Sermon of February 27, 2005
Presented by Rev. Chuck Ericson
Scripture lesson: John 4:5-42

“Jesus Came to Bridge the Gap Between... Friends and Foreigners”

In the Sunday school curriculum for today, this is the passage they are scheduled to look at. There’s a chart with all the key points for today.

Your theme is Jesus came to bridge the gap between friends and foreigners; you’ve got a much tougher job.   

But still it is about Jesus bringing life, satisfying and loving everybody.   Seems like as I was reading through this, that it this is a very appropriate passage for the times in which we live right now.  For I sense in our world, and in our country, there's a growing feeling of strong national identity, and uneasiness sometimes, and a wariness sometimes, about people from other countries, other cultures.  Whether we like it or not we know it exists. And it's obvious from the uneasiness and wariness of the Israelites and Palestinians still have for each other as they talk about peace, but still have difficulty.  There's a clarity in each nation about who are the friends and who are the foreigners.  It's something that we're aware of as discussions crop up now and again about the border between the U.S.  and Mexico . It's even something that comes up in our relations with European countries.  President Bush has been on a tour that has sometimes been described as a fence-mending mission to try and bridge the gap between our nation and other nations who we like to think of as our allies, but for whom there has been some discord felt in the last few years.  So the idea that Jesus gives a way to bridge the gap between us and them, between the people we consider our friends and others who we might call foreigners is very, very important to us at this time in our world.  But it's also a good message for us even in a more local sense, in terms of how we relate to people in our families, our own neighbors, in our community, and even among churches and religions.  How can Jesus help us to bridge the gap that brings people closer together and helps us to consider each other less and less as foreigners and outsiders?   

To begin looking at this, I think it's important to see how the gap developed in the first place.  And this passage has a great beginning to it and shows exactly how this kind of thing can begin.  It says that Jesus came and sat down by a well and up to him walked a Samaritan woman.  Bible scholars and bible teachers will tell you to watch out for the adjectives, and look at what the adjectives teach you in the Bible. And so, that’s what caught my attention.  It’s not just Jesus is sitting there and a person walks up to him.  It’s a woman who says something.  The writer makes sure to say it’s a woman.  And more importantly, it’s a Samaritan woman.  And it goes on to say in the passage that there is some discord between the Samaritans and the Jews, so this is an unusual thing for these two people to be confronted with each other; it’s at least an awkward thing.  To understand that, we have to understand where this all began.  I did a little bit of background, just to check myself.  The Samaritans and the Jews were both originally part of the area we think of as Israel .  But there was a division a little while after King David’s reign and King Solomon’s reign.  So there was a Northern kingdom and a Southern kingdom; it’s called the divided kingdom.  And at one time, the area that has its capital as Samaria was invaded by the Assyrians in 722 B.C. or B.C.E.  But, when that happened, when the Assyrians came in and destroyed Samaria , they took some people out and deported others; they left a remnant in Samaria .  But that remnant was not connected anymore in a good way to those in Jerusalem .   

To add to that, when the Assyrians repopulated the area, they brought in some foreigners from Babylon , so there was a mixing of cultures taking place in Samaria , whereas Jerusalem stayed pretty pure to Judaism.  Over the years, the 2 areas ( Samaria and Jerusalem ) grew apart and a gap developed, even though they traced their history and their routes back through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Jerusalem was thought to be the place where the purity of Judaism remained and Samaria had been invaded and ideas from Babylon and others had been brought in and thought to be more heterogeneous.  So a gap developed and each one considered the other to be foreigners in a way, and ones with whom you would not relate in a good way.  So that’s what’s going on when Jesus is sitting here 700 years later, and a Samaritan woman comes up to him  -  it’s an uneasy situation and an awkward situation,  because of these events that have transpired after the Assyrian invasion in Samaria.  That’s the end of the Bible history part, I know it’s hard to grasp all that but it’s important to know that.   And the same thing happens when there are gaps in relationships with family members, neighborhoods, with churches and other religions.  Something happened along the way to start that gap, some misunderstanding; some argument is always at the root of it.    

The next question to ask is why does the gap persist after a long time?  By the time Jesus and the Samaritan woman are confronted with each other, 20-25 generations of people have come and gone, and yet to the Samaritan woman and to Jesus that gap is still there. None of the people living at that time had experienced all those events that had started the problem. It was 700 years ago. And yet the animosity continued, even though none of the people living had done anything to create it.  That’s how a lot of gaps stay going; it happened a long time ago but we’re going to keep it going. The classic is the family feud, where nobody’s getting along but nobody can remember why the feud started.  To understand that I think we have to realize there’s a reason why these things continue.  The best example I can give is that last month, the Tolland UCC clergy had its monthly luncheon, and we had two guests who were local Islamic leaders. The gathering was intended to bridge the gap between Islam and Christianity, between clergy from their mosque and our church. It was a great conversation.  The reason we have gaps between religions today is because of two things: ignorance, or a lack of understanding, and a fear that is built upon that ignorance or lack of understanding.   

As we were talking about it, I was thinking about a news report that I heard on the radio on the way over to the luncheon.  The news reporter said something about some terrorist act that had been committed by a Muslim extremist. And even when I heard that in the car, I was thinking there’s a term that really perpetuates the negative stereotypes and keeps the gap between Muslims and Christians wide open.  Because if people study Islam and study Muslim traditions, we will find out that it is as much a religion of peace and harmony in the world as much as we think Christianity is, and Judaism likes to think that it is.  So a person who acts in an extreme way, or who acts as a terrorist is not a true Muslim.  True Muslims desire peace and desire respect between religions in the world.  It is those who contort it and change it and try to make it something it isn’t and act as a terrorist, and align themselves with Islam, is no different than someone who is a Ku Klux Klan member who does something violent and then aligns himself with Christianity. It’s doing something destructive and violent and then trying to attach yourself to some religion to justify that action.  Sometimes we continue to have gaps because we misunderstand things and stories are presented to us in a way that is wrong, and in a way that perpetuates to continue that gap. The best thing we can do is try and not buy into those stereotypes and not buy into that misinformation and lack of understanding that widens the gap.   

And the answer to it all, how we can bridge the gap, Jesus teaches us this great lesson, and there’s one simple thing that happens.  It was a long passage and I know most of you stayed through it, and that’s good.  There’s one simple thing that happens: Jesus and the woman are confronted at the well, and they both realize that they’re not supposed to communicate; they’re not supposed to talk.  But Jesus does something; he speaks to her, he breaks the ice, by talking to her and says “get me a drink”.  The way to bridging the gap between ourselves and people who we think are foreigners, is to make the first move.   Somebody has to take the first step for the gap to be bridged, and Jesus shows us how to do it.  Often it’s the person who is in the more powerful position that has an easier time taking the first step. Jesus as the man and as the Jew is the person with the most power. And it’s also incumbent upon the other person to respond in an equally kind way; not out of vengeance or spite.   And step by step the gap is bridged.   

When we see someone else who we perceive to be a foreigner (someone outside our close-knit group) and we want to build a little peace in the world, the thing to do is to be willing to be the one to make the first move.  We’d like to think that can happen in a big way, between Palestine and Israel , that one of the two sides would take the first step and be the one to make that invitation.  But, even beyond that, we know we can’t do a whole lot about that ourselves.  But we can do it on our own sphere, in our own family.  If there’s a gap somewhere in a place where we can make a difference, are we willing to take the first step?  Are we in the more powerful position where we can do that.  Sometimes when it’s between parents and children, it’s the parent or the grandparent.  Whoever the person is who is in the strongest position to take that first step.  It’s something we can do.   

The good news today is that in this easy passage where Jesus just meets a woman at a well, we may have the secret to real and lasting peace in or world.  It may be the way that nations can get along better, but it may be the way that we can get along better.  And as we show the way, maybe nations will follow.  It can be as simple as you’re walking towards a door to a building, and you see someone is behind you, who you perceive to be a foreigner, and you wait and you hold the door for that person and invite them to go ahead of you.   Or making conversation at a restaurant with someone you wouldn’t normally talk to.  That’s how the gap between us and them, foreigners and friends, is bridged and a little more peace grows in the world, and we become closer to God’s dream of a whole world where there’s respect and peace between all people.

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