A sermon on the woman at the well wouldn’t be complete without a long exposition about the heat of the midday sun and why it is that this woman is only one who comes to the well at this time. She’s an outcast of her town, a known sinner...She’s out at the well in the midday heat to avoid the crowds, but I’d guess this is not by her own choosing. She’s probably been told to stay away, “don’t come near to us, you are unclean.” Essentially, she’s been told she is contagious and she is a threat to the health of her community.
This is a particularly difficult text to preach for a time such as this because it requires us to ask the questions: what is actually contagious and what isn’t; what is a threat to the health of the community and what isn’t? See, the Covid-19 virus is actually contagious, it is a real threat to our health and must be taken seriously, as such. For this reason, one can’t make a simple side-by-side comparison between this woman’s social quarantine due to “sin” and the very real and necessary caution we must take avoiding crowds.
Jesus approaches the woman at the well to reveal her “contamination” to be made up, and to reveal a more nuanced contagion at work in her community (and even amidst his own disciples): that of unfounded fear and prejudice. Unmitigated fear is just as much a threat to the health of the community. And Jesus is seen, in this story, not simply restoring this woman’s voice and value in her own community, but as a “reconciler of ancient enemies,” bringing this Samaritan village into the light of the Gospel.
Again, it’s difficult to preach this message about healing the divide in the midst of a pandemic, but I believe there are a few helpful caveats we can lift out of the Gospel to ward off the mental, spiritual, and emotional contagions of judgment, and prejudice, and fear while also staying safe from the physical contagion that threatens our world.
I read a story about a young man who has stockpiled over 17,700 bottles of hand sanitizer which he is attempting to resell to the panicked masses at insanely high prices. This is profiteering at its worst. Not everyone is stooping to this level, but panic-buying, as it has been called, has taken hold of the nation. All across the country you can see pictures of supermarket shelves, completely bare. No toilet paper, towels, tissues, soap, disinfectant spray. Is this contagious, is this a threat to the health of our community?
I have friends in the healthcare profession sharing posts begging the public to stop coming into hospitals and doctor’s offices to take face masks. “Our sick patients, especially those with compromised immune systems such as chemo patients, post-op patients, respiratory distress patients, etc need those masks for their health...and our doctors and nurses need them for their health as well.” My brother, who is doing clinical work for his nursing program, has peers who have received an e-mails from hospital administrations stating that any staff members discovered taking any supplies home with them would be fired. Is this a threat to the health of our community?
There is growing fear about travel and allowing people in and out of our country...how do we tell the difference between that which is medically advisable, and that which is prejudicially motivated? How do we distinguish separation which is good for the physical health of the community, and that which is damaging to the mental and emotional health? It’s a tough, but important, balance that must be drawn between necessary medical quarantine, and justified xenophobia. We must protect ourselves, our families, our community without quarantining our hearts.
With all this panic-buying and greed and fear, I am reminded of Jesus’ words to the Pharisee in the 11th chapter of Luke:
When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. But the Pharisee was surprised when he noticed that Jesus did not first wash before the meal. Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.
I do not advise us to follow Jesus’ example in this case, of not washing his hands. But I do advise us, while we pay close attention to what’s going on outside, to take just as much care to keep our “insides” clean, our hearts and our thoughts.
Where does God stand in all of this? God is at the well, in the heat of the noonday sun, offering living water for the health and healing of all people. But trusting God, believing in Jesus Christ will not make us immune to the COVID-19 virus, as much as I wish that were the case. Trusting God, and the word of Jesus Christ, will make us immune to the pandemic of fear, however. And that is just as important in a time such as this.
In closing, I’d like to share an excerpt from the book we’ve been reading together in book group, Walter Wink’s The Powers that Be:
“In contrast to the traditional view that uncleanness was contagious, Jesus regarded holiness/wholeness as contagious. The physician is not overcome by those who are ill, but rather overcomes their illness. Thus Jesus touches people who have leprosy, or who are unclean or sick or women, without fear of contamination. Jesus is not rendered unclean by the contact; rather, those whom society regarded as defiled are made clean. Holiness, he saw, was not something to be protected; rather, it was God’s miraculous power of transformation. God’s holiness cannot be soiled; rather, it is a cleansing and healing agent. It does not need to be shot up and quarantined in the temple; it is now, through Jesus’ healings and fellowship with the despised and rejected, breaking out into the world to transform it.”