Coracle Trust E-Reflections

Lent: Walking through walls

Saturday 19 March 2011

So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp; it has its inner light, even from a distance - and changes us, even if we do not reach it, into something else, which, hardly sensing it, we already are. A Walk, Rainer Maria Rilke

Read John 4: 1-26 and return If you knew...who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him.

Drawing out water

Jesus was attracting too much attention from the Pharisees for his liking. His notoriety was increasing, uncomfortably so. It’s too soon. He withdraws from the public glare, turning for home, Galilee. En route with his disciples he stops, in the intermediate territory of the resentful Samaritans, at a well, tired. His disciples move off foraging for food. Jesus is alone, but for a Samaritan woman. He asks to share a bowl and a cup of water with her. He approaches her and she is stunned: if you knew who I was you would ask me to share the bowl and cup. The conversation continues with Jesus as usual drawing out deepest longings, one revelation after another. He identifies her longing and points to its source and fulfilment – himself. The narrative ends with Jesus now openly stating what he wanted to avoid at the beginning of the narrative – to reveal who he was, here to a single woman who happens to be there.

Walking through walls

I am reminded of a description of the movements in our relationship with God; from servant, to friend and onto lover. Jesus is drawing the woman into a relationship, a mutual relationship (“you too would ask”) and one that is increasingly touching the deepest parts of her, her past and her present. He crosses cultural and religious boundaries, skips over theological fences and ultimately gently walks through the wall that is her superficial false self. What wall would you like Jesus to walk through, to get to you? Andrew Hook