his own family.  Which is really quite amazing considering her status as an outsider. 

 

In fact, the woman at the well was a triple outsider.  In the first place, she was a Samaritan, which made her a half-breed and full pagan as far as the purists among the Jews were concerned.  She was also, of course, a woman.  In Jesus= day, women were not what you would call liberated.  They were not even allowed to worship with men, whose morning devotions included the prayer, AThank God I am not a woman.@  Women had no place in public life.  They were not to be seen or heard.  It was not proper for even a husband to address his wife in public, let alone another strange man, especially when there was no chaperone around to monitor the conversation.  Jesus is breaking taboos all over the place in this story.

 

But not only was she a Samaritan and a woman, she also had a very questionable reputation.  After all, the respectable women had all made their trips to the well in the morning, when they could greet one another and talk about the news.  Undoubtedly this woman was one of the people they talked about, for the fact that she showed up at the well at noon was a sure sign that either she was not welcome at the morning social hour, or at the very least, it was extremely uncomfortable for her to be there at that time.  She was clearly a persona non grata among the other women.

 

We ought not assume it was her fault.  It is far too generally assumed that this woman was a hardened sinner.  A brazen marriage wrecker, sly, ruthless in exploiting male weaknesses.  Most of the sermons I have read and heard have tended to paint her as a sexually promiscuous woman.  Some see Jesus as exposing her sordid sex life.  To quote one  world renowned preacher: AHe lifted the lid off her personality.  Forced her to look down at the sickening sight of her own moral weakness and to smell the stench of her uncontrollable, lustful nature.@  Pretty harsh.

 

But there is a very strong possibility that the woman was the mistreated and demeaned one.  She had been divorced at least five times, and was living with a sixth man.  Remember, in Jesus= day the man held all the rights to divorce.  A man could divorce his wife on the smallest pretext.  He only had to attest Asomething unseemly in her,@ which could be as trivial as the way she boiled his egg, the sound of her singing voice, or if she answered back when criticized.  To make a divorce effective, all the husband had to do was to call in a male witness, and write out the dismissal notice.

 

A divorced woman, unless she had independent means, lost all status and value in the community.  She was seen as a rejected woman.  She was a disgrace.  Her very existence became precarious.  Options for employment were severely limited to being a menial servant.  And such positions did not come up very often.  High class women were not likely to employ a divorcee, and put temptation in the way of their husbands.  There were no unemployment benefits.  In reality the options were: find work as a servant, marry again very quickly, become some man=s mistress, work as a prostitute, or starve.  More than likely, then, the woman of Samaria was a diminished person; devalued; a tattered remnant of what God created her to be.  Her six encounters with men were all of a damaging kind: used and abused.  Her self image was shrunken.  Her bruising encounters with the righteous women of the village also became damaging ones.  They had reduced her sense of self worth to near zero.

 

Then one day, under the burning heat of the midday sun, unexpectedly she had an encounter that changed her forever.  Jesus neither ignores her nor avoids her.  He does not treat her as if she has some kind of disease.  Instead he does something very lovely.  He asks her to give him a drink.  Jesus often did this in the gospels.  He never put himself above people, thinking only in terms of what he could do for them.  Instead he always put himself beside people, not above them, and invited them to consider what they could do together, for one another and for others.

 

By asking the outcast woman for a drink, he empowered her, approaching her as a full human being, with dignity, who had  something to offer.  She could then respond to him and enter into a dialogue.  Having given her some dignity, Jesus is able to offer her something more: the riddle of the living water.  He offers her the hope of something better in life than what she has known.  And he offers her honest intimacy which leads to acceptance.  The dictionary defines Aintimate@ as: Amarked by close acquaintance, association, or familiarity; pertaining to one=s deepest nature; essential, innermost.@

 

By letting her know that he knows the truth about her life, he invites her into an honest, profound, intimate relationship.  By doing so in a non-judgmental fashion, he lets her know that he does not allow what has happened to her or what she has done in her life to define her.  He communicates an openness and acceptance of her as a child of God C one with value, worthy, dignity, and worthy of respect. 

 

This frightens her at first and she steps away from such intimacy.  So he goes one step further, stepping toward her rather than away from her, and offering more intimacy and acceptance by sharing honestly the truth about himself, sharing who he truly is.  In John=s gospel this is the first time Jesus reveals his true nature to another living soul.  It is a moment of full disclosure, in which the triple outsider and the Messiah of God stand face to face with no pretense about who they are.  It is a truly transformative moment which gives back to the woman her self-respect and empowers her to embrace her own gifts and capabilities as a child of God.

 

These are important lessons for us to remember as we seek to live in relationship today.  How we approach one another, how we treat one another, determine the quality of our relationships and of our communal life C in families, in friendships, in churches, in cities, states and nations, in the workplace, in the world.  In this encounter, perhaps more clearly than any other, Jesus has modeled for us how to approach one another: with love demonstrated through respect, as equal partners or companions in life, accepting of the gifts each person has to offer, and not judging people but leaving the judging up to God.  These are relationships built on honesty, love and forgiveness.

 

We live in the midst of a culture that seeks to divide, to place us over against each other, to name winners and losers.  It is a culture that desperately needs the witness of people of faith, followers of Jesus, who remember we are bound together, not by like-mindedness but by our common baptism.  That baptism, our one confession that AJesus Christ is the head of the Church,@ and our encounter with Christ at the Table of Communion, is where we find our unity.  The great witness of the church is that in Christ diversity need not divide and unity does not require uniformity.