The Best Neighbors

Scripture: John 4:4-26

There is a decent chance that many of you are not familiar with the social media platform Twitch.   The best way to explain this platform is that it is like YouTube for live videos.  The videos on Twitch are all live streamed.  A lot of the content creators for Twitch are video gamers, and they live stream their play-throughs for others to watch.   Those watching can comment and interact with one another in real time.  Twitch is a growing platform, which is especially popular with younger generations. However, there is an odd collaboration between twitch and public television.  On more than one occasion, there have been huge events where marathons of public television icons have been live streamed on twitch.  Thousands of people watched in real time together re-runs of shows featuring Bob Ross and Mister Rogers.  Often these episodes being watched were older than most of the people watching them. 

These old, sentimental shows have found new life with a new audience.   Perhaps it is just the novelty of it, or perhaps there is something to the authentic kindness and care of these shows that resonate.   The simple fact is they just do not make shows like Mister Rogers Neighborhood anymore.   The appeal of Mister Rogers is not just nostalgia, it is that through a TV he made us believe that we were his neighbor, he cared about us, and he believed we could be better.   Fred Rogers has an enteral reputation of being a soft, kind, grandfatherly figure.  However, he was not afraid to tackle hard issues and controversy, he just did it in the kindest way possible.  A great example of this comes from the show’s first season in 1968.    Mister Rogers introduced a new character, Officer Clemmons.   Officer Clemmons became the first reoccurring African American character on a kid’s television program.   Just months after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, when racial tensions were still high, and segregation of public pools was a hot button issue, an episode of Mister Rogers aired where he and officer Clemmons cooled off together by sitting down and putting their feet side by side in a small pool.   The message that Mister Rogers was delivering in this seemingly innocent scene was unmistakable.  When Mister Rogers asked in song, “Won’t you be my neighbor?”  he meant it.   Mister Rogers did not qualify who got to be his neighbor.   

 While a lot has changed since 1968, there is unfortunately a lot that has not.  The fault points and sides may have changed over the years, but we still find so much that divides us.   We still find bias and mistrust.   Culturally, we still struggle to build the kind of neighborhood that Mr. Rogers showed us- some days it feels further away than ever.  This morning’s scripture though is a reminder that division has long been a problem for people.  This morning’s scripture shows us how Jesus dealt with what divides us, and in doing so Jesus gives us an example of how we can be the best neighbors.      

This morning’s scripture gets off to a bit of an odd start.  In the middle of the day Jesus is waiting for his disciples by a well, and a lone woman comes.  This is odd because noon in the middle east is an odd time to get water.  The more common time would have been early in the morning when it would have been much cooler to carry a heavy jar, and when the water could be used throughout the day.  While the scripture does not state specifically why she came at this unusual time, often the most common conjecture is she came during this time because she purposely wanted to avoid other people.  

 I have to wonder if she approached the well with trepidation.  I imagine she approached the well doing her best not to make eye contact.   Then as she began to draw the water, the unthinkable happened.   He spoke to her.   In the first century this was a huge breach of protocol.   The cultural policy of the time is that a man did not talk to a woman he did not know without the permission or presence of her father or husband.   This is why once their conversation really gets going, it is not out of place for Jesus to tell her to get her husband and come back.   However, that is not the only breach of protocol.   Jesus was a Jew, and this woman was a Samaritan.  

The cultural divide and animosity between Jews and Samaritans is something the gospels refer to a couple of times.  Yet, they do not explain the issue, because for the original audience the context was already understood.  To begin to grasp where the animosity comes from, we must go back into the history of the Israelites.  After the reigns of David and Solomon, the Israelites broke into two separate kingdoms.  As a punishment for idolatry and turning away from God, the northern kingdom of Israel was conquered, and the people were taken into exile by the Assyrians.    However, the Assyrians did not take all of them.  The poorest of the poor were left behind in the land.   In time the Southern Kingdom was conquered and taken into exile by the Babylonians for similar reasons.

  Two to three generations later the exiles from Babylon began to return to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple.  They had managed to preserve their cultural heritage and bloodlines in exile.   Those left behind did not.  They intermarried with other people groups, and in light of the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem, their faith practice had evolved.  This is referenced in this morning’s scripture.  The Samaritans had moved the place of worship of God from Jerusalem to Mount Gerizim.   The returning exiles saw these Samaritans, who lived in the hills of Samaria, to be less than fully Jewish. Because the Samaritans had intermarried with non-Jewish people groups, they were viewed as unclean.   If Jesus had drank water from a vessel handled by a Samaritan, then by the standards of the day he would have been considered unclean.  

There were a lot of cultural divides and divisions between Jesus and this woman.  It is worth noting how entrenched these divisions are into the viewpoint of the woman.  This goes beyond just noticing and stating the differences.  Jesus asks for a simple drink of water, but the division leads to the woman focusing on the differences that prevent her from doing that.  Even when the conversation gets deeper, the woman still brings up the different worship beliefs between the Jews and the Samaritans.  The woman was thinking in an us vs. them mentality.  She saw Jesus as someone different than her, and her starting point is this difference was too vast to bridge. 

Even to this day, these are still reasons why we still struggle to be the best neighbors.  It is hard to be a good neighbor, much less love our neighbors as ourselves, when our starting point is how different someone is.  We can not be the best neighbor to someone when our primary impression of them is that they are “one of those people.”  When we define someone only by how they are different than us, then we tend to reduce people to caricatures.  We view them only in terms of the divides, and we tend to assume the more extreme expressions of whatever the difference is.   This does not mean we just brush over differences and ignore them completely.  To do so is to erase uniqueness of others and minimize their viewpoint.   WE can acknowledge differences without letting them be a source of division.  We can embrace and even celebrate the diversity of others.   We do this by ensuring that there is equity for all regardless of the differences.  We do this by being mindful and intentional of being inclusive of those who might be different from us, so that we can be the best neighbors to them that we can be. 

 This is the example that Jesus gives us in this morning’s scripture.  He does acknowledge the culture differences, especially regarding worship practices, between Jews and Samaritans. However, he does not let this be a point of division.  Instead of only seeing the differences of the Samaritan Woman, Jesus sees her full humanity as a person made in the image of God with dignity and worth.   It is worth pointing out that in the gospel of John, and chronologically in any of the gospels, this is first time that Jesus states that he is the Messiah.   Jesus does not reveal his deepest truth to the powerful, the rulers, the leaders, or even his disciples.  The first time Jesus tells anyone about himself, it is a woman radically different than Jesus who was trying to avoid people. Despite their differences, Jesus leads her to believe that she too can worship God in spirt in truth. 

The power of Mr. Rogers is that on the screen it was portrayed that he wanted to be everyone’s neighbor because he had a genuine care for all people.  We see that same love for all displayed in Jesus reaching across all kinds of cultural lines to connect with the woman at the well.   In this, both Jesus and Mr. Rogers show us the most important factor in being the best neighbors.  To be the best neighbor our primary motivation must be to love others.   This means that every program we offer, every mission project, every community outreach initiative, every personal invite to church the reason why we are doing it because of our love for someone else, because we are seeking to love our neighbors as ourselves.  In a world that continues to be full of divisions, and a world where there are more strangers than neighbors, the way that we bridge that gap and be the best neighbors is love people like Jesus loves us.   In his book “A Field Guide to Methodist Fresh Expressions” United Methodist pastor Michael Beck points this out. He wrote, “Any missional strategy that does not begin with an agenda-free love for others is questionable.”

This woman appears once more in the gospel of John.  In John 4:39-40 we find these words: “Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony . . So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.  And because of his words many more became believers.”    This is early in the ministry of Jesus.  The woman at the well and her testimony led to one of the first big surges of new believers of Jesus, and it happened because Jesus did not the culture differences be a barrier.  This scripture shows when we seek to include more diversity and differences, when we are the best neighbors, then the kingdom of God expands. 

In the same way our testimony and our witness of being the best neighbors can also attract people to be believers in Jesus and expand the kingdom of God.  Research from the Fuller Youth Institute shows that young people want to be part of churches that are the best neighbors and that have a love for the whole world.   The research shows that young people want to be part of churches that are diverse, inclusive, and stand for the equity of all.  In the book Growing Young the researchers report on their findings.  They asked church leaders, church volunteers, parents, emerging adults, and teenagers “What do you believe accounts for your church’s success at engaging young people?”   One of three of them pointed to the church’s inclusive and open attitude towards other people and the culture at large. 

 In this morning’s scripture Jesus meets a woman at a well who was very different from him.   These differences were a cultural divide, but Jesus overcame this division with love.  May we seek to follow the example of our Lord and Savior.  May we truly be able to say to those around us the same words that Mr. Rogers sung every episode as he changed into his comfy cardigan, “I have always wanted to have a neighbor like you, I’ve always wanted to live it a neighborhood with you.  So let’s make the most of this beautiful day, since we’re together we might as well say Would you be mine?  Could you be mine?  Won’t you be my neighbor?  Friends, if we can approach the community around us and the world beyond with that loving attitude I think we will indeed find it is a beautiful day in the neighborhood where God is glorified, disciples are made, and the world is transformed.   So may the world know we are Christians by our love as we seek to be the best neighbors.