Dear Woman

Jesus, a Jewish Rabbi, meets a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. He not only asks for a drink of water but strikes up a conversation with her. This just isn’t done. This is not just a woman, it’s a Samaritan woman. A less than ‘pure’ woman. A less than fully human being. And what’s more Jesus short circuits thousands of years of racial bigotry and apartheid by explaining to her that the time is coming when all God’s children will worship God in Spirit - that it won’t matter who belongs to what caste or tribe, that God’s love will fall like rain from the heavens and she - yes even she - can be welcomed and fully loved in God’s family.

But he does something else. He answers her question. Not the, ‘what about the temple in Jerusalem’ question. He answers her real question. The ‘what about me’, cast off in the world, cast off by God’, question. He begins by saying, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when…” I wondered at this. Wondered at the word ‘dear’. Wondered enough to look it up at Dictionary.com. It means loved. Precious. Cherished. It also means ‘expensive’, like the price of Christ’s life, perhaps.

Believe me, Jesus says, you are loved, precious, cherished. Believe me, Jesus says, I love you. And then he goes on to say that the Spirit will come, this apartheid will end. How many times have I read this story and missed those four words? Believe me, dear woman. Believe me, I love you…” In that moment, and in those few words, she was given a new name, a new identity. She was born again.

I no longer believe that the reason Jesus came was to make unrighteous people righteous. Jesus came to make broken people whole, to heal our broken world. The only paradigm in which we can fully appreciate the person, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ - and his coming, again - is that of healing. Love is the balm God applies to our lives and our world. Shalom is the end result - a state of well-being beyond health or prosperity; a state of transcendent wholeness. Any other approach perpetuates wounding, the terrible cost of vanity and brings death. Yes - death.

Believe me, I love you…