Sacred place and people

Gospel: Jn 4:5-42

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030324-YearA.cfm

Jesus challenged the limited thinking of his time. At the well with the Samaritan woman, he broke the social standards that were in place in his day. Not only did he speak to a Samaritan woman, he asked her to share water with him. The societal norms would not permit such a conversation. There was a perceived notation of difference between them. Both the Samaritan woman and Jesus call it out. She was a Samaritan and he was a Jew. He was a man and she was a woman. They worshipped and communed with God differently. She worshiped her God on the mountaintop where as Jesus’s Jewish tradition saw Jerusalem as the holy place.  

Jesus breaks these social norms through his actions and words. For Jesus, his God was no longer limited to the Jewish tradition. Samaritans and Jews could commune together. God was not limited to the mountaintop or Jerusalem, but God meets us where we are at. There wasn’t one God for the Jewish people and other gods for other groups of people, but there was one God for all people.

God is truly universal. Jesus didn’t call for the people’s conversion. He shared the good news, and they listened. They offered their community to him and he stayed with them. In tearing down the social barrier, the Samaritan town opened themselves up and welcomed Jesus and his disciples.

Jesus challenged the norms of his day to welcome people from different cultures and social classes. Like in Jesus’s time, we have social and religious differences that can keep us apart. We can keep a distance from strangers or people who live differently from us. Jesus pushed those of his time to see each other as equals; equal in the eyes of God and equals with each other. How can we do the same today?