Broken Family Tree

I was going to do some writing last night. Then came the pain. I experienced some abdominal pain that I couldn’t quite think through. Luckily I was actually done with my schoolwork for the night before it got bad. Misty said that based on the location of the pain and my description of it, it sounded like my gall bladder. She asked if I wanted an abdominal ultrasound today. Being the good man that I am, I declined. I’ll just watch what I eat for a few days. This, of course, means that even if it does start to hurt again, I cannot in any form or fashion admit it. I must maintain my manly stubbornness.

Oh, well. Back to Lent (I hope this will make at least some sense. I started it this morning and have had to stop and start 4-5 times. It may be a little fractured.):

Yesterday’s Gospel reading was John 4:5-42: The story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well. So today, our journey to the cross takes us through Samaria.

I want to continue the theme of brokenness that I started last week. As we journey to the cross, that tends to be our focus. The cross serves as a reminder of our brokenness, as well as the brokenness of the world. Last week I talked about how the story of Nicodemus reminded me of the brokenness in myself. You might infer from that, since I don’t think I ever said it outright, that there is brokenness in all of us. We tend to wallow in our brokenness, and that keeps us from getting close to God. It keeps us from fulfilling one of the ‘Great Commandments’: to love God with all of our heart, mind, and strength.

The brokenness displayed in John 4 prevents us from fulfilling the other of those commandments: to love your neighbor as yourself. This passage in John 4 says a lot about broken relationships. It says a lot about our inability and unwillingness to repair those relationships without the grace of God.

Let’s start with THE relationship of the passage: the overbearing, elephant in the room relationship. Relations between Samaritans and Judeans were damaged centuries before Jesus sat next to Jacob’s Well. We tend to portray the problem as racial tensions. As Eric pointed out yesterday, that doesn’t really do justice to the hatred between Jews and Samaritans. I like to think of it more as a family feud. Not a feud between families, but a feud among family members. This type of feud tends to be more heated and more passionate than racial tensions.

The split among Samaritans and Jews goes back to the split of the Kingdom of Israel into two kingdoms: the northern Israel and southern Judea. (Note: Some of this history may not be 100% accurate. It depends on which scholars you ask.) Eventually the Assyrians defeated the northern kingdom. Years later the Babylonian Empire defeated the southern kingdom of Judea, thus began the Babylonian exile. After the Persians defeated the Babylonians, King Cyrus allowed many of the Judean exiles to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. When they returned they found Samaritans living in the area. They claimed to be the descendants of the Kingdom of Israel. They had, however, intermarried with other races from the area. (Forbidden by Jewish law.) Ezra, the priest who led the returnees back to Judea, condemned them for intermarrying. He basically kicked them out of Judea and forbid them from worshiping at the rebuilt temple. Some divorced their non-Jewish wives, others left. Some scholars believe this marked the true schism between Samaritans and Jews.

Here’s where I see the family feud. This reminds me of a son who goes off to college and meets a girl. He brings the girl home to his parents. The parents and all of his siblings immediately dislike the girl. Maybe she’s of a different religion, or a different race. Maybe she is divorced and has kids. Maybe she has a really obnoxious laugh. For whatever reason they don’t like her and forbid there son to marry this girl. So he moves away, marries the girlfriend, and hates his family from that day forward. That’s my analogy, except in the case of the Jews and Samaritans, I guess it would be the parents returning home to find their son has a new girlfriend.

The Samaritans built their own temple on Mt. Gerizim. They claimed to be the only practitioners of true Judaism. From there began a long history of fighting and hatred. Eventually the Jews, under the leadership of the Hasmonean king John Hyrcanus, destroyed the Samaritan temple. (The Hasmonean Dynasty oversaw a period of Judean independence between the Seleucid and Roman Empires’ rule.)

This context brings us back to Jacob’s Well atop Mt. Gerizim almost 200 years after the destruction of the temple that once stood there. The fractured relationship between Jews and Samaritans permeates and informs Jesus’ exchange with the Samaritan woman. Jesus, though, does his part to restore that relationship. The woman reciprocates. That restored relationship leads many in the town to “believe in Him.” Their willingness to repair a broken relationship led these Samaritans closer to God. They saw their brokenness and looked to Jesus for help in repairing that brokenness. Through their faith in him, these townsfolk were restored. Jesus’ interactions in Sychar did not miraculously cause all Jews and Samaritans to live in harmony. But he did bring healing to those who looked to him in faith.

So, as you look to the cross, you see your brokenness. Do you also see broken relationships? Are those fractured relationships keeping you from loving your neighbor as yourself’? Luckily, we too can look to Jesus for help in restoring those relationships. (Even if, as with these Samaritans, it is only restored on our end.)