Pushing at the Boundaries
Sermon preached in St Salvator's Chapel, St Andrews on the 25th February, 2008 by Rt Rev Sheilagh Kesting
Readings: Exodus 17: 1-7; Romans 5: 1-11 & John 4: 5-42
Sermon
Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink.' (John 4:7)
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Just over a month ago I visited North-east Fife and stayed in St Andrews for ten days. During that time I had the privilege of visiting the University and meeting staff and students at St Mary's College and at the Gatty Marine Research Laboratory. I am still conjuring with the prospective image of seals calling one another up on their mobile phones! Whatever next?!
It gives me great pleasure to be back among you again for this annual celebration of the Founders and Benefactors of this, Scotland's first university. Founded by the Bishop of St Andrews and granted its Charter by the Avignon Pope, Benedict XIII, the close association between the church and the developing university continued through the Reformation and, though perhaps less obvious today, remains a significant relationship in a number of different ways.
Times have changed. God has been tried and for many has been found wanting. The multicultural nature of our communities, and perhaps even more so of the university community, has led to a reticence in some to put too much emphasis on the religion of the host community, lest we offend people of other faiths. In truth the offence is more often felt by those of no religion than by those of other religions. More generally, religion has become a matter of private concern, rather than something with a public purpose. And even within the individual it can become compartmentalised so that it is never subjected to the same intellectual scrutiny that is applied to other aspects of life, not least the academic life. And yet, the Bible is full of stories about the pushing of boundaries, about travelling into the unknown, about looking for signals of God's presence where we might least expect to find them and in people we might consider unlikely sources of divine encounter.
The passage we read from John's Gospel is one which pushes the boundaries of what we might expect and has as its focus a most unlikely woman.[1] The Samaritan woman appears at the well, cheeky, brave and vulnerable. Jesus responds to her with warmth and humour, leading her skilfully into amazing confidences, encouraging her to get beyond the superficial flirtatiousness that is obviously her normal way of conversation and has ensured a rather colourful life - five husbands and who isn't!
Throughout their talk, the woman tries to keep the conversation jokey. She is good at the quick repartee and, to begin with, Jesus responds on the same level. But everything he says has a serious point to it. The woman resists cleverly, turning the offer of the water of life into a joke, and swiftly engaging in theological argument when her own personal circumstances come into question. But Jesus doesn't let her get away with it. Every time the woman tries to turn the conversation away from the personal, Jesus turns it back. Finally, it seems in desperation, she makes a faith statement: 'I know that the Messiah is coming'. But if she hopes that this will satisfy Jesus, she is sadly mistaken. Her belief in the coming of the Messiah is safe and impersonal; she doesn't expect it to have any immediate effect on her everyday life. It's something that belongs to a vague and unspecified future. Immediately, Jesus responds: 'I am he'.
Now what is the woman to do? She has found someone who is not intimidated by the natural barriers of race and gender, someone who speaks to her as a human being, perhaps the first to do so for a long time. She has found someone who does not condemn her despite knowing the particularities of her personal circumstances. And in the conversation he turns her life upside down, opens up new possibilities for her beyond anything she has imagined. In a moment of truth she is confronted with the need to make a response about her faith. She runs off to get help, to find other people who will make the decision for her. 'He can't be the Messiah, can he?' she asks of them. The syntax of the Greek expects the answer 'No'. But it does give her a little moment of glory; a moment when she is the centre of respectful attention. Everyone is listening to her - not something she is used to. But it doesn't last long - for they tell her rather brutally later that they believe Jesus is the Messiah because of what they have heard from him, not from her.
And the story ends there. We do not know whether the woman herself came to believe in Jesus. She had a natural inclination to put off important decisions. But we do know that through her others came to be convinced.
It is a story of extraordinary inclusiveness. The fact that the incident took place in Samaria is significant enough. That Jesus as a Jewish man requested a drink from a Samaritan woman when Jews were not allowed to use the same water dipper as Samaritans is another barrier broken. And when the disciples returned what astonished them was that Jesus 'was speaking with a women' full stop. Repeatedly in this story we are reminded that what is new about Jesus' teaching and way of life is the extent to which he breaks down barriers. No longer are Jews and Samaritans, males and females, to be thought of in isolated, segregated categories.
And is this not an area where we can still find common ground between university and church? For universities provide a context in which barriers of all kinds can be broken down. Where people from different countries, of different ethnic backgrounds and different religions, people studying different disciplines can come together to create a community of people who are dedicated to the pursuit of learning - not just for themselves, but for the contribution that learning can make to the lives of people well beyond the boundaries of this university. Here is expertise that can help us all to make informed choices about the way we live, ways that respect the contribution of all; ways that can help us to cherish the delicate balance of the world we live in.
Perhaps the greatest problem facing our world today, certainly in western society, is the way our concern to respect difference has led to our leading parallel lives where there is little real engagement across different communities. The Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, calls it the hotel model of society - in which we share the same space but have no shared ownership, no sense of belonging together, of contributing to a common enterprise.
Jesus, in the story of the woman at the well, cut through the traditional customs that kept Jew and Samaritan segregated. He cut across the customs that made it scandalous for him to be speaking with a woman. He cut through the banter through which the woman tried to keep herself distant and untouched by any notion that her faith might actually have a relevance for the way she lived her life. He cut through the time-bound, institutionalised religions that were focused on Jerusalem and on Mount Gerizim. And once again, in the distinctive way of this Gospel, we are shown that the barrier between the divine and the human is overcome. The Word made flesh of the first chapter now becomes the 'I am' of Jesus response to the woman¿s belief in the Messiah. 'I am', the name God gave to Moses, 'I am who I am, or, I will be who I will be'. And the result is that a total outsider becomes the channel of communication, the witness, the one who asks the question and in so doing invites others to their own encounter with Jesus.
And here is the challenge to the church. Faith is not about having all the answers. Its not about having all the doctrinal 'i's dotted and 't's crossed. It need not be about being confident enough, secure enough and knowledgeable enough to invite others to 'come and see'. It can be enough simply to ask the question; to allow others to look and listen and ponder the message of this man Jesus who pointed to the God who takes us beyond the comfort of our carefully constrained attitudes into a new place where difference is no longer treated as a barrier but is rather the place of exchange, the place in which engagement leads not just to respect for others but also to the formation of common values.
And all this from a simple request from a Jewish man to a Samaritan woman - 'Give me a drink'. It was as revolutionary then as the prospect of seals networked to one another on their mobile phones is today. The latter is about how scientists collect data related to seal populations. The former is about how we, even now, collect data about ourselves, how we find ways to overcome prejudices and how we build bridges of respect and seek peaceful solutions to the world's problems. It's about how we come to see ourselves in relation to one another and where we choose to look to find the signals of God's presence right here on earth. It's uncomfortable. It's unsettling. And in the end the question is left open. Did the Samaritan woman allow herself to be overwhelmed by the graciousness of the one who took her seriously, not because she deserved it but because that's how he wants everyone to be treated? Do we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed when that happens to us? Or did she sit down again in the desert: do we sit down in our homes, our churches, our places of work and complain about being thirsty.
The decision is ours.
Glory to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as it is was in the beginning, is now and shall be forever, Amen.
[1] Jane Williams, Lectionary Reflections year A p 48 SPCK 2004