Are you any good at human relationships?

A LESSON IN HUMAN RELATIONS

Jn. 4:5-42

Our Gospel setting today was at a water well, nearby a Samaritan village.  It was here that Jesus and His followers stopped to replenish their supplies.  The disciples had gone into the village to buy food.  Jesus, being tired from His journey, sat down on the curb of the well and waited for their return.  In the meantime, one of the villagers, a woman, came to the well to draw water.  The encounter that followed is a lesson in human relations.

Here were two people, who were about as different as people can be.  One was a woman, and the other a man.  In that day, women had no status at all.  They were owned by their fathers until they got married.  After that, they were owned by their husbands.  Men were regarded as being far superior to women.  It was accepted protocol that men had no public dealings with women, not even to talk with them.  This was part of the reason why this woman was startled when Jesus asked her for a drink of water.  To do so puts Him in a subordinate position.  He was acknowledging His dependence upon her.  In a male-dominant culture, that was something no self-respecting man would do.  You will note that when the disciples returned, they were surprised that Jesus was speaking to a woman.  It simply wasn’t done.

 Another difference that separated Jesus and the woman was race.  Jesus was a Jew.  The woman was a Samaritan.   Between those two nations an ancient antagonism ran bitter and deep.  Each side was convinced that the other side was no good.  Most Jews hated Samaritans and most Samaritans hated Jews.  There was no sensible explanation for it.  Racial prejudice never does make sense.  That is why it is called "prejudice".  The word means "to judge in advance".  Without taking the time or making an effort to know an individual, you simply decide, on the basis of race, that a person is no good.  Such behaviour is unfair and unintelligent.  The prejudiced person is merely advertising his or her own ignorance.  It is counter-productive.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, useful comes out of it.  Even if it were true, what good would it do?  What would it accomplish to hate an entire race of people, simply because they were thought to be no good?  They are not going to vanish from the earth, merely because we hate them.  They would still be here.  We would still have to find some way of relating to them.  Despite all of its stupidity, racial prejudice endures even to this day.  It may well be the greatest curse ever to beset humankind.

Another difference that separated Jews and Samaritans was religion.  They both believed in God.  That should have been, and could have been, a basis for unity.  But both sides got hung-up on the details of religion.  It became, instead, a wedge that drove them apart.  The focus of their disagreement was where God should be worshipped.  The Jews had a temple in Jerusalem.  The Samaritans had a temple on Mount Gerizim.  Both of them insisted that their place of worship was the proper place.  There was no room for compromise.  Each side knew themselves to be right.  So, they ended up hating one another in the name of God.  People who become obsessed with the details of religion will almost always fall into that same trap.

Jesus did not allow any of these differences to separate Him from the Samaritan woman, or from anyone else.  He chose, instead, to focus on the similarities that unite all people.  This entire story revolves around water.  That is an appropriate centrepiece for a lesson on human relations.  It strips away everything deep.  He had no rope or bucket with which to draw water.  The woman had both.  He needed her help, and she needed His.  Here was a woman who shared the story of her life with a total stranger.  Why would she do that?  The obvious answer is loneliness.  The warmth and kindness of Jesus were like living water to her thirsty soul.  Can people die of loneliness?  I think they can.  We all need to be loved.  Surely every human heart longs for the sight of a friendly face, the sound of a friendly voice, the touch of a friendly hand?  Our common social needs demonstrate that we are all alike.

This woman had not been able to make life work.  She looked back on a succession of broken relationships that were forever beyond repair.  She remembered missed opportunities that could never be reclaimed.  She lived with the pain of failed hopes and shattered dreams.  Her life had become a sad litany of things that might have been.  Anyone who has lived very long at all can understand that.  The only difference may be that our failures have not been quite as glaring as hers, but all of us are in the same boat.  We all need the kind of help that only God can give.

Human relations have two dimensions.  There are the differences that divide us, and the needs that unite us.  Jesus chose to emphasize the latter.  What about us?  When we look at other people, which do we see?  The differences that tear us apart, or the needs that bind us together? 

Lord Jesus, let us concentrate on what binds us together.  Then we shall treat all people like You did.

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