Conversation

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

March 19, 2017

3 Lent A

          Ahmad Deeb is the Executive Director of the Islamic Society of Akron and Kent.  We met at a gathering next door at First Congregational Church just before Thanksgiving, then we were both speakers the following week at the Interfaith Thanksgiving service at Walsh Jesuit.   Ahmad and I have sent text messages back and forth since Thanksgiving, trying to get a date on the calendar for a conversation.  We finally landed on this past Tuesday.  Snow or no snow, I was getting to Cuyahoga Falls to talk with Ahmad.  When I arrived at the Islamic Center, the first thing I noticed was that the entrance is kept locked, even during the day.  At Christ Church, our doors are open during the week.  When I asked Ahmad about the doors, he replied that they have to be very careful at the Islamic Center.  The security concerns at an Islamic Center are real, especially since they have a school on the premises.  The other day, an unknown person was seen taking photos of the Islamic Center and the police were called.  At Christ Church, if someone is outside taking photos of our church, we assume that they are interested in our historic buildings and we think nothing else about it.  From the moment I walked into the Islamic Center, the very different ways Ahmad and I experience the world were quite evident.  We talked for a long time about that, as Ahmad gave me a tour of their facility and offered me cup after cup of tea.  We talked about the similarities and the differences between our faiths, the different ways our scriptures are interpreted, the role of women in our traditions over the centuries, and many other things over the course of an hour and a half.  Toward the end of our conversation, we talked about how we might begin to build bridges and relationships between faith communities that go deeper than simply doing good works together, as wonderful as those works might be.  How do we begin to engage in meaningful conversation with people whose faith and experience of the world may be quite different from our own?

          This morning, two very different people who experience the world in two very different ways have a surprising conversation.  The Samaritan woman has gone to the well in the heat of the day to draw water, and her plan is to get her water and go home before she encountered anyone.  No one goes to the well in the heat of the day if they can avoid it.  When she sees Jesus, she certainly did not expect him to talk with her.  In the years after Israel fell to the Assyrians in 722 BC, the Jews remaining in what had been Israel married non-Jews, and mixed Jewish beliefs and practices with those of their non-Jewish spouses.  These were the Samaritans, and they were considered by the Jewish people to be unclean.  The Samaritan woman expected to be alone at the well in the heat of the day, and when she discovers that she is not alone, she expects to be ignored if she is lucky, and banished if she is not.  She certainly does not expect to be engaged in conversation by a Jewish man.

          Jesus is also at a point of vulnerability, although in a very different way than the Samaritan woman.  Jesus is alone, hot, tired, and deeply thirsty, yet has no way to satisfy his thirst.  Jesus and the woman have both arrived at the well at noon, for very different reasons, and conversation happens.

          The Samaritan woman is clearly capable of holding her own in a conversation with a Jewish man.  When Jesus asks for a drink, or actually seems to demand a drink, the Samaritan woman doesn’t just hand Jesus some water.  Instead she is curious why Jesus would ask a Samaritan woman for a drink.  Jesus takes the conversation a bit deeper by telling the Samaritan woman that if she would ask him for a drink of water, he would give her living water.  To which the woman replies, perhaps with laughter in her voice, “Sir, you don’t even have a bucket!”  But when Jesus tells her that his water will keep her from ever having to draw water again, the woman is immediately intrigued, realizing that living water could mean that she never has to come to this well again in the heat of the day.

          And then the conversation turns to the woman’s marital status, which Jesus names but does not judge, the proper place and manner of worship, and the coming of the Messiah.  This is quite a range of conversation topics for two people considered to have nothing in common.  But the woman at the well and Jesus engage one another.  Each has something the other needs, and both are willing to participate in a conversation that takes them deeper into an understanding of each other.  Neither is defensive, even if both are a little snarky at times.  Both are changed in some way by the conversation.  The woman comes to know the living water and goes off to tell others.  Jesus, who began the conversation tired out by his journey and thirsty, seems quite revived by the conversation, even though there is no evidence that he ever got his drink of water. 

          How do we engage in meaningful conversation with people whose faith and whose experience of the world may be quite different from our own?  I think we begin by admitting that we need each other.  Jesus needed the water that the Samaritan woman could provide and she needed the living water Jesus could provide.  We need the perspective and insight that can only be provided by those who experience and faith is different from our own.  Secondly, we cultivate curiosity.  The woman at the well was curious about this man who asked her for a drink of water.  Curiosity allows us to engage in meaningful conversation that takes us deeper into the depths of what we and they believe, without being defensive.  Lastly, we allow ourselves to be nourished and strengthened by the conversation. 

            Our baptismal covenant calls us to seek and serve Christ in all people and to respect the dignity of every human being.  When we engage in the kind of conversation Jesus and the woman at the well exemplify, we are not just being nice or doing something special.  We are not just learning about another culture for our own benefit.  We are living as the people Jesus calls us to be and the people we promise to be in baptism.

                                                                             Amen