Homily for the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman in the Orthodox Church

 

Acts 11:19-30; John 4:5-42

Christ is Risen!  Indeed, He is Risen!

The good news of our Lord’s resurrection challenges our deepest assumptions about ourselves and about life in this world as we know it.  Since the God-Man has entered fully into death and conquered it, making even the grave an entrance into eternal life, reality is radically different from what we typically assume.  If death is not a complete loss from which we need constant distraction to avoid being overcome by despair, then the basis for anxiety and misery driven by fear of the grave has been destroyed.  Life is no longer a zero-sum struggle of this group over against that for power and status.  It is no longer an endless competition between people trying to prove that they are more virtuous than others. By leading us back to Paradise through His resurrection, the Savior has destroyed the foundations of the enmity and resentment that first appeared when Cain murdered his brother Abel.  The brilliant light of the empty tomb reveals the blindness of those who insist on wandering in such darkness. 

Today we commemorate how our Lord’s salvation extended to someone who was on the wrong side of many such divisions in first-century Palestine:  a Samaritan woman who became the Great MartyrPhotini.  In that time and place, no one would have assumed that she could become a great evangelist of the Messiah’s salvation.  Most obviously, she was a Samaritan.  The Jews viewed the Samaritans as heretics who had corrupted the faith and heritage of Israel, and they had nothing at all to do with them.  As well, Photini’s conversation with the Savior reveals that she had had five husbands and was then with a man to whom she was not married.  We do not know the reasons for the brokenness of her marital life, but she surely had known great personal trauma.  Perhaps she went to the well at noon to avoid encountering other women in her community who wanted nothing to do with the likes of her.  Moreover, a Jewish man would not strike up a conversation with a woman in public and certainly would not ask a Samaritan woman for a drink of water.  This scene is deeply shocking and scandalous according to the religious and cultural sensibilities of the day.   

            How interesting, then, that the Lord’s talk with Photini is His longest conversation in any of the gospels. In it she showed far greater spiritual understanding than had the Pharisee Nicodemus, a man and a law-abiding Jew, in his conversation with Christ in the previous chapter of the gospel according to St. John.  Photini also showed great humility in making no excuses about the most painful details of her life.  When the Lord told her that He knew about her five former husbands and current relationship, she said, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet” and then continued the conversation.  She did not become defensive or leave due to hurt pride or embarrassment.  Instead, she accepted the hard truths about herself as her eyes were opened to behold the light of Christ. She refused to give in to the temptation to think that because she was a woman, a sinner, and a Samaritan that she could not or should not open her heart to the good news brought by the unusual Jewish man who spoke to her not as a hated foreigner but as a beloved daughter. Photini was so deeply transformed by this encounter with Christ that she even preached to her fellow Samaritans, which must have taken tremendous courage, for her neighbors did not think of her as a spiritual teacher.  Photini found such joy in receiving the Lord’s mercy that she become an evangelist and ultimately a martyr together with her sons and sisters.  

            It is impossible to tell the story of our Lord’s resurrection without highlighting the uniquely blessed role of the women who were the very first witnesses of the empty tomb.  Mary Magdalene was the first preacher of the resurrection, for she proclaimed the good news to the apostles.  Likewise, Photini bore witness to her neighbors about this unusual Jewish Messiah so powerfully that many Samaritans believed and the Lord actually stayed with them for two days. The Church honors both Mary Magdalene and Photini as being “equal to the apostles” in proclaiming the good news.

            Christ calls us all to follow the same basic path back to Paradise.   As St. Paul taught, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  (Gal. 3:28) He rose in victory over all the corrupting influences of sin, including the domination, strife, and sorrow that so often characterize the relationship between men and women. In Him, the spiritual status of the sexes is the same; the differences between men and women concern the body, not the soul.  Male or female, the saints are examples of how to share fully in the life of our Savior.  Absolutely nothing in the biological differences between males and females excludes or excuses anyone from responding to the calling to become radiant with the divine energies as a living icon of God, for we all bear His image equally. We must not allow differences in the roles fulfilled by the sexes in any time or place, or in the life of the Church, to obscure that fundamental truth.  Even as that is true of the God-given distinction between male and female, we must be on guard against the temptation to allow divisions of any kind between groups of people to determine whether we treat each person as a living icon of Christ who is called to enter into the joy of His resurrection.  The differences between races, ethnicities, and other groupings that seem so important in our world of corruption have no spiritual significance in our Lord’s Kingdom.  In the brilliant light of the resurrection, we should not define ourselves or anyone else in light of them. 

There was no small controversy in the early Church about whether Gentiles could become Christians without first becoming Jews. Today’s reading from Acts describes the establishment of the first Gentile church in Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians.  Especially as Antiochian Orthodox Christians, we know that our faith is not the property or servant of any nation, ethnic group, or ideological faction.  Christ’s Kingdom subverts the categories of our fallen world and calls into question our assumptions about who “we” are in relation to “them.” He died and rose up in order to fulfill His gracious purposes for all He created to become like God in holiness as “partakers of the divine nature” by grace.  There is no ethnic, national, or political test for sharing in His life.  He empowered a Samaritan woman with a broken personal history to become a powerful evangelist and martyr.  He has drawn Gentiles into His Body, the Church, in fulfillment of the ancient promises to Abraham for the salvation of all peoples through faith.  His great victory over sin and death destroys the basis of judging the spiritual prospects of anyone according to the conventional standards of this world.  In order to enter into the joy of Christ’s resurrection, we must refuse to think, speak, and act as though we were still held captive to the fear of death, which is at the root of our pathetic inclination to view and treat people, no matter who they are, according to worldly divisions that contradict to the good news of our salvation.

            Christ said, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:32) No one other than the Savior would have looked at Photini and seen a future saint who would shine with the light of holiness. Her transformation shows that there is hope for us all in the mercy of Christ.  Nothing but our own pride can keep us from humbly opening our souls to the Lord for healing, as she did.  Even as we must entrust ourselves to the Lord’s mercy as “the chief of sinners,” we must not view anyone else as a lost cause before God.  Christ warned the self-righteous religious leaders who rejected Him, “Tax-collectors and prostitutes are entering the Kingdom of God before you.” (Matt. 21:31) Even as we pray for the Lord’s mercy on our sick souls, we must pray for His blessings for our neighbors, especially those we are inclined to view as lost causes.    If our Risen Lord can make a great saint out of the Samaritan woman at the well, there is hope for literally every person to be set free from the enslaving ravages of sin.  Who are we to place limits on the saving power of the One Who conquered death for the salvation of the world?  Trying to do so shows that we have failed to appreciate the radically good news of the resurrection, which enables all to be restored as fully human persons in the image and likeness of God.   

St. Photini’s example invites us to follow her into the life of a Kingdom not constrained by the corruptions of our fallen world.  She was an unlikely evangelist in her time and place but had such courageous and steadfast faith that she did not allow anything to stop or distract her.  Let us embrace the joy of the resurrection so profoundly that, like her, we bear witness to the Lord Who shares His victory over death with even the most unlikely strangers, outcasts, and sinners. Regardless of our own history of personal brokenness or where we stand according to any social divisions, He calls us all to the blessedness of Paradise.  Like St. Photini, let us respond to Him accordingly, for “Christ is Risen!”