The unity God calls us to
I have been enjoying myself this week imagining what I would ask Jesus if I ran into him while I was going about my day, minding my own business, like the Samaritan woman at the well. If I had Jesus in the flesh, right in front of me, I could try to resolve some important theological questions just like she did. For example, going back one thousand years to the controversy of the filioque, the argument that contributed to the schism between the Eastern and Western church, I could ask Jesus to settle this once and for all. Which version of the creed is right, I could ask Jesus, our version that states the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, or theirs, that states the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone? Or, I could ask Jesus, is it okay to honor Mary, to ask other saints to intercede for us, as we do, or is that really something like idolatry? Who is right? What about infant baptisms, are those okay, or should we wait a dozen years for more wisdom to come? And how about a question that is particularly relevant to me today: are we right to ordain women as clergy, or should we (women) really keep quiet in the church? Dear Jesus, please tell me, who is right?
Listing questions like this may come across as irreverent or disrespectful, as if I am minimizing strongly held beliefs, and I don’t mean to do that. These are significant questions. But somehow, imagining that I could come face to face with Jesus and ask him any question, made all my questions feel slightly silly. And I guess that is the point. We humans do a terrible job of trying to understand what is important to God, often all that we can come up with is some rationale for why God is with us and against them.
It seems that the woman at the well recognized that she, a Samaritan, and Jesus, a Jew, shared a common ancestry, both being descendants of Abraham and holding the ground they stood on, the well in their midst, as significant in their people’s history. Yet the questions she asked him were all about their differences. First, asking what was he even doing speaking to her, asking her to share water with him, and then who was he to think he was better than Jacob, and finally asking him to settle a question of theological difference for her. Jesus, who is right?
Her questions highlight what an extraordinary thing it was for Jesus to have struck up a conversation with her at all. If you’ll remember, Samaritans are descendants of the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel who were not deported when that Kingdom fell, who intermarried with Babylonians and Medians brought to the region by the Assyrians who conquered them. After the Jews returned from exile, there was much conflict between the groups, some of it centered on the Samaritans’ opposition to rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem. This is where her question came from. She was essentially asking Jesus where she can find God, in the Temple in Jerusalem, or on the mountainside? It was a pretty significant question.
But to Jesus, it was beside the point. Jesus recognized the differences between the two groups, but still called the woman to something better than being right. He called her, and the disciples who came to question what he was doing, and her people who followed her to Jesus, he called all of them, just as he calls all of us, to something better than being right. He called them to unity. Unity that comes through the Spirit and through the Truth of who Jesus is. Unity is an important theme in the gospel of John. Jesus speaks often of unity when he describes his own relationship with God, and before his death he prays for unity among not only his disciples but among all those who will hear their words and believe them. From John chapter 17 he prays, “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and loved them even as you have loved me.”
The idea was radical when Jesus proclaimed and modeled it to the Samaritan woman, when he lived it throughout his ministry, when he prayed for it before he died, and it is radical now. Radical but not impossible. So much is said these days about the divisions between us. Hearing these constant declarations of division, along with calls for all of us to be exactly the same, could make us think we humans don’t understand unity very well. Two thousand years of proclaiming the truth of the gospel, that we are already one in Jesus, and yet seeing continued division, could make us think we still don’t practice it very well either. Maybe what we neglect to understand is that it is a practice. Unity is a choice to remain in relationship with one another despite differences, despite disagreement. A choice not to let our differences become bigger than the reality of God’s love, than the gift of God’s grace. Unity is how we show that we belong to God. All of us.
Though some might have us believe it is impossible, that we are indeed growing further apart every day, I don’t actually believe that is true. I don’t believe it’s true because I know that all of us could look around this church today and find people we disagree with. Maybe even strongly, vehemently disagree with. But we’re here. Together. In a few minutes we’ll greet one another with a sign of God’s peace, we’ll gather around Jesus’ table and through his Body and Blood become one with one another, one with Him, as was his prayer. We do it every Sunday.
For this reason, I think we need to resist the rhetoric that tells us these are polarizing times. That message does not come from God. It’s only true when we make it true. But we can make choices every day to show up for one another, to serve one another, to participate in the unity God calls us to. We can go out into the world carrying God’s peace, truly living like God’s love is bigger than our differences. Whatever question we might imagine asking Jesus, becomes small in the face of this reality. This is what matters to God, that we recognize who God created us to be. One. In Christ. With one another. Amen.
Image: excerpt from Christ and the Samaritan Woman (1664-1669), Sébastien Bourdon (1616-1671).