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Two Mountains, Religious Pluralism

Sermon by Peter Terpenning

John 4:5-42

February 24, 2008 

            I’m going to start with the words from Pink Floyd on their album, Dark Side of the Moon. The song is “Us and Them”: “Us, and them – and after all we’re only ordinary men – Me, and you – God only knows it’s not what we would choose to do – Forward he cried from the rear – and the front rank died – And the General sat, and the lines on the map – moved from side to side – black and blue – and who knows which is which and who is who – Up and Down – And in the end it’s only round and round and round – Haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words – the poster bearer cried – Listen son, said the man with the gun – There’s room for you inside – Down and Out – It can’t be helped but there’s a lot of it about – With, without – And who’ll deny that’s what the fighting’s all about – Get out of the way, it’s a busy day – And I’ve got things on my mind – For want of the price of tea and slice – The old man died”.
            Us and them is the theme of John’s story, The Woman at the Well. I learned this week that the gospel of John doesn’t have parables, it has stories that act as parables. Jesus is traveling, and in order to go from Judea to Galilee, he has to go through Samaria. There is some debate among scholars if this is a geographic truth (which it is), or if it is a symbolic truth, meaning it was a way Jesus had to travel to reveal his truth. In any case, he arrives at a village and the disciples go to find some food and Jesus is resting by the well in the heat of the day and a woman comes to fill her jar. The first scandal occurs. Jesus speaks to her. This is a scandal we don’t immediately understand in our time. First of all, she was woman, and men, particularly Rabbis, do not speak to women. Some Pharisees of Jesus’ time actually closed their eyes whenever a woman approached them on the street. Their prayers at Temple included the one, “Thank God I was not born a woman”. Second, Jews did not speak to Samaritans. Samaritans and Jews were of the same religion, “sort of”, as Bill Nelson of the Jesus Seminar said. They are both sects of Judaism, but they disagreed. The Jews believed that the cultic sacrifices were to be done on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Samaritans believed that the sacrifices were to be done on Mount Gerizim. There were other factors, but basically, they hated each other as only people who are very close in race and religion, yet different, can hate. We might think of the Sunni and Shia Muslims, or the Serbian/Croation/Bosnian hatred, or the Irish Catholic and Protestant hatred, or the racial hatreds of the USA or Germany. I think of (Dr.) Theodor Seuss Geisel and his “Star Belly Sneetches and Plain Belly Sneetches.  Such were the Samaritans and Jews; us and them. Jesus scandalized his audience once by telling the story of the Good Samaritan, the “good enemy”.
            So Jesus, sitting in sun, speaks to this enemy woman. He asks for a drink, and she is shocked. There has been much debate about whether this woman was a prostitute, or was in some way immoral. She honestly admits to Jesus that she has no husband, and Jesus tells her the truth about herself, that she has had five husbands and is not married to the present partner. Some scholars note that this woman is coming to the well at noon, later than the other women might come, because she is an outcaste. This may have been part of John’s point. However, she may also have been the victim of the laws of the Levites and have been widowed and married a succession of brothers, and the current male heir has simply refused to marry her. Whatever her morality, Jesus ignores it. He teaches her, accepts her, and chooses to reveal to her that he is the Messiah. She is the first person in the gospel of John to whom Jesus admits this. He shows he is a prophet sends her off to witness to the people of the village that he is the Messiah. This she does, and brings them all back to meet him. When they have heard his teaching, these Samaritan enemies invite Jesus to stay for two days and become his followers.
            The scandal is that Jesus rejects the human divisions of race and clan and religion and reaches to all people as equals. This is part of the interfering with the status quo that gets Jesus eventually killed. I submit  that Jesus’ message of unity is no less scandalous in most of our world, than it was in his. All religious folk through history, including the Christian church, have been building walls of hostility and legalism. These walls make us feel safe, I guess. Life and death are frightening, and it helps to have something I am certain about. For some reason in order for religion to be true, and my mountain the right one to sacrifice upon, the other fellow’s mountain has to be the wrong one. Maybe if all the mountains were true it would make me doubt that any were true. So we cling to our little divisions and certainties and hope they will protect us from death: us and them, me and you, black and blue, up an down, down and out, with and without.
            The scandal and revolutionary message is that Jesus was against these divisions. He called people out of the religious institutions of his time and called for radical inclusion, non-violence and love between all, and promised that God loves all people and saves all people, regardless of religion.
            I interpret Jesus’ message to draw a distinction between faith and religion. Faith or spirituality as we call it today is about love and awakening, fearlessness and compassion. Religion is the institutions and legalism humans have invented. I stand with Jesus against religions. Jesus stood with people against religions. I have no problem with John Lennon’s song, “Imagine”; “Imagine there's no Heaven - It's easy if you try -No hell below us -Above us only sky -Imagine all the people -Living for today -Imagine there's no countries -It isn't hard to do -Nothing to kill or die for-And no religion too -Imagine all the people -Living life in peace”. I don’t think Jesus would have had a problem with it either, in fact, perhaps Lennon was channeling Jesus. Just kidding, I don’t believe in channeling (but what do I know?).
            One of the main issues of our time is religious pluralism, and people of different faiths learning to live in peace. As Christians we must be leading the way toward acceptance, love and compassion. It’s a small thing, but I note that when the woman realizes she is talking to someone who may be the Messiah, who has told her the truth about her whole life, she heads off to tell everyone and she leaves her water jar behind. The jar is valuable, but nothing is as important as this man and his message of love. Let us also set down our jars; our egos and selves, our culture and laws, institutions and possessions, our prejudices and divisions, our hatreds and nations and religions and leave them by the well, and follow the way of love and compassion.