大象传媒

Music: Water of Tyne
The Columba Minstrels
CD:Celtic Isles - Instrumental

Hadrian came to the River Tyne.听
His only trip in his long-life time.听听
He鈥檇 come from Rome an鈥� he came through Gaul听
Then he crossed a bridge - but he built a Wall.

Fr Dermot
Good morning and welcome to St Dominic鈥檚 Roman Catholic Church here in Newcastle, where 1900 years ago this summer, the Roman Emperor Hadrian arrived here on the one visit he made to the northernmost border of his Empire. St Dominic鈥檚 stands to the eastern edge of Newcastle city centre and the foundations of Hadrian鈥檚 Wall run directly beneath our Church.

Newcastle is a city whose history has been shaped both by its Wall and its bridges. Bridges have the ability to link human beings together - they allow a flow and contact. Walls are useful for shelter but when they are inspired by fear or distrust their aim is to keep us apart 鈥� and in that apart-ness antagonisms can fester.

We see across eastern and central Europe bridges of hospitality being opened to the Ukrainian refugees fleeing from the terror of the Russian invasion. Hungary, Poland, Moldova have been responding generously to the humanitarian crisis, reaching-out hands of friendship to the homeless and the oppressed; while the Russian President seems bent on drawing down a new Iron Curtain, walling-off a section of the Slavic people from the outside world.

Although we look-on aghast when we see vast movements of people 鈥� refugees, tank columns and troops 鈥� and feel somewhat paralysed & powerless; it is important to pause and remember the fact that every single war began in the fears, greed and conflicts within the human heart, and it is only in conversion of the heart that conflicts can be diffused.

Music: Peace - Paul Mealor
Tenebrae
CD: I saw eternity (Decca)

Lord; as this day begins we place our hearts before you, knowing that your companionship is healing and your presence is refuge. We pray this morning especially for the people of Ukraine in their uncertainties and sufferings. We ask for your Holy Spirit to engage with the hearts of those who seek peace and penetrate the hearts of those seek war. Amen.

Today is the third Sunday of Lent and a Christian tradition links this day with a particular story in the Bible where an initially tense encounter between two quite different people becomes an intimate conversation on the meaning of life. It comes from the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John鈥�

In Samaria he came to a town named Sychar, which was not far from the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by the trip, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw some water鈥�

Let us pause for a moment.

If you know about the Samaritans in the Bible, it will probably be because of the parable of the Good Samaritan which Jesus tells in Luke鈥檚 Gospel. The Samaritans were the people who lived in Samaria which was in the middle of the Holy Land, sandwiched between Galilee in the north and Judaea in the south. Although originally there was one unified Hebrew faith across the land, the Assyrian Empire鈥檚 occupation of Samaria, 600 years before Jesus, led to the Samaritans intermarrying with the pagan invader and incorporating some of their religious practices into the religion of Abraham.听

A distrust had developed between these Hebrew neighbours and the mutual dislike between Samaritan and Jew had intensified when people from Judaea had gone as far as to destroying the Samaritan Temple 100 years before Jesus. As with all conflicts, it is those where people are closely related where the hatred seems to be most bitter. Civil wars are always the most traumatising. Tensions were so great between the Jews and Samaritans that that pilgrims from Galilee in the north, travelling south to the Temple in Jerusalem, would think twice about passing through Samaria, and would often prefer to cross to the east and travel down the banks of the Jordan River to avoid being shunned or attacked by Samaritans

The Samaritans regarded the Jews as arrogant and deluded; the Jews regarded the Samaritans as heretics 鈥� hence the Jewish eyebrows that would have been raised at hearing Jesus tell a parable where a Samaritan is the hero.

Samaritans and Jews would easily recognise each other by their different accents and the dissimilar style-&-cut of their clothes.听 Thus, as Jesus sat down beside Jacob鈥檚 well, at the base of the mountain where the Samaritan Temple had once stood, the Samaritan woman鈥檚 hackles would have risen seeing a Jewish man sitting by the side of the well. She would presume the Jewish stranger would sneer and turn away from her; she, in turn, would ignore him.

A Samaritan woman came to draw some water鈥� and Jesus said to her,

鈥淕ive me a drink of water.鈥澨�

(His disciples had gone into town to buy food.)

The woman answered, 鈥淵ou are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan鈥攕o how can you ask me for a drink?鈥�

(Jews will not use the same cups and bowls that Samaritans use.)

Jesus answered, 鈥淚f you only knew what God gives and who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would ask him, and he would give you life-giving water.鈥�

鈥淪ir, you don't have a bucket, and the well is deep. Where would you get that life-giving water?听It was our ancestor Jacob who gave us this well; he and his children and his flocks all drank from it. You don't claim to be greater than Jacob, do you?鈥�

鈥淭hose who drink this water will get thirsty again,听but those who drink the water that I will give them will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give them will become in them a spring which will provide them with life-giving water and give them eternal life.鈥�

鈥淪ir, give me that water! Then I will never be thirsty again, nor will I have to come here to draw water.鈥�

鈥淕o and call your husband and come back.鈥�

鈥淚 don't have a husband.鈥�

鈥淵ou are right when you say you don't have a husband.听You have been married to five men, and the man you live with now is not really your husband. You have told me the truth.鈥�

鈥淚 see you are a prophet, sir. My Samaritan ancestors worshipped God on this mountain, but you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where we should worship God.鈥�

鈥淏elieve me, woman, the time will come when people will not worship the Father either on this mountain or in Jerusalem.听You Samaritans do not really know whom you worship; but we Jews know whom we worship, because it is from the Jews that salvation comes.听But the time is coming and is already here, when by the power of God's Spirit, people will worship the Father as he really is, offering him the true worship that he wants.听God is Spirit, and only by the power of his Spirit can people worship him as he really is.鈥�

鈥淚 know that the Messiah will come, and when he comes, he will tell us everything.鈥�

鈥淚 am he. I who am talking with you.鈥�

Music: I heard the voice of Jesus say (Kingsfold)
St Martin's Voices
大象传媒 recording

The first lesson from this encounter is a very resonant one for our times. It is the reaching out 鈥� the building of a bridge between people who have been schooled in distrust and antagonism. Jesus鈥� simple request for a drink of water dismantles the invisible wall. They are talking. They are no longer strangers.

It is very difficult to break through that type of wall. Various things can hold us back 鈥� the possible dangers; the likely reactions of family and friends; the possibility of threat of my way of doing things; wasting my time; being tainted by different ideas; the fear of giving too much; the fear of my hand of friendship being ignored or rejected.

Sometimes a cry for help can shatter a wall and we respond almost without thinking or calculating the cost. Let鈥檚 listen to an encounter which Catherine had while helping in a hostel for refugees鈥�

{Excerpt from Welcome interview with Catherine Croseley}

Music: A touching place - John Bell
RSCM Millennium Youth Choir
CD: A Land of pure delight (Lammas)

Barrier-breaking, Bridge-building God. Support us in being open to the stranger. Remind us that, whenever any of us shines even a small light of kindness, the darkness of prejudice, torture and greed is diminished. 听Amen.

When I was a just beginning my training to be a priest, I was sent with a fellow novice on pilgrimage to Spain to follow the footsteps of our Jesuit founder, St Ignatius of Loyola. It was weeks of camping and walking through the Basque region heading for Barcelona. It seemed to be more rain than sun and one day when we were trudging through Navarre the terrain seemed noticeably more bleak, and we spent a morning walking through drizzle trying to find a place to shelter and looking in vain for a shop to buy some provisions.

Spain was a different country then; hitchhikers were rare in those early years after the death of General Franco. Adrian and myself must have looked and sounded somewhat alien. Rural villages were small and simple and, often, the black-clad local farmers, although not hostile, were carefully measured in their pointed stares.

One hamlet appeared just off the road and we detoured to seek any possible temporary shelter. The place had no shops, but there was an old wooden Church 鈥� locked and bolted 鈥� which mercifully had a covered veranda and solid plank-bench sheltered from the prevailing wind. Lunch was to be instant powdered potato, heated over a portable gas-burner with an Oxo cube crushed into it to give it flavour. It wasn鈥檛 much, but it was all we had.

Then just when we were settled, we heard a car out-of-sight enthusiastically sounding its horn and soon after a woman came round the corner to where we were cooking. She started speaking to us quickly, probably in Basque. My colleague, Adrian, had some Spanish but, as with Basil Fawlty, his defensive line was, I speak classical Spanish not that strange dialect she seems to have picked up. We were fairly sure she was asking us to leave. We could see that she was frustrated and annoyed that we weren鈥檛 moving from our temporary camp at the Church door. She kept pointing beyond the Church towards the main road from where we had come. We anchored ourselves into the British tradition of, in uncertainty, just carrying-on and ignoring what was going on around us. We stirred our lukewarm, flavoured potatoes.

Eventually the woman shrugged her shoulders in frustration and marched off towards the main road. We suspected she was going to get re-enforcements to oust us from the Church porch 鈥� best to stir and eat quickly鈥�

But then, just as suddenly as she disappeared the woman re-appeared before us 鈥� with a smile and huge, fresh loaf of bread. It was only then that it occurred to us that she hadn鈥檛 been threatening us. We now paid more attention as she indicated that the car-horn we had heard was the signal to the village that the Baker鈥檚 Van had arrived; but she had seen we were facing the wrong way to know this, so she had originally come to tell us where to buy more food 鈥� but we had ignored her, so she had gone herself and bought us a gift of a loaf for our lunch.

Forty years later that woman鈥檚 pushing through our defences, with a simple act of kindness to strangers, has been a strong warm memory both for Adrian and myself.

Music: Nada te turbe (Taize)
CD: Taize - Laudate Omne Gentes (Ateliers et Presses de Taize)

God our Father.
Thank you for guiding us to look through and beyond the barriers of language and culture. Support us to build strong unbreakable bridges of understanding and compassion. Your Son worried His mother, annoyed His teachers and had arguments with His friends. 听Thank you for sharing with us an awkward Saviour who was also willing to listen, learn and change. Amen.

Reflection from Christine

But in John鈥檚 Gospel, in the encounter with the Samaritan Woman, the breaking down of a wall was just the first step; in the overall story the evangelist is trying to say something more universal and profound about the way that every human heart is approached by God.

John鈥檚 gospel has crowd scenes, but the skeleton of the Gospel is a series of one-to-one encounters with Jesus: from Nicodemus, a paralysed man, a blind man, Peter, Martha, Mary all the way even to Pontius Pilate on Good Friday. People, at first, encounter Jesus in a superficial way but then unexpectedly they become aware of a different presence: Nicodemus, the elderly Pharisee, thought he was coming to discuss something simple, but was shaken when Jesus insisted on the act of being born again. Pilate, at first is irritated and dismissive of the Jewish prisoner, but then is intrigued 鈥� then shocked and, ultimately, frightened by the strange Galilean he finds before him.

The Samaritan woman, likewise, first encounters Jesus in a superficial way: her opening response to Jesus鈥� words are cool and cautious 鈥� she parries his request for water defensively听 - 鈥榊ou are a Jew and I am a Samaritan 鈥� how can you ask me for a drink?鈥�

Jesus is not deterred and his unexpected offer of eternal life makes the woman pause 鈥� she is now listening carefully.

She moves from being cautious to somewhat intrigued and now addresses Jesus as 鈥楰yrios/ Sir鈥� - a sign of respect. To her playful question about 鈥楯esus-being-greater-than-Jacob-who-watered-his-flock-at-the-well?鈥�, Jesus responds calmly indicating that he indeed was offering fresh, spring-water鈥� not the stored, still cistern-water from the village well. The woman moves from intrigued to enthused about the prospect of living water.

Suddenly Jesus changes gear and snaps an unexpected comment about her husband 鈥� it鈥檚 an incisive, remark about the woman鈥檚 private life.

Although we might find such an intimate declaration intrusive, she is instead captivated by Jesus鈥� knowledge of her five husbands: she is not experiencing shame, she is experiencing being known. 鈥淵ou are a prophet!鈥� she exclaims with surprise 鈥� and then she moves to the very heart of the division between Jesus and her and asks a question 鈥� and you feel it is a genuine question, not a polite enquiry 鈥� about the differences in worship between the Samaritans and the Jews; and Jesus explains the difference and takes her a stage further and indicates that, beyond these present differences, all people will ultimately worship the underlying Power of God鈥檚 spirit.

Her final question then, about the coming Messiah, is answered by Jesus in the simple Greek words Ego Eime: I AM听 - which suddenly pulses through the story, reminding the listener of the divine name spoken by God to Moses from the Burning Bush.

In all this, John the Gospel writer is sketching-out something which he intuits as a Christian truth about the human experience. To be a Christian, the individual human heart must seek a personal relationship with God.

Thus faith is not rooted in knowing things. We can know a lot of things , but knowledge is not faith. We can recite creeds, sing Christmas carols from memory, quote the Bible, have ashes on our heads etc鈥� but still be unbelievers 鈥� because Christian belief is rooted in the relationships of the heart. The mind might know facts, but the encounter of heart of the human being and the heart of God is the basis of true faith.

This is why John in his Gospel sees the encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman as giving the example of the universal vocation: the calling, the challenge, the invitation to every human being to engage in a personal encounter with Jesus, to seek the key to our existence.

In Chapter 4, the heart-to-heart encounter touches the depths of the Samaritan woman鈥檚 soul.

鈥淭hen the woman left her water jar, went back to the town, and said to the people there,听听鈥淐ome and see the man who told me everything I have ever done. Could he be the Messiah?鈥�听So they left the town and went to Jesus.鈥�

And this is perhaps the crucial sign for John 鈥� when the person who has become a disciple evolves to become an apostle, taking the message of God to others. In the story the woman pointedly leaves her precious water-jug behind at the well and, animated by the living water of the Spirit, goes to call those around her to encounter Jesus.

Let us pray together: Our Father鈥�

Music: The King of Love
Cambridge Singers
CD: Sing, ye heavens (Collegium Records)

The bridges over the Tyne, linking central Newcastle with Gateshead, are wonderfully varied. They range in era from the hoop-like Millennium Footbridge, with its multicoloured arch, to the low-level Swing Bridge which marks the spot where the original Bridge of Hadrian crossed the river nearly 2000 years ago. Each of the 7 bridges are of different designs, heights and purposes 鈥� some are for trains, others for vehicles; some are double-deckered and give shelter to the pedestrians, some are open to the elements and a simple walk can be an adventure.听

The numerous bridges are a visual image of the various cross-over points between the divine and the human. The human being is multi-dimensional creature we can make the journey in different ways 鈥� be it through our hopes or dreams or fears; it might be though our memories or imagination or those we love; art or words or music or creation can send us on a journey and allow us to span the mystery, and our being can come closer to the God who will always intercept us, even if it is in an unexpected way.

These multiple crossing points are also symbolic of the manifold ways we can bridge the divide 听between people. We might not be on the Polish border giving food and shelter to the Ukrainians, but there are many others who are lost or alone and needing help closer-to-home, and we can do things locally that help re-balance the divine order. As Catherine Crossley became an unexpected midwife to the Afghan mother, and Christine gave companionship with the El Salvadorian on Christmas Eve, so too if we to can help alleviate the sufferings of those who are close-by, it is part of our faith that no act of goodness or generosity or love is ever lost, but they become disparate threads mysteriously gathered and woven into the rich tapestry of God鈥檚 plan, where ultimately all manner of things will be well.

Music: Water of Tyne
The Columba Minstrels
CD:Celtic Isles - Instrumental

Blessing
And so with all the hopes and fears and dreams of our hearts, may the blessing of Almighty God come down upon us, and may the companionship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit be with us on our journeys and guide us in our lives. Amen

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