(John 4: 4-27)
It was early in the evening, a Sunday, probably around 6:00 p.m. when the assist the officer call dropped. It was May 7th, 1978 when Moody Park erupted into a full-fledged riot that lasted three days beginning an even longer and hotter summer in Houston, Texas. I was a young patrol officer with less than 18 months on the street. My partner and I were booking a juvenile in at the Central police station when the radio erupted with calls for help in the park. We left our juvenile and ran to our patrol car and sped off, lights and sirens, to Moody Park just a few miles away. We were one of the first cars to arrive and the situation was already out of control with Sergeant Hill ordering all cars to stay clear of the park. We watched as police cars were tipped over and burned, and later that evening I witnessed two newsmen assaulted and stabbed by the angry mob. Fires were soon set to the businesses bordering the park. We marched down to the Fiesta Mart to protect it, but the fire department refused to enter the area to fight the fire, so we marched out leaving the neighborhood grocery store to burn to the ground. Angry people were screaming at us, throwing rocks and bottles at us, and we could hear either fireworks or gunshots off in the distance as it got darker. We retreated out of the park to a staging area several miles away while plans were being made to bring the situation under control. It was a long three days and nights.
You see, a year earlier on May 5th, 1977, six officers of the Houston Police Department arrested a young Hispanic man by the name of Joe Campos Torres for disorderly conduct. Torres had gotten drunk in a neighborhood bar getting into a fight with other patrons. Rather than take him directly to jail, the officers took him to a secluded spot on the banks of Buffalo Bayou and beat him. They then took him to the jail to be booked in. The jail sergeant refused the booking due to the extent of his injuries and ordered the officers to take him to the hospital to have his wounds treated. Rather than take him to the hospital, they returned to the secluded spot, removed his handcuffs, beat him some more and then pushed him into the bayou. According to the investigation, Torres told the officers he had been an Army Ranger to which one officer said; “Let’s see if this wetback can swim.” Torres’ body was found three days later on Mother’s Day, floating in the bayou. One of the officers, a rookie with only two months on the department, reported what happened to his superiors and after an investigation charges of murder were filed against the senior officers. Tensions in the Mexican-American community were high but they would wait to see justice served. A trial was held that fall with the jury convicting the officers of the lesser-included misdemeanor offense of Negligent Homicide. They were placed on probation for one year and fined a dollar, a dollar. Needless to say, the Hispanic community was shocked and outraged. The life of a young Mexican male is worth only a dollar? In Houston, Texas the life of a Mexican did not matter.
Of course, most of us white officers on the force denounced this despicable hate crime, but we paid the price. We were the ones who responded to the riot. We were the ones who felt the hate-filled glares when we drove through the Hispanic neighborhoods. We were the ones who heard the taunts and jeers as we responded to calls for service, and we had to tread lightly. They were hurt and outraged and wanted to strike back at someone, and we represented that authority that let them down, that put the stamp of approval on the ingrained belief that their lives did not matter. Their lives didn’t matter because they were different.
And that’s one of the underlying themes of our scripture for today, the long-held prejudice the Jews had for the Samaritans. It wasn’t any fault of the Samaritans; they were born that way and had no say in the matter. Assyria had conquered Samaria 700 years before the birth of Jesus. It was after the northern territory had been conquered by the Assyrians that many of the Jews were deported to Assyria and foreigners were brought in to settle the land and keep the peace. The resulting intermarriages between these foreigners and the remaining Jews resulted in a mixed race, impure in the opinion of the Jews who lived in the southern kingdom. Thus, the racially pure Jews hated this mixed race, calling them Samaritans, because they felt their fellow Jews who had intermarried had betrayed their people and the nation of Israel. The Samaritans had set up an alternate center for worship on Mount Gerizim to parallel the temple at Jerusalem, but it was subsequently destroyed. The Jews despised this mixed race of people who even worshipped the same God. They looked different, talked different, and probably ate different food that wasn’t kosher. The hatred was so intense Jews traveling from the north to the south or vice versa would often take the long way around, purposely bypassing Samaria, just so they wouldn’t have contact with any Samaritans. I’m sure the feeling was mutual, you don’t like me, well I don’t like you either.
Our scripture reading tells us that Jesus had to go through Samaria, which was counter to the custom of avoiding Samaria. Was Jesus in a hurry or did he know he would have an encounter with a Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob? I think the answer is obvious in that he knew this would be an opportunity to plant the gospel seed in some of God’s lost children who needed to hear it. We’re told that around noon they came to the town of Sychar and Jesus, tired from the journey, sat down by the well to rest as his disciples went into town to get food. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her; Will you give me a drink? The woman was taken aback and said; “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you as me for a drink?” She was well aware of the longstanding prejudice and knew that no respectable Jewish man would talk to a Samaritan woman under such circumstances, no matter how thirsty he was. Jesus responded; If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. Jesus set the hook and was about to reel her in as she asked where she could get some of this “living water.” They then engage in a wonderful conversation regarding the living water that will well up in a believer giving them eternal life. Jesus tells her that a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. She is obviously a religious woman, in spite of the fact she’s had five husbands and is currently living with a man, as she says that she knows the Messiah is coming and then when he comes, he will explain everything to them. Then Jesus declared, I who speak to you am he.
So, here’s the point I’m trying to make from this underlying theme. As this conversation was winding down the disciples returned from town and were surprised to find Jesus talking to a woman, a Samaritan woman no less. But none of them asked Jesus what he wanted or why he was talking to this woman. This would have been a perfect learning experience, but they kept quiet and said nothing. Remember the disciples were all Jewish and had probably had this prejudice instilled in them at an early age. They had heard their parents and probably their teachers and rabbis talk about how bad the Samaritans were. Growing up they heard their friends and others in the community make racially offensive comments about “those” people. The prejudice became an accepted and justified belief. They could point to things the Samaritans did or didn’t do which justified their being held in such low esteem with contempt for the way they lived. Did they not yet get the gospel message? The message that the gospel of Jesus Christ is for everyone? Even people we don’t like for no good reason? Prejudice of this sort has deep roots and dies hard.
But we have to get it. We have to be prepared and willing to share the gospel at any time, in any place, and to anyone who will listen. Jesus crossed all barriers to share the gospel, and we who follow him must do no less. To better do this, we must remove the hatred from our own hearts and truly make an effort to love our neighbors and treat them as we would want to be treated, with value and worth. Jesus tells us in Matthew 7: 1-5; Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Jesus said in verse 23 that God is looking for those who will worship him in spirit and in truth. How can we do that if we purposely under value or devalue our brothers and sisters?
If I learned nothing during my 12 years patrolling the streets and neighborhoods of Houston; the black section of town, the Hispanic section, the Vietnamese section and the gay section of the city, is that I really had more in common with these people than I had differences. The only real difference was the color of my skin. They all wanted what I wanted, what I probably already had and didn’t appreciate. They wanted good jobs, safe neighborhoods, good schools and representative government, and there was no reason for them not to have it. They don’t want anything more from us than to feel as if their lives matter.
So, who is your Samaritan? Who is it that you don’t like, who you devalue just because of who they are? Won’t you take the time to search your heart and truly examine the reasons for the way you feel, and honestly admit to yourself that holding these people in contempt with an animosity that can’t be justified is not what Jesus wants for you and them? Just as the life of a Samaritan woman mattered to Jesus, the lives of all of God’s children should matter to you if we’re going to walk with one another in perfect harmony. So, let that peace begin with you, right now, with every step you take, let that peace begin with you as you let your brothers and sisters in Christ know their lives matter.
Please pray with me.
Gracious and loving God, God who loves all of his children equally, move us to remove the planks from our own eyes so that we can clearly see the wrongs that devalue our brothers and sister who we wrongly believe are not like us. Help us to examine what is in our hearts so that we can remove the hate and enmity we hold for those we feel are different. Move us to speak up and use our voices to give a voice to the voiceless. Give us the courage to stand for what is right and not to stand silently by wondering what is going on, turning a blind eye. Guide us through the Spirit to be a part of the solution so that one day we can all have peace on earth, that peace that was meant to be for all. Let us be the ones who take that first step, let it begin with us. In Jesus name, we pray, amen.