My question for today is straightforward: Have you heard any good jokes about Samaritans recently? How about the one where the two Babylonian guys kidnaped this Samaritan girl? They sent her back to her father in Shechem with a ransom note. And her dad sent her back to the Babylonians with the money. Some of you didn’t think my joke was very funny. What if I changed it to some other character types? Maybe an Aggie1 joke, or one about two Polish guys? What if the Samaritan girl had blond hair? Would that make it funnier? Or if you prefer, you can pick out your own outcast as the focus for your joke.
Each one of us may have a favorite outcast to pick on. Each one of us has our own brand of prejudice and bigotry which can be expressed in jokes and name calling. But we certainly don’t mean to hurt anyone. Right? After all, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Isn’t that what we’re taught when we’re young? Isn’t that what I was supposed to remember when I was growing up?
If that’s true, why does it still hurt when I recall a statement I kept hearing all the time I was growing up, all the time I was a teenager. When I would introduce myself to someone as Pat Camerino, the frequent response was, “Camerino? Gee, you don’t look Italian.” I, finally, learned to shrug it off with the lame, teenage camelback, “Well neither does Wish Bone Dressing.2”
Why is it that one of the earliest stories I remember my mother telling me is how the KKK boys almost tossed her out the window in school because she was a Polish Catholic. Perhaps, this is one reason why I don’t find too many so-called “Polock” jokes very funny. Or why I’m not amused by Mafia references. This may also be why I get upright when I hear politicians talking about immigrants and the problems they cause “real” Americans. And what about you? Who is your favorite stereotype for jokes?
Some two-thousand years ago for the Israelites, it would have been the Samaritans, and probably women. Two thousand years ago, people already knew about the power of words. About how words could lead to the division of peoples. Even a thousand years before then, they were aware of this power. When at Meribah and Massah, they grumbled against God, himself. When they yelled curses at Moses for leading them out into a waterless desert. What jokes and put-downs do you think they had about Moses back then? Bill Clinton is certainly no Moses leading us to the Promised Land, but he probably has a good idea of how Moses felt there in the desert standing before that rock, just before the water flowed.
Flowing water. Today’s message is about flowing water. About living water. About the water of life. But have you ever thought how water and words are so much alike? Both words and water can bring life or death. Too much water and we have floods and destruction. Too little water, and every thing withers away in dust bowls and droughts, leaving dry tinder to be ignited and destroyed by fire. Words can bring either destruction or healing. They can bring truth or falsehood.
Sitting there by the well so long ago, Jesus spoke only truth to the Samaritan woman who came to draw water to quench her thirst. He spoke of her past life in matter-of-fact terms. He did not condemn her, but only reminded her of what she had done to separate herself from the community, why she had to come to the well at high noon when no one else would be around, no one who would speak words of ridicule.
Jesus did not ridicule her. Rather, he spoke to her of living water, a potential fountain within her that would slake her thirst forever. And upon hearing this revelation she became his first missionary. She went running off to the townspeople who had rejected her, to tell them of the wondrous news that the Messiah had arrived in their midst. They listened to her, the outcast, and although they, too, were Samaritan outcasts they went to hear for themselves the words of Jesus. Healing words. Words indicating unity was possible.
He spoke to his followers how those who sow and those who reap would have the same harvest of joy. Those who began the planting of seeds and those who gathered the golden wheat would join together. The two ends of the spectrum of life, those at the start and those at the end would partake of the same banquet.
Those Samaritans from the town of Shechem where able to hear his words and know “this is the Savior of the world.” No longer were they outcasts. Instead, they recognized the truth which we have also heard today from St Paul: “… that God proves his love for us: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Yes, Jesus the Christ suffered, died and rose again for us sinners, for all of us who are outcasts. Each one of us who is someone else’s joke. For all of us “nerds” who believe bread and wine become his Body and Blood. For all of us fools for Christ, who have felt the flowing, life-giving, water of baptism and have welcomed the graces they bring. For all of us who don’t tell good jokes about Samaritans but rather live out the life of the one who is called “the good Samaritan.” For all of us who come to the well and take away his words of eternal life.
Third Sunday of Lent; March 10, 1996
Ex 17:3-7; Rom 5:1-2, 5-8; Jn 4:5-42
- Aggies, of course, are those who attend, or have ever attended, Texas A&M University at College Station. Although very bright, they are made the butt of derogatory jokes, especially by students and alumni of the University of Texas at Austin. One of my sons is an Aggie.
- At the time, Italian Wish Bone Dressing had an ad stating it didn’t “look Italian.”