"And they marveled that he talked with the woman."
Why? She was a sinful woman. But these disciples must even thus early
in Christ's ministry have learned that he had come to call sinners,
not the righteous, to repentance. She was a Samaritan! That was a
larger reason for their marvel. They could rise above their hatred for
sin more easily than their race prejudice; so can we. The Samaritans
were an inferior people. Degraded they were. They had been degraded
for centuries. The Jews shunned them. Socially our Lord was making a
great blunder, perhaps a fatal blunder, in talking to this Samaritan
woman. His cause was in its infancy. The hand of social prejudice
would surely throttle it. Why antagonize the existing order of
society? How much better to utilize it for the establishment and
enlargement of the great and glorious kingdom of our Lord! This cause
needed the influence of Jewish leaders. Why risk this potent influence
for the sake of one miserable Samaritan woman, or, for that matter,
for a whole race of Samaritans? It seemed very poor management of a
cause, new in that country. "Far be such unwisdom from thee, Lord," we
can hear the impassioned and worldly-wise Peter exclaim. But our Lord
chose to sacrifice the temporary success of his kingdom that he might
be true to the eternal principles of that kingdom; and so he talked
with this sinful woman of this despised race just as considerately as
with Nicodemus. He invited her to his discipleship just as cordially,
and to the same discipleship. There is not a hint that the Good
Shepherd built another fold for the Samaritan sheep, lest some of the
Jewish flock should jump over the fence, if they were put into the
same fold.
These Samaritans were not only degraded and despised socially, but
they were also superstitious in their religious beliefs, and
semi-heathen in their forms of worship. It would take generations to
bring them up to a level with the Jewish Christians. They could not
comprehend much of the intelligent preaching that Christ addressed to
the Jews. Why not appoint a special missionary for them, and then
quietly exclude them from the ordinary gatherings? This course would
avoid criticism; it would not violate the established ideas of social
and religious propriety. Nothing need be said about it. It would not
be best to put it on parchment; just let it be quietly whispered about
that the disciples thought it was better for the Samaritan Christians
not to meet with the others. The disciples were surrounded by
prejudiced people, to be sure, but these prejudices were very old;
time would correct all these social and race inequalities. The
disciples thought it better to ignore them, and just organize and
carry on their work with no reference to these degraded and
superstitious Samaritans. Such seems to have been somewhat the
reasoning of these timid disciples. It was not our Lord's reasoning;
the doors of his blessed kingdom opened to all. It required no magic
sesame of race respectability to throw back these gates of pardon and
hope. Sin must be left outside, but the sinner of every race and tribe
was welcomed to all the privileges of this kingdom. We now see the
wisdom and the divinity of our Lord's course.
Had these marveling disciples had their way, the sect of the
Christians would have been added to the sects of the Herodians and the
Sadducees, and been buried in the same grave centuries ago. The voice
that talked with this Samaritan woman is heard round the globe now,
and every century only adds greater authority to its divine utterance;
and it is heard because it spoke with this despised Samaritan woman.
Our Lord did not ignore this race prejudice; he rebuked it. And so
these timid disciples, realizing only the temporary danger that
threatened, marveled that he talked with this woman. God pity them!
But how human they were. So to-day, in India, the missionaries of the
cross, true to their Lord's great example, talk with pariah and
Brahmin, and welcome them both to equal privileges in the kingdom of
his grace--and men marvel. And so in Alabama and South Carolina, the
missionaries of the cross, true to the same divine example, talk with
black and with white, and welcome them both to the same privileges in
this kingdom--and even some timid disciples marvel. But the principles
of this divine kingdom do not change; the Lord of that kingdom, who
talked with the sinful, weary, despised Samaritan woman, would, if
here in bodily presence now, talk with the sinful, weary, despised
black woman, no matter how much his worldly-wise disciples might
marvel. His kingdom is built upon this eternal truth of human
brotherhood, and it will endure because it is. Nothing short of this
is of his kingdom, but will crumble to dust.
_The Congregationalist_
Forty-Second Annual Report Of The Executive Committee,