Blood & Water

Mother and Son, Dinh Q. Le

John 4:5-42

 

So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour...

 

If you are a regular reader of this blog (Justin, that means you) then you may remember that I briefly discussed the Woman at the Well in an earlier post about The Good Samaritan. Today I would like to discuss a particular element of the today's scripture reading. It is not just another narrative of Jesus preaching to a faceless sinner. It is not just a tale about Jesus' adventures in asking for water. It is one that has specific details and a universal application. The story of Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the Well speaks to so many other stories in history of two groups with a troubled past. The artist for today's post also speaks about two such groups. Dinh Q. Le is a contemporary photographer who splits his time divided between Los Angeles and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). His life and artwork have also been about the divide between the United States and Vietnam. His photographs are literally woven together mixing classic news images of the Vietnam war, the Hollywood representation of them, family pictures and some of his own recent pictures. Dinh Q. Le's work explores the hazy line between individual memory, collective memory and media narrative in the painful history of the Vietnam War. Ironically the greatest discovery to an American viewer may be that Vietnam has a more painful recollection of this conflict (known to them as The American War). Its ramifications continue to affect Vietnamese Americans and Vietnamese nationals to this day. I was born about 6 years after the fall of Saigon and the end of American military involvement in the conflict, however, this era was still rich in film adaptations of the conflict and public bitterness over the country's involvement in the war. Many of my junior high and high school classmates were children of Vietnamese immigrants. Their older siblings would have been making the same transition that Dinh Q. Le made when his family moved to the U.S. when he was ten years old. We don't think about the Vietnam War as much as we did thirty years ago, being that we have had other wars in the intervening years that have reshaped the American conscious just as much. However the lessons that can be learned from it can be useful in finding a healing future for us and other nations that we have had troubled histories with. These are the lessons that can be learned from Jesus and the Samaritan woman.      

 

 

Bad Blood

 

...A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw”...

 

The history of Vietnamese and American relations is based in blood. Blood spilled on a battlefield of good intentions that became clouded by the fog of war. The United States entered the Vietnam War with the intention of aiding the South Vietnamese government against the Vietcong of North Vietnam. It was seen by Washington as fighting off part of the greater Communist threat in Southeast Asia. Like the Korean War before it, the Vietnam War was in effect a proxy war between the Democratic Pacific powers (which includes the United States) and Communist China and the Soviet Union. It was an extension of the Cold War. For Vietnamese Americans it is a different story of blood. It is the bloodlines of families that were separated by political refugees fleeing the civil war between North and South. In seeking asylum in America they not only left their homes but their other family members In Jesus' day the Jews and Samaritans didn't get along. It wasn't based upon a prejudice of ignorance but rather one of familiarity. They had a shared history. This history was one of division, difference and mistrust. The fact that Jesus had travelled through the country of the Samaritans was a taboo in itself: his striking up a conversation with her went further beyond the pale. The beginnings of this bad blood between the two groups was based on blood...not the type that you spill in battle but the type you share with biological relatives. Jews and Samaritans were estranged relatives. The Samaritans were partially Jewish and partially Gentile. They were a people group that had arisen during the Babylonian exile when some Palestinian Jews who remained in the homeland intermarried with the people of the land. In addition to this the Samaritans did not accept anything in the Jewish Bible (Old Testament) beyond the Torah (first five books of Moses). This being the case they worshipped God on Mount Gerizim and rejected the Temple in Jerusalem (which was the center of mainstream Jewish worship/sacrifice). This combination of perceived bad genes and bad theology made dealing with a Samaritan an anathema to Jews of the time. Christ performed no physical miracle in this story (yes he did prophesy, but he seems to have done that on a number of occasions) but him having a dialogue with this Gentile woman was revolutionary enough for the Disciples to take note of and the Gospel writer to include. The revolutionary act was to show love and friendship to one's ethnic/national enemy. To see them as a fellow human being... but even more than that: a familiar human being... as a neighbor, as a friend, as brethren. The Jews and the Samaritans never had any physical armed conflict...only a cold war. They "had no dealings" with each other. When actual war comes into the picture between two groups the hatred, misunderstanding and coldness can be much worse. Jesus did not hold back his opinion on the matter of the theological differences between Samaritans and Jews but he also did not hold back his love. Jesus' solution to the Jews and Samaritans not having "dealings with each other" was to deal with one. He served as a mediator between the Jewish and Samaritans by offering a personal friendship that went beyond the hardships of the past. He was someone who as knowledgeable of both what had happened and what could be developed. I remember back in high school when one of my Vietnamese friends showed me pictures of their Summer trip to their grandparents. Unlike other classmates this wasn't a trip to Baton Rouge, La. or some other local state, it was a trip back to Vietnam. These bi-cultural kids were integral in communicating healing to both countries. They were both fully Vietnamese and fully American. They revealed a future that could be developed between both countries beyond the hurt of the past. They were Americans that would have dealings with Vietnam and Vietnamese who would understand what it was like to be an American. The solution of dealing with two groups with bad blood is to create a third type of person in the situation. One that can be a friend, brother and neighbor to all parties involved. One that can show a new way to all involved.    

 

 

Good Water

 

...Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”

The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”

Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He”...

 

Before the America's involvement in the Vietnam war, the two countries didn't have that much of a relationship. Southeast Asia (or Indochina as it was once referred to) was largely a domain of French colonialism. The only thing that America and the United States shared was that one could consider them Pacific countries... and even that is a stretch since Vietnam is actually bordered by the South China Sea (the Philippines are border between the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea). Both countries are considered "Pacific Rim" countries, so their is that general maritime connection.  Even though they may not share much in the literal water, the United States and Vietnam can share much in Jesus' metaphorical treatment of water. The thing that united the Jews and Samaritans was water and time. The well of Jacob united Samaritans in their shared history in the Old Testament Patriarch. Yet with that it also showed the other historical differences (and differences in viewing history) that divided their dealings in the present. Yet the "living water" that Christ promised to the Samaritan woman was the spiritual refreshment that would unite the futures of the Jews, Samaritans and the whole world. As Christ promised, the hour would come when access to this spiritual water would not be determined by geography or the errors and prejudices of the past... in fact it would wash those considerations away. This living water is the irrigation of the Kingdom of God. It is the knowledge that God has made all men brothers through the blood of His dear Son. It is the mind of Christ that looks past the trespasses of the past and imagines ways to foster peace.

 

 

Strange Fruit

 

...And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why are You talking with her?” The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” Then they went out of the city and came to Him. In the meantime His disciples urged Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But He said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” Therefore the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors”...

 

We reap the fruit of those who have labored before us... We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us... there are many ways to state the truism that we are affected by the things that our ancestors have done. Sometimes this fruit that we reap is sweet. The Apostles reaped the benefits of the laboring of the Prophets of old and Christ who went before them. The fellow Samaritan townsfolk who heard the Samaritan woman's witness of Christ reaped the faith wrought from her encounter with the Word Incarnate. We reap the Gospel that the Apostles labored to spread long before our time. Sometimes the fruit that we reap from our ancestors can be bitter like lemons. Earlier generations left us a fairly mangled situation in our relationship with Vietnam: whether it be the colonialism of the French or the shortsighted policeman of the world policies of Cold War America. What are we going to do with this fruit that they left us? Are we going to learn from the sins of the past? Is the Gospel going to shine in the darkness? Are we going to make lemonade from these lemons? That is the greatest question that the images of Dinh Q. Le asks of us. The Vietnam War is one among many similar stories: The genocide and disenfranchisement of Native Americans during the years of the Indian Wars, the treatment of Muslims worldwide in the post-9/11 era (including the Iraq and Afghanistan wars). Centuries worth of acts of war, imperialism and prejudicial disassociation between nations and ethnic groups has been placed in our laps and we are challenged to engage it in a Christ-like way. It naturally appears to be a bad thing (and yes it is based on the results of bad things) but it is actually a calling. God doesn't just call Christians to have faith but rather to have faith that produces deeds... deeds that are done in a fallen world and that reconcile the fallen world back to God. The fruit that Christ said that the Disciples/Apostles had inherited was the living out of the Gospel. The living out of the Gospel is what establishes the Kingdom of God on Earth. It is the fruit that we too are called to share with our neighbors and enemies.  

Surprise Conclusion

 

...And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. And many more believed because of His own word. Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”

 

This narrative ends with a surprise conclusion. Many of the Samaritans look past the shared history of hurt that they shared with the Jews and accept this Jewish Messiah. They accept the Gospel with gladness at a time when Jesus and the Disciples faced much rejection at home. The Samaritans understood that Jesus wasn't only the Savior of the Jewish people but also the "Savior of the world." They saw past the fact that the messenger looked like their enemy and heard the message of truth and love. The surprise of the post-church age in Europe and much of the Western world is that the "Third World" has taken up the missionary call. It can be seen in the scores of young Vietnamese priests and nuns who serve in American archdioceses and religious orders. In similar fashion their are now several American Episcopalian churches that a overseen by African Anglican bishops and mission fields worldwide are filled with Korean Pentecostals and Presbyterians. All of these Third World churches are the results of missionary efforts centuries earlier from European and American missionaries. In the tradition of African American slaves, the earlier converts in these countries were able to look beyond the evils of their Western oppressors and find the God who came to love all people as His equal children. They could see Prince of Peace beyond the fog of war. As time passes by the strength and energy of the Body of Christ is to be found in the Global South. In conclusion the lesson to be learned from the story of the Samaritan Woman at the Well is one of blood, water and fruit. Christ who has given his blood and washed from our sins, has done so that we can produce the fruit of his Holy Spirit. In doing so we make peace with our former enemies and repair tattered relationships with Christ-like thinking and giving. More than often God surprises us by revealing that He has been creating the same changes in our former foe. It only starts when we take an honest inventory of the mistakes of the past and make an honest effort at peacemaking.