Dear Friends,
Jesus is such a scandal! Yes, you read that correctly: Jesus is a scandal. And his actions are nowhere more scandalous than in today’s gospel. Jesus, a Jewish man, alone with and talking with a heretic Samaritan woman who has had many husbands. Such behavior just isn’t done! It’s unacceptable. It breaks all the rules of religion and propriety. And Jesus, of all people, should know better.
And, of course, the point is that Jesus does know better. He knows exactly what he is doing. He knows he is being scandalous. And he does it anyway. Because Jesus is not interested in rules of religion that don’t work as they were meant to. He isn’t at all concerned about society’s definition of what is “proper” behavior. Jesus is motivated by his one and only purpose: to reveal and initiate the in-breaking of the Reign of God.
As Debie Thomas points out: The heart of this story is scandal! “Not a sexual scandal but a spiritual one. The enmity between the Jews and the Samaritans in Jesus’ day is …real. The differences between them are not easily negotiated; each is fully convinced that the other is wrong. What Jesus does when he enters a conversation with a Samaritan woman is radical and risky; it stuns his own disciples, because it asks them to dream of a different kind of social and religious order. A different kind of Kingdom.”
As Debie Thomas explains, Jesus’ willingness to break the rules compels us, his followers, to live into the truth that people are more than the sum of their political, racial, cultural and economic identities. Jesus calls us to put aside the stereotypes we carry, the prejudices we nurse, the social and cultural lines we draw. He invites us to look at the Samaritan woman and see a sister and an apostle, not a harlot, a heretic, a foreigner or a threat. Such is the Kingdom of God!
What a challenge for our times, for these divisive days.
So, here’s a a few good questions for this week of Lent: Where might God be calling you to break a rule? Transgress a boundary? Embrace a stranger? What lines has Jesus crossed to find you? And what lines can you cross to find God in another?
Peace and every good,
Father Liam