BIBLE READING: John
4:5-42 Jesus and the woman at the well
SERMON
I have shared before some of the artwork of Dr.
He Qi. He is the first person from mainland China to have received his Ph.D. in
religious art after the Cultural Revolution and is currently an artist in
residence at Yale Divinity School. His future plans
include the creation of an illustrated Bible that will be published in several
languages, including English.
In his artwork, He Qi presents Christian
stories and themes to the people of his homeland through images that draw on
traditional Chinese painting techniques and folk customs. The manner in which he combines familiar stories and unfamiliar
imagery evoke the sort of unsettling emotions that Jesus' disciples must have
felt upon first hearing his stories.
Let's look at his interpretation of Jesus and
the Samaritan woman at the well. Often He Qi uses very
vibrant primary colours to give his paintings the impression of complex
movement and life, but in some instances he relies on the more earthy shades of
green, yellow, and brown as in this scene. Here Jesus is seated at Jacob's well
and a young woman is standing before him; their red mouths accentuate the
strange conversation that is about to take place. The central focus of the
painting is the outstretched hand of Jesus set against the backdrop of the
opening of the well. In one simple gesture – Jesus' reaching out in both
compassion and spiritual direction.
There is much about this story that can be said
from both a theological and historical perspective. The attitude among Jews
towards Samaritans was a source of the bitterness and hatred that extended as
far back as 700 years before the time of Christ when the Assyrians destroyed
the Kingdom of Israel, removed its inhabitants, and settled communities from
five different regions of its growing empire in their place. These outsiders
intermarried with the few Israelites who remained. The Samaritans were not
Jews, but their claims on such prophets as Moses and Jacob, and on such
traditions as Abraham's near sacrifice of Isaac on their own Mount Gerazim, infuriated the Jews who had spent the last five
centuries making sure they got it all right, from their worship of God in the
Jerusalem Temple to their strict observance of the law.
How unlikely it is, then, that Jesus the Jew
would find himself in the company of a Samaritan, and a woman reviled among
even her own community. She was the outsider, but as such, she was in the most
likely position to hear and respond to the good news that Jesus came to
proclaim. And here is what John wants us to see in all its glory: though it was
Moses to whom God, the great "I am," spoke in the fire of the burning
bush - Moses the most exalted prophet among the Samaritans, Moses who struck
the rock at Horeb so that the thirst of the Israelites might be quenched - it
was to this lowly woman, this Samaritan, that the Son of God would first reveal
his name and mission. There had no doubt been ample opportunity for such a
disclosure prior to this time - with his disciples, for example, or even with
one who might best understand the theological significance of his calling,
Nicodemus. But in the Gospel of John Jesus speaks the first of his "I
am" sayings to the one who, in the eyes of nearly everyone who could be
asked, was the least deserving of all: "I am he, the one who is speaking
to you" (John 4:26).
And this brings me back to the outstretched
hand of Jesus framed so neatly in He Qi's painting by the circular mouth of
Jacob's well. "I am he." In Jesus' confession of his messianic
calling, so much more is being suggested than what this woman could possibly
imagine. It reminds us of the prologue of John's Gospel where we are introduced
to the wonder of the incarnation itself, the spiritual Word becoming flesh,
taking on the elements of creation as his own. Jesus had been with God in the
beginning as the Spirit brooded over the face of the deep and called forth
order out of chaos. "He was in the world, and the world came into being
through him" (John 1:10a). This is the very hand that fashioned humanity
from the dust of the earth, and the hand that directed Moses toward the rock at
Horeb where water would save the Israelites in the desert. "In his hands
are the depths of the earth," the Psalmist assures us. And what we know is
that this hand, offered to the most unlikely of God's servants, will soon be the
one from which the blood of death, and then the promise of life, will spring on
the cross.
Though she had little else to cling to, the
Samaritan woman placed great faith and hope in the stories of her religion. She
knew that despite her reputation in her
community she could still rely on the integrity of her distant past to give her
strength. The well from which she drank was in many ways the source of her very
identity. But as Jesus makes quite clear, all of this would have to be set
aside in the presence of the Messiah.
Jesus' words still ring true today, in a world
where more times than not we rush to our own wells of nationalism or religious
and ethnic pride for what we hope will be the water of life. "[T]he hour
is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father
in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him"
(John 4:24). From the outstretched hand of Jesus, and from extending our own
hands to others in our global midst, we drink from living waters and offer to
God our most holy praise. But the point that we need to remember, and now more
than ever, is that this faithful response to God issues not from Gerazim or Jerusalem, not from Israel or Palestine, not
from Baghdad or Washington, certainly not from Canberra or Macquarie Street but
from the very image of God which we all bear, regardless of our national or
religious origin.
It is important that we don't overlook the
symbolism that reaches all the way back to the dialogue that Moses had with God
in the burning bush. The story of God's calling that began in the mystery of
fire now ends in the cool and calming waters of life. At Lent, this means for
us that the stories of our own lives, messed up as they are with the kinds of
shortcomings and failures that could make even the lowliest of Samaritans
blush, are cleansed and renewed in the living water of baptism. Our
reconciliation with God must be mirrored in our work, in our homes and
communities. "Preach the gospel always," Saint Francis once said,
"and if necessary use words." Our hope for
peace in our lives and in the world today lies at those wells and watering
holes, complete with their unsavoury Samaritans, that we tend more to avoid
than to seek out. It will only be here, as Jesus demonstrates so well, and as
He Qi reminds us so beautifully, that the hand of friendship can be offered and
accepted.