The title for our blog, One Step into Samaria, is taken from John chapter 4. Here Jesus meets with the woman at the well. In the initial reading the passage appears as if Jesus makes his way to meet a helpless sinner who needs to hear the gospel. The passage is indeed about the proclamation of the Gospel. However, the real question is to whom the gospel is proclaimed, as opposed to the mere fact of its proclamation.
The clue to the unique significance of the passage is in plain sight ever so early in the passage. In what is almost always lost to the casual, or first reading is verse four (it was hidden from my view for many years). “And he had to pass through Samaria.” The causal reader will miss two things in his reading. One, A Samaritan woman and a Jewish Rabbi represented their culture’s book ends, the most racially divided groups of a particular culture or geographic location. One can imagine the encounter if you replace the protagonist in John 4 with a white, Wall Street investment banker with a country estate in the Hampton's and a street wise African-American from Harlem. Like the banker and the hustler, the samaritan woman and Christ were geographic neighbors but worlds apart.
Why were they so estranged from one another? It comes down to differences in religious worldview. There were two differences in cultural outlook that had been fought over for so long that they had become second nature to the two parties involved. First, the Samaritans only recognized the first five books of the Old Testament as scripture. Second, the Samaritans did not worship in Jerusalem, but instead on the mountain at Gerizim, 10 miles southeast of Samaria. From these two different views of worshiping the almighty the opposing sides dug a trench big enough to swallow the Mediterranean Sea.
The second item the casual reader will miss it the intensity of the Greek in verse 4. The ‘had’ of the verse has the undertone of force and necessity. “To be something which should be done as the result of compulsion.”1 The word often denoted a sense of obligation and religious duty. In other words, Christ was compelled to step into Samaria. It was not a chance encounter, or random meeting. Rather, Christ saw the step into Samaria as a necessary part of his ministry.
As bloggers and member of the commission we believe that it is a necessary, even compulsory step to be reconciled to one another across racial, ethnic, and cultural lines. We aim to encourage and foster Anglicans making the step toward unity and peace with their brothers from different ethnicities and nations. We believe racial reconciliation is not a ‘nice thing’ if we had time. We believe it lays at the heart of the Gospel message. Because, after all, Christ handed this woman not only his hand of friendship but the message of reconciliation to God through him.
As bloggers and members of the Racial Reconciliation Commision we understand in as monocultural as our tradition has been in the United States we cannot expect reconciliation to take place over night. It must first be of smaller steps, creating trust and assurance that we bring no other agenda other than the desire to see the faith proclaimed to all nations and to every neighbor irrespecutful of their ethnic or national background. This blog will present book and movie reviews, insights on the critical biblical texts, and commentary on events as it relates to racial reconciliation and the Anglican Church. We hope to include a diverse range of opinions and views points that will help the church engage in the debate. We hope in this offering to the church that we encourage all of our journeys, one step at a time, into the Samaria next door.
1 Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 669.
