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Most of the time, when you see a description of Jesus' earthly ministry, it is summed up with three categories - he was a preacher, a teacher, and a healer.

Breaking Barriers - John 4 - February 24, 2008 - Cicero United Methodist Church

­Everett J. Bassett

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Most of the time, when you see a description of Jesus' earthly ministry, it is summed up with three categories - he was a preacher, a teacher, and a healer. But I think there is one other that should be added to that list, and that is that he was a barrier breaker. We see it again and again in his lifetime - he challenges the walls that confine peoples' lives - and he breaks them down. This morning's scripture lesson from John 4 may be the one where he attacks the most barriers in the fewest verses. He breaks barriers on several different levels. Let's take a look at what some of them would be:

First of all, Jesus attacks the barrier of racism. The particular racial confrontation that comes to bear in this scripture story is that between the Jews and the Samaritans. This animosity between these two groups was centuries old, and was so deep that Jews often went miles out of their way to avoid journeying through Samaria. Jesus himself, in another story, reflects his own racist upbringing by referring to Samaritans as 'dogs.' But in John 4, we're told that Jesus traveled right into the heart of Samaria, that he sat at the well in midday, where he was very likely to encounter Samaritans, and that when he had an opportunity to talk to one, he initiated the conversation.

The shock of the woman at the well is reflected in her question: "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" And then, to make sure we get the point, John says in parenthesis, "Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans." Jesus, talking with this Samaritans, is breaking all the rules.

It is one of the shameful realities of our history that after Jesus attacked the racial barriers, people in his name have built so many back up. In the name of Jesus, native Americans were pushed aside or killed to an extent that can rightly be called a genocide. In the name of Jesus, African-Americans were enslaved, and their descendents separated and persecuted. In the name of Jesus, immigrants from one country after another were isolated, discriminated against, and often violently attacked.

We can call that ancient history, and some of it is, but none of it has lost its impact on modern life. Native American issues are just as current as ever; immigrants still face discrimination and hatred; African-Americans are still subject to racist insults and injustices. So much so that here in Upstate New York, in our own United Methodist Conference, racism has been named as one of the critical issues for our churches. This reflects the considerable amount of racism African American pastors have encountered in our Untied Methodist Churches. We want to say that those are things of the past, but we know we can't. Racism is very much a curse of our closest society. Our schools, our workplaces, and our neighborhoods reflect how high the barriers are.

This is not at all what God intended, and even as he brought the message of salvation and new life, Jesus took the time to address what is one of the scourges of our life together. We who would follow him must be just as diligent in confronting our own racist attitudes, our own uses of racist humor and discrimination, and the rules and laws of our society that continue to favor one race over others.

A second barrier Jesus confronted was that of gender discrimination. In fact, in the story told in John 4, when the disciples returned from their errand in town, they were shocked to see that Jesus was holding this conversation - but it was not about a Jew talking with a Samaritan. Verse 27 says that 'they were astonished that he was speaking with a woman ... ' In Jesus' time -- such a conversation between a man, who had status in society, and a woman, who was in every way a second class citizen - simply didn't happen. This was not the only time the disciples were astonished by Jesus' refusal to maintain gender barriers. There was the scandal of Mary, the sister of Martha, sitting at Jesus' feet and listening to his teachings as if she were a man. There was the woman who had the bleeding disease, whom Jesus honored with his full attention in front of a whole crowd. These things were simply not done. We can get some clue of the scandalous nature of Jesus' actions by recalling our shock just a few years back at how women were treated under the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the way they are still treated in many Middle East cultures, and in many other areas of the world. It is only less than a hundred years ago that women could vote in our own country. But Jesus was a barrier breaker. The disciples were shocked that he was even talking to a woman - yet by the end of the story she was his evangelist, and her testimony brought many Samaritans to Jesus.

Again, it is shameful to see what people have done in the name of Jesus. Churches have shut the door on women in roles of leadership. We can be proud of being part of a church that has now ordained women for fifty years; the majority of churches still exclude women from ordination, and other offices in the church. But women still are held down in many ways in the United Methodist Church. This is not following Jesus; and we should do everything in our power to be breaking the gender barriers with him.

The third barrier he broke down is right at the heart of John 4's message: Jesus broke down spiritual barriers. That is described in this story by the symbol of water. Here is the way it worked: it is a hot hour of day - high noon. Jesus has been traveling by foot, and is dusty and thirsty. He asks the woman for a drink. The conversation starts very much about physical needs. The woman doesn't respond to his request right away, but instead expresses her astonishment that a Jew was speaking to a Samaritan. And then Jesus says, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." Jesus has now broken down the barrier between physical needs and spiritual needs. But the woman still doesn't get it; maybe she doesn't want to. She says, "Sir, you have no bucket, and

the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?" And Jesus says, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again; but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I give will become in them a spring of living water gushing up to eternal life."

That's a conversation that could be going on across our society today. We, like that Samaritan woman, are stuck in a material world. We focus on the physical thirst, and we can only see the physical water that will quench it. Consider how obsessed we are with appearances - the appearance of our bodies, the appearance of our homes, the appearance of our clothes, of our cars, of our name-brand stuff, and so on. The question is, are we nearly as concerned about the quality of our souls? Educator Allen Bloom raises just that issue. He says, "As it now stands, students have powerful images of what a perfect body is and pursue it incessantly. But they no longer have any image of the perfect soul ... They do not even imagine that there is such a thing." In other words, we are obsessed with physical, material things.

And our souls are dying of thirst. A while back, after Newsweek magazine ran an article about raising spiritual children, a 16 year old wrote a letter to them with these words: "I am greatly confused about religion. The void in my life where religion should be is much larger than my parents perceive it to be ... no matter how uninterested children may seem; do not give up teaching them religion. People should not be denied faith while in their critical childhood years. I don't want children growing up today to end up spiritually dead like myself" That spiritual death is around us. People searching Mother Teresa taught people to pray hardest for the wealthy - meaning us - because, she said, we are the ones in poverty. Our souls are destitute, because we have too much stuff.

That's the barrier Jesus wanted to break. Don't focus on this physical water, focus on the water that will quench your spiritual thirst forever. And look how hard he worked on that barrier. The Samaritan woman is fixated on the physical: you have no bucket, she said; the well is deep; why are you talking to a Samaritan. She just couldn't get past the concerns of the moment And Jesus persisted against that barrier, drawing her slowly to understand that he was offering her something so much deeper -- the spring of eternal life. And finally she said, "Sir, give me this water so that I may never be thirsty ..." The spiritual barrier came down, and she was ready for the water of life.

Well ... almost. There was one more barrier to address. I couldn't think of a great name for it, so I am going to call it the barrier of lifestyle. At this point, you might think Jesus has attained his goal; he has brought this woman to the point of acceptance, and she says, "Yes, I want this spiritual water." But Jesus doesn't stop there; he immediately says, in verse 16, the last thing this woman wanted to hear: "Go, call your husband, and come back." Some people have pointed out that noon is not a time that people in the Middle East are likely to be going to the well to fetch water. They already have their water for the day. There is a theory then that this woman intentionally comes to the well in the middle of the day when she is least likely to run into people. Why? Because she is ashamed of her life. And, we could imagine, when Jesus says to go and get her husband, he knows that this very point is the key to her shame - and to the last barrier that needs to come down. She responds, "I have no husband." And he says, "You're right. You have had five husbands, and now you are living with a sixth." We can't tell from the words, but my imagination says that Jesus is extremely compassionate at this moment. Far from judging the woman, he can see how thirsty she really is - how her thirst has driven her from one man to another - and how much pain is part of that lifestyle.

And in effect, what he is saying is that it is one thing to desire the living water of God, but if it's going to flow into your life, it's got to flow into every area of your life. It's got to affect the decisions you make, the relationships you form, the integrity with which you do your business, the moral fiber that drives you. In a way, Jesus is breaking down the barrier between Sunday morning and the rest of the week. It has everything to do with people who worship and seek a religious experience. And you would think that would be enough in itself. But Jesus doesn't stop there. He says, Okay, you thirst to be spiritually filled; you've come to the right place. Now, what is it you're hiding? What is it you're holding back? Where is it that you are most afraid for this water to flow? Because unless it flows everywhere, it can't fully cleanse and heal and forgive and replenish your soul.

Again, we have to imagine into the story, but I imagine that this woman was freed from her demons that day. She met someone that she could not hide from - someone who could see and name her lifestyle for exactly what it was - but who brought compassion instead of shame - forgiveness instead of condemnation. And such love brought down the barrier of her lifestyle. No wonder verse 28 says that she left her water jar, ran back into the city, and said to the people there; "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done." And in verse 39 we read, "Many Samaritans from that city believed in (Jesus) because of the woman's testimony."

I wonder what barriers God sees here this morning. Social barriers, like racism or gender barriers? Spiritual barriers around people who are so wrapped up in material things? The hurts and shames of people trapped in painful lifestyles? We are so good at building walls to keep others out, and not very good at taking walls down so the water of life can flow. We read that when Jesus died on the cross the veil of the Temple was tom in two; graves opened; the sun refused to shine. Barriers of religious arrogance, death, even the rules of nature itself - could not stand against such love. Jesus broke down the walls.

And today he is speaking to you - offering you the water of life from an endless well of grace. What's holding you back? What walls around you and inside you keep the water of joy from flowing?