Across the Great Divide

John 4:5-42
The Rev. Sara Fischer

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves.

We have no power in ourselves to help ourselves. This is a good prayer to remember on a morning when we commission the vestry. But isn’t this really the crux of the matter? Isn’t the challenge of our humanity that there are certain areas of our lives in which we are powerless to help ourselves? For all the various players in today’s readings, for Moses, for the Israelites in the desert, for the woman at the well, and for the weak whom St. Paul writes about, we see the need for a connection to the divine, an invitation for the grace of God to enter in. We have no power in ourselves to help ourselves. We need help.

Extreme Makeover. This was the headline of a half-page ad in a magazine I was reading recently. Lest you think I was reading about cosmetics or home decorating, let me tell you that the reason the ad caught my eye was because it was in a magazine for religious types. It was an advertisement for a church conference. The copy featured before and after shots of a house that looked—in the before picture—like it had been demolished by a tornado or a wrecking ball and then rebuilt—in the after picture—into something unrecognizable. The title of the conference was “Extreme Makeover: Christian Education as Spiritual Formation.”

“Extreme Makeover” could be the title for the story in John (4:5-42) we just heard, the story we call “the Woman at the Well.”

The Woman at the Well is a familiar story to many of us. It is depicted in a painting hidden behind our organ at the back of the church; you can see a picture of it and read about it over there on the chapel wall. (Someday we’ll figure out a way to get that painting back; Linda, could you add that to your list….?) The story of the woman at the well is remarkable for many reasons. It was remarkable for Jesus to enter into a conversation with a woman alone by a well, especially a woman who came to the well at the middle of the day, possibly because she was not part of the same social circle as the other women who would come in groups first thing in the morning. Jesus crosses a divide when he enters into conversation with her, not only to ask her for a drink of water, but to engage with her in a dialogue of equals. He sees her as a full human being.

It is remarkable story because in it a devout Jew like Jesus speaks not only to a woman alone in a public place but to a Samaritan. One of God’s chosen people speaks to one of God’s rejected people. The Jews of Jesus’ time saw Samaritans as outside the circle of God’s grace, having separated themselves from the Israelites in several ways over a number of centuries. The most acute sticking point in the first century was that the Samaritans did not recognize Jerusalem as the holy temple site, but instead worshiped somewhere else, on Mt. Gerazim, near where Jesus stops for a drink. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, she says, but you say that people must worship in Jerusalem. She knows Jesus has something to offer, so she brings him a major theological problem. Jesus doesn’t respond in defense of Jerusalem, but rather points beyond a particular time and place to the God who unites us in spirit and truth.

The result of the woman’s interaction with Jesus is that she is not just educated, she is transformed. Extreme makeover. She becomes an evangelist, a minister of the gospel. She drops her water jar and returns to the city empty-handed, armed only with the experience of Jesus. She tells everyone she can find: Come and see. And they do.

The woman at the well is transformed by the ways that Jesus reaches across a chasm of difference and prejudice to tell her about the Spirit. She reaches across the same chasm of difference to talk theology with him. She feels heard and truly seen by him, and this is the good news she has to share with her community. She, in turn, is able to reach across another great divide of her own when she returns to her village, not to bring water from the well but to bear witness to the Gospel.

Now, wouldn’t it be nice if we all had experiences like this? Can you imagine how full our church would be if we all said to everyone in our neighborhoods: come and see, and they all came, and saw? The challenge for us, I think, is that while it is all well and good to reflect upon gospel stories about people transformed by encounters with Jesus, how often do we meet Jesus at the well? Don’t we all too often feel like the thirsty ones, with no one around to offer us living water?

I believe that we meet Jesus at the well whenever we reach across a divide to connect with something or someone from whom we feel separate. Who are the foreigners in our life? From what or whom do we feel divided? We may be alienated from those who have more money, or different religious beliefs, or sexual orientation that makes us uncomfortable, or politics with which we disagree. Sometimes the way we connect with these people is to ask for help when we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves. I’m thirsty; I need something to drink. I don’t understand your views; please help me understand. Jesus connects with unlikely people in unlikely ways, as he does in today’s gospel. When we do likewise, we open ourselves up to an extreme makeover.

The magazine ad I spoke of a few minutes ago showed an “after” picture of a house that was completely unrecognizable. How do you imagine you will look after an extreme makeover? What good news will you share?