Rector's Sermon - Sunday, March 3, 2002

First Reading	Psalm	Epistle	Gospel
Exodus 17:1-17	95:1-11	Romans 5:1-11	John 4:5-42

      The author James Carroll relates that as a child, a major part of his family's history was the retelling of the story of his great uncle about whom it was reverently said "died an Irish hero, in the year of the rising against the British. " His great uncle's example made such an impression upon him that as an adult, Carroll went to Ireland to find his great uncle's grave. In the village where he was thought to be born, someone directed Carroll to an ancient cemetery. Sure enough, after brushing away the tall grass from innumerable small headstones, he saw his great-uncle's name. But then he saw something else that shocked him. For carved on the headstone preceding his great uncle's name was the abbreviation for private and below his name was the seal of the British Empire. After a few minutes, Carroll knew enough history to admit its significance. His uncle had indeed died in 1916, the year of the uprising against the British, but he died in France, along with 50,000 other Irish soldiers in the British army, in a war in which 250 thousand Irish lads had enlisted, compared to the 250 Irish who had begun the rebellion in Dublin that year. His great uncle had died an Irish hero, but not as an Irish peasant fighting the British, but as a soldier in the British army, defending the British Empire. 1/

      The story of the enmity between Jews and Samaritans is as complicated, twisted, and overlayered as any. It began as a political struggle between the tribes of northern and southern Israel. It also became a class struggle between the wealthy court and intelligentsia in Jerusalem when they returned from Babylon, and the poorer people of the land who had been permitted to stay behind. History turned it into a bitter, religious struggle for legitimacy, between the Temple at Jerusalem originally established by David, and the older ancestral shines in the north.

      Even in Jesus' day, tensions ran high. The destruction of the Samaritan temple by Jewish rebels during the Maccabean revolt and the support Samaritans had given the Romans were fresh in both sides' memories as insults of traitor, invader and apostate were thrown back and forth.

      The longest continuous story outside of the passion accounts, is the story of Jesus and the woman at the well. John makes it clear that Jesus and the disciples intentionally went to Samaria. A woman comes to the well about noon. Virtually everyone would have come to draw water in the early morning to have water to begin the day, but this woman comes at an unusual time. Perhaps out of shame or guilt she wanted to avoid the reproach of others; we don't know. Yet Jesus has been waiting there as if he knew this was the only time she would appear. He initiates a conversation, again an unconventional act for a man to ask a strange woman something, much less for a Jew to ask a Samaritan. Initially, the woman is suspicious of Jesus' intentions. Why should they not continue to avoid and shun each other? Yet Jesus persists and draws her into conversation. The woman begins to recite her history. As likely as not, the woman's confession of five husbands concerns the larger question of purity and legitimacy, not about her individual behavior. The five husbands may well represent the five ethnic groups that were forced to settle among the Samaritans when Northern Israel was captured. Inevitably after several centuries, the groups had intermarried. Yet Jesus refused to let history get in the way. Jesus says, "Yes I know. I know everything about you, but you, too, are offered the Gospel.

      There are parts of John's gospel that at first seem to be very exclusive and polemical. Maybe some of that impression is related to the way we read it. Our perception of history has the potential to both help and hinder understanding. Throughout the story of Jesus and the woman at the well, it is clear John wants to affirm that Jesus is legitimate and not some wild-eyed fanatic who has gone over the top. Yet that is quickly balanced by the refusal of the Gospel to be pinned down to a certain place or to be trapped by tradition. John sees the Gospel not being afraid of going out its way, of not being afraid to breach the walls of convention that keep God's love muted. This is not just a story about a woman with a questionable past. It is about us who have inherited and come before God loaded and burdened with all sorts of stuff. It is about a witness to the world that is not afraid to enter into conversation; a witness not intimidated by threats of it not being the appropriate time nor place to offer a spacious opening for the fresh life of the Holy Spirit. When we claim that the Gospel needs to be sheltered and protected, it is often us that we want to protect and shelter, not the Gospel.

      As Carroll's visit to a rural Irish cemetery revealed what a long tradition can obscure and misconstrue, Jesus' trip into Samaria to the well of Jacob revealed what the good news can lead to and what the grace of God is really all about.

      And I offer this to you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen

---

1/ from James Carroll, "Supply of Heroes" and retold in" Constantine's Sword"