Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him
because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 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.
They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” (John 4:39-42)
They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” (John 4:39-42)
The disciples go into town, they bring
back food. The woman goes into town, she brings back people. The Jewish
leadership didn’t believe Him in spite of signs and wonders, but the leadership
of this town says they believed Him because they had heard. There’s no mention of any signs and wonders. Maybe He did
miracles there. Maybe He didn’t. That wasn’t the basis of their belief.
As I wrote yesterday, I can understand the disciples here. They were trying to do something good and proper. Feeding Jesus was one of their responsibilities. I can understand the Jewish leadership, too. Examining prophets and claimants to the title of Messiah was one of their responsibilities. They weren’t supposed to be easy to convince. If they had been, they would not have been doing their job.
What the woman did brings to mind an editorial I saw yesterday. It was a parrot piece – I sometimes think I should clip it and keep a copy to verify that the next time it shows up, it’s exactly the same wording. “Only the names have been changed….” The writer insists that religion should be kept out of the public square. The only places where religion is to be practiced are in the home and in places specifically designated for worship.
Now, for some, a “religion” is a belief in and worship of a supernatural being, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary of English, but that is a woefully inadequate definition because that is not all a religion does. It gives a superficial overview while ignoring the content, and its limits are completely artificial. A religion is a person’s beliefs about his/her relationship with 1) the universe and its creator (if one exists) and 2) the other residents thereof. There are no religions that ignore the other residents. There are philosophies that do, but not religions.
So, if I am informed by my religion that I am to love my neighbor as myself, must I hate them in the public square? If your religion tells you it’s wrong to murder someone, must you murder in the public square. Well, no, of course, not. Those are all things we agree about. But why do we agree? Some would claim it’s just rational, but how do we know it’s rational? The reality is that if we believe it is right to love our neighbor as ourselves, or that we should do to others as we want them to do to us, or that it’s wrong to murder, we believe it because we were taught it. While other religions and philosophies may agree, we were taught it because the prevalent religion or philosophy that informed our western civilization for the past thousand years was Christianity.
Others would claim that what keeping religion out of the public square means is that we must not push our particular beliefs down the throats of others. In telling me that I must not practice my beliefs in the public square, isn’t the person who says, “Thou shalt not practice your religion in the public square” practicing his religion in the public square by forcing down my throat his belief that religion should not be practiced in the public square? That’s what’s known as a self-contradiction. I know the person saying it would claim it’s not part of his religion. He probably would claim that he doesn’t have a religion because he doesn’t believe in any gods. He still has beliefs about his relationship to the universe and its creator (supposedly non-existent but that tells you something about how he relates to it) and the other residents therein.
The woman at the well went back to the public square. She’d been married five times and was living with a new guy she hadn’t bothered to marry. Her reputation was already shot in town. She went to the well when she did to avoid the looks and the whispers. The town benefitted because they weren’t bigots who enforced some nonsense about not bringing religion into the public square.
As I wrote yesterday, I can understand the disciples here. They were trying to do something good and proper. Feeding Jesus was one of their responsibilities. I can understand the Jewish leadership, too. Examining prophets and claimants to the title of Messiah was one of their responsibilities. They weren’t supposed to be easy to convince. If they had been, they would not have been doing their job.
What the woman did brings to mind an editorial I saw yesterday. It was a parrot piece – I sometimes think I should clip it and keep a copy to verify that the next time it shows up, it’s exactly the same wording. “Only the names have been changed….” The writer insists that religion should be kept out of the public square. The only places where religion is to be practiced are in the home and in places specifically designated for worship.
Now, for some, a “religion” is a belief in and worship of a supernatural being, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary of English, but that is a woefully inadequate definition because that is not all a religion does. It gives a superficial overview while ignoring the content, and its limits are completely artificial. A religion is a person’s beliefs about his/her relationship with 1) the universe and its creator (if one exists) and 2) the other residents thereof. There are no religions that ignore the other residents. There are philosophies that do, but not religions.
So, if I am informed by my religion that I am to love my neighbor as myself, must I hate them in the public square? If your religion tells you it’s wrong to murder someone, must you murder in the public square. Well, no, of course, not. Those are all things we agree about. But why do we agree? Some would claim it’s just rational, but how do we know it’s rational? The reality is that if we believe it is right to love our neighbor as ourselves, or that we should do to others as we want them to do to us, or that it’s wrong to murder, we believe it because we were taught it. While other religions and philosophies may agree, we were taught it because the prevalent religion or philosophy that informed our western civilization for the past thousand years was Christianity.
Others would claim that what keeping religion out of the public square means is that we must not push our particular beliefs down the throats of others. In telling me that I must not practice my beliefs in the public square, isn’t the person who says, “Thou shalt not practice your religion in the public square” practicing his religion in the public square by forcing down my throat his belief that religion should not be practiced in the public square? That’s what’s known as a self-contradiction. I know the person saying it would claim it’s not part of his religion. He probably would claim that he doesn’t have a religion because he doesn’t believe in any gods. He still has beliefs about his relationship to the universe and its creator (supposedly non-existent but that tells you something about how he relates to it) and the other residents therein.
The woman at the well went back to the public square. She’d been married five times and was living with a new guy she hadn’t bothered to marry. Her reputation was already shot in town. She went to the well when she did to avoid the looks and the whispers. The town benefitted because they weren’t bigots who enforced some nonsense about not bringing religion into the public square.
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