Fifth Sunday after Pascha – Sunday of the Samaritan Woman; Commemoration of the Appearance of the Sign of the Precious Cross over Jerusalem at the Third Hour of the Day during the Reign of Constantine (351); the Holy Martyr Acacius (286-305)
Acts 11:19-26, 29-30; John 4:5-42.
Read John 4:5-42
Christ is risen! Truly, He is risen!
Family is complicated. It gives us our longest relationships, greatest hopes, deepest disappointments, and irrevocable losses. People can change and grow closer or change and become estranged. Time can either heal or hurt. Distance can make the heart grow fonder. Or not. Today’s gospel reading is a window into Jesus’s work in the messiness of our family life.
“The bones of Joseph which the people of Israel brought up from Egypt were buried at Shechem, in the portion of ground which Jacob bought…; it became an inheritance of the descendants of Joseph.” (Joshua 24:32) Twelve hundred years later, Jesus “had to pass through Samar′ia. So he came…near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and so Jesus, wearied as he was with his journey, sat down beside the well.”
A lot can happen in a lifetime. A lot more can happen in 1200 years of lifetimes. Since God brought Israel – twelve family clans of the sons of Jacob – out of Egypt and into the land of Canaan, the ten northern tribes were conquered by the Assyrians who practiced cultural assimilation by relocating intermarrying populations amongst each other. This is where the Samaritans came from. The ostracization which the Jews practiced toward their Samaritan near-relatives was born of religious divergence.
Jesus speaks the truth in love: “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.” We see in this conversation between estranged family members the reconciliation Jesus intends for the whole human family: “When (Messiah) comes, he will show us all things.” “I who speak to you am he.” “We have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”