The Kingdom of God is like Star Trek…or rather, Star Trek is like the Kingdom of God.
I just spent a glorious 7 days with 3000 hard core Star Trek fans from all over the world on Star Trek the Cruise. This was our third year on the cruise and we’re already booked for next year, because Star Trek is the closest thing to the kingdom of God on earth, besides our Methodist Camps!
I say that because, like our Camps, Star Trek doesn’t just tolerate infinite diversity in infinite combinations – Star Trek celebrates diversity. And not just the diversity of intergalactic aliens, but the diversity of life:
Beings of all shapes, sizes, ability levels, mental health levels, identities, genders, and orientations. Beings of all cultures, multiple cultures, and a plurality of religions, belief systems, and un-religious folks. The Star Trek universe is a utopian answer to the question: “What if we could all be accepted, valued, and appreciated for who we are, and supported in becoming our best selves?”
And the Star Trek the Cruise reflects that utopian vision.
There are people on the cruise of all shapes, sizes, ability levels, mental health states, and neuro-diversities – like folks on the autism spectrum. There are people of all the identities, orientations, genders, religions, and cultures. And we all get along.
Not by assimilating, but by respecting and valuing one another’s differences.
Not by saying, I’m right and you’re wrong, but by finding that third way where we can be together without giving up what makes us distinctively ourselves.
And that’s what Jesus was talking about in today’s reading. A world where a Jew and a Samaritan can find common ground “in spirit and in truth.” A world where we work to better ourselves and the lives of everyone, rather than working to accumulate material things.
In verse 5, Jesus is resting by Jacob’s well in the heat of the day while the disciples are picking up some take out so they can take a little break from the crowds.
At the time that the gospel of John was written in ancient Syria, just mentioning Jacob, Joseph and Samaria delivered a lot of background information that most of us today don’t pick up on, so here’s the background.
Jacob, son of Issac, son of Abraham, was renamed Israel, which means, “one who wrestles with God,” and is considered the Official Jewish ancestor and founder of Israel. Joseph, son of Jacob, is the Joseph of technicolor dream coat fame, so Samaria is basically northern Israel.
But, before there was an Israel…
Before there was a Temple…
Abraham, Issac and Jacob built altars and pillars on hills as places of sacrifice and worship. That’s how ancient Hebrews worshiped before they went to Egypt, and before the Temple was built in Jerusalem by King Solomon.
When Israel split into 2 kingdoms, Israel and Judea – the Temple was in Judea and not accessible to Israel, so the people of Israel slash Samaria went back to worshiping and sacrificing on the hills where Abraham, Issac and Jacob worshiped.
The Judeans, which is where we get the modern term, Jews, worshiped at the Temple and looked down their noses at the Samaritans for not being “proper Jews.”
To put this into a present day analogy – the Samaritans had old fashioned, low tech, worship styles, and the Judeans had a fancy building with lights and smoke machines.
It was the first century version of the worship wars.
And the Temple in Jerusalem was the fancy mega church of its time, who labeled the old style worship as “not a real church.”
So a Samaritan woman comes to the well at noon…
…this also requires some backstory – because normally women came to the well in the morning to get their water for the day, greet their neighbors and share the local news. Noon was the hottest part of the day, so nobody wanted to be out doing heavy chores like fetching water. So the fact that this woman came to the well at noon, means that she was trying to avoid people.
That’s a lot of backstory for 3 verses!
We’ve got two different kinds of Jews separated by worship style and a woman separated from her community.
So when Jesus asks her for a drink, she’s totally surprised because people from the Mega-Temple don’t even acknowledge the existence of the little old fashioned Israelites/Samaritains.
But here’s Jesus, asking her for a drink of water and having a conversation with her. Of course, Jesus had to make it weird, talking about living water gushing up to eternal life, but Jesus knew that this woman’s soul was thirsty.
Jesus knew that she was out drawing water in the heat of the day because she was being shamed by her community for having had a string of bad relationships. She had 5 previous relationships with men who failed to be good husbands, and the current man wasn’t husband material either.
Being a Samaritan and a woman with a reputation usually meant that people from the Mega-Temple *and* people from the old fashioned church wanted nothing to do with you, but Jesus doesn’t leave, so she asks him her big theological question. This is in verses 19 and 20:
“Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”
And verses 21-24 is where Jesus goes Star Trek on her, like the Samaritans are some lost-in-space human colony whom he is trying to convince to join the United Federation of Planets.
Jesus tells her that it’s not about where you worship.
It’s not about how you worship.
It’s about being centered in Spirit and truth – so that we worship God not in designated holy places, but that we ourselves practice holiness wherever we are.
But even in the Federation… even among the disciples, people cling to old prejudices.
The disciples grew up in the Mega-Temple side of Judaism, and this woman out in the middle of the day was a pretty suspicious character, but they knew by now not to try to tell Jesus to stop being weird – because that never works!
So they tried to distract Jesus with lunch.
But the woman at the well, had run to the city to tell everyone about Jesus, so Jesus knew that the most important thing in that moment was not that his shawarma was getting cold, but that people who had been separated from God and the larger Jewish community by differences in culture and customs, and by shaming, were discovering that they were able to be a part of God’s Beloved Community by moving past the details that separate us by embracing that values that unite us.
Values like compassion and forgiveness.
Values like respect for the diversity of God’s creation.
Values like caring for the most vulnerable among us.
The Kingdom of God is like a woman who leaves her jar by the well and runs to tell all her neighbors, who don’t even like her, that God is doing something good here among us.
The Kingdom of God is like an episode of Star Fleet Academy, where a young man from the warrior race of Klingons, has a calling to become a doctor instead of a warrior. So he leaves his family and his home and joins Starfleet Academy and discovers that there is honor in battling to save lives.
The kingdom of God is you and I, just showing up each day in spirit and in truth to worship God by following our calling to do all the Good we can.
