Faith in Action

Since I grew up in Southern California and my grandmother lived near Laguna Beach so we would often go and visit her. My mom would often take Pacific Coast Highway also known as Highway 1 to get to my grandma’s house. It was often slower than taking other routes and if we were running late or really needed to just get up there we would take a more direct route. However, if we weren’t then she would take the PCH and we would endure the slower ride up to see my grandma. I will admit that it was a beautiful and mostly relaxing drive to get to see her and that’s why we went that way…it was the scenic route. So we all knew we didn’t have to take PCH to get to my grandma’s house, but at the same time we all knew that we had to take the PCH to get to my grandma’s house.

So when we read in verse 4 of our gospel today and the author John tells us that Jesus HAD to go through Samaria, we need to stop and question what John is saying. You see Jesus and his disciples were in Judea because they were in Jerusalem for the Passover festival, they had pilgrimaged all the way from Galilee in the north to Judea in the south for this holy festival. Now they were going back to Galilee where they had been before. But if we stop and think we’ll find out very easily that when Jesus and his disciples head down to Jerusalem there is no mention of them having to go through Samaria and there is a good chance they didn’t. Most Jewish pilgrims or a Jewish person who traveled from northern Galilee to Judea would have taken the eastern route through the Decapolis and Perea to avoid having to go through Samaria at all. That’s because of generations of division between Jews and Samaritans. So while it makes the most sense geographically to travel from Judea to get back to Galilee, it wasn’t a route that a Jewish person would take.

So if Jesus didn’t have to travel through Samaria to get back to Galilee, then why does John tell us that he does? The same reason (well not literally the same) why my mom had to take us on PCH to get to my grandma’s house. It wasn’t just a beautiful way to get to her house, it was a route and a road that my mom had taken for so many years that it brought up memories for her. She would tell us stories of her driving her hatchback mustang along PCH. She would tell us about all the fun she and her brothers and friends would have when she was a kid. PCH wasn’t just a scenic route, it was a way to remember her life growing up in a real and physical way.

Going through Samaria was, in a way, a reminder for Jesus as well. Just last week we heard Jesus talk to Nicodemus about God’s plan to share God’s love with the whole world through the lifting up of the Son of Man on the cross. “For God so loved the world…” So…if God is going to show God’s love to the whole world, perhaps it needs to start taking shape in a tangible way before Jesus goes to the cross. Maybe some of those bridges that have been burned for generations need to start being mended now so that when the time comes for that one incredible act, people are ready for it. Samaria was a reminder to put God’s words in action. So while Jesus didn’t have to go through Samaria to get to Galilee, Jesus had to go through Samaria to get to Galilee.

So Jesus goes through Samaria and he stops at the holy site of Jacob’s well and he encounters a Samaritan, and not just a Samaritan, but a Samaritan woman. Not only is she someone who doesn’t get along with Jewish people, but she’s also a woman and there are social practices that need to be understood and kept here. And what is so interesting is that Jesus has a very similar conversation with this Samaritan woman as he did with Nicodemus, and like Nicodemus the woman doesn’t fully understand right away, but unlike Nicodemus who seems to just fade away when Jesus talks to him, this woman keeps talking and keeps engaging with Jesus.

And while Nicodemus, a leader of the Jewish faith, fades away this woman, this Samaritan woman, who according to Jewish people of the time didn’t have the right understanding and didn’t follow the right rituals, KNOWS that the Messiah is coming into the world to teach us everything. Notice how she uses the term world, inclusive, and the word us, inclusive, when talking about the Messiah. Jesus then responds to her by saying that he is that one and uses God’s name to describe it to her…I AM. Jesus and this woman are able to set aside all the differences of their people and have a conversation that so changes her life that she realizes that the very Messiah that both Jews and Samaritans are waiting for is talking to her right here and right now. Jesus is literally putting his words of offering life and salvation to the whole world into action just through a conversation with a woman at Jacob’s Well. Then the whole city comes out to see and hear Jesus and they believed in him, and they were so transformed by him that they invited him and his disciples to stay with them and he did for two days before returning to Galilee.

It is incredible what happens when we put our faith and our words into action. Through one conversation with a Samaritan woman and two days with this town Jesus is able to mend bridges and transform lives. And he is able to show us that when he tells us that God so loved the world that God is willing and ready to put that into action. So what are we willing to do to put our faith and our words into action? Just as Jesus had to go through Samaria to Galilee, where is God calling us to go, and whose lives is God calling us to touch? Who needs to taste the living water and be fed by the one and only who loves us unconditionally? We are the ones who have already seen and heard and declare like the Samaritan town that this one is truly the savior of the world, and now we are called by God to be like Jesus and take the detour and share with the world that Jesus loves this world and wants this world to know that all the things we thirst and hunger for are found in a relationship with the one who created us. Amen.