“Second Impressions”
Text:
John 4:5-42
© February 24, 2008 by C. Edward Bowen at Crafton
United Presbyterian Church.
We’ve
all heard it said that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. But the truth is that the wrappers that
things come in most certainly do have an impact on how we see things. For instance, a few months ago they did a
little experiment. They took a group of
preschool children and they invited them to taste some carrots and milk and
apple juice. The thing was they had put
some of the carrots, milk, and apple juice in McDonald’s wrappers, and the
other carrots, milk, and apple juice were in plain wrappers. And even though the carrots, milk, and apple
juice were exactly the same in both cases, the kids unanimously said that the
food in the McDonald’s wrappers tasted better.[1]
We
might be tempted to think, “Oh, well, those were just preschool kids.” But in different ways, for the most part, we
are all influenced by the wrappers that things come in. We’re even influenced by the “wrappers” that
people come in.
For
example, a college professor decided to do an experiment. He had a friend of his come to several of the
classes that he taught. And in each
class, after the professor introduced his friend, he asked the students to
write down how tall they thought his friend was. But in each class the professor introduced
his friend to the students in a different way.
To one class, the professor introduced his friend as a college
student. To another class, he said that
his friend was a beginning junior-level college instructor. And to another class, he said that his friend
was a distinguished professor at a major university.
What
happened in that experiment was that the “wrapper” the professor put on his
friend had an effect on how the students saw him. Based on how much status the friend was said
to have, the taller the students said that the man was. In other words, the class that was told that
the man was a distinguished professor rated him as being taller than did the
class that was told that the man was just an ordinary college student. It was the same man who was introduced to all
of those classes, but the wrapper that was put on him affected what kind of
impression the students had of him.[2]
In
today’s reading from the Gospel of John, one day Jesus met up with someone who
had all kinds of wrappers on them, and none of those wrappers were good. First off, the person who Jesus met was a
woman. Hearing that, we might be tempted
to think, “What’s the big deal? About
half of the people in the world are women.”
But back in the first century, men and women weren’t considered to be
equals, or anything close to being equals.
No, in general, women were looked down upon as being some sort of
second-class citizens. And religious
leaders usually went out of their way to avoid having any kind of interaction
at all with women in public. In fact, in
Jesus’ day, there was a religious group that became known as “the bruised and
bleeding Pharisees.” And the reason they
were called “the bruised and bleeding Pharisees” was because if they saw a
woman coming down the street in their direction, they would close their eyes,
even if that meant they might end up walking into a wall and breaking their noses.[3]
But
besides being a woman, that person that Jesus met at that well had another
wrapper on her. She was a
Samaritan. That meant that she belonged
to a somewhat different ethnic group than the group that Jesus belonged to,
since Jesus was a Jew. And being a
Samaritan meant that her religious views were different from Jesus’. For one thing, while the Jews said that the
temple on the hill in
But
beyond being a woman and being a Samaritan, that person that Jesus met at the
well had yet one more wrapper that had been placed on her – she was “not
socially acceptable.” We know that from
the fact that that woman went out to draw water at noontime. You see, the normal custom was for the women
of the village to gather at the well and draw water first thing in the morning,
while it was still cool. And the women
would take their time and chat with each other, and share any juicy gossip that
they had heard. But this woman that
Jesus met didn’t go to the well early in the morning, because she was probably
the subject of much of the gossip that the other women were passing around.
After
all, we’re told that this woman had had five husbands. Now, either she was about the unluckiest
woman in the world and had five husbands die on her, or she was about the most
disgraced woman in the world by having five different men divorce her. Remember – back in the first century, women
couldn’t divorce their husbands; only husbands could divorce their wives. And now, we’re told, she was living with a
man who wasn’t her husband, and especially back in that day, that was something
that just wasn’t done.
But
even though that woman had all those wrappers put on her – the wrapper of being
a woman, the wrapper of being a Samaritan, and the wrapper of being “socially
unacceptable,” Jesus didn’t allow those wrappers to shape how he looked at her. Instead of allowing first impressions to
shape how he looked at her, Jesus took the time to form a second impression of
that woman. And by doing that, by making
the effort to set aside any first impressions he might have had of her, Jesus
was able to begin to see that woman the way that God saw her – to see that
woman as someone who God loved, to see that woman as someone who God himself
had made.
In
the Jewish tradition, the rabbis would say that whenever you see another person
– no matter who they are or what they look like – imagine that standing beside
that person, on their right and on their left, are two angels blowing their
trumpets and announcing, “Behold, the image of God!” And in a sense, that is what Jesus did there
at that well. Instead of paying
attention to the wrappers that that woman had on her, Jesus listened to the
angels and saw that despite what impressions other people might have had about
that woman, she was someone who was important to God, she was someone who God
cared about, who God loved.
And
so, since Jesus took the time and made the effort to strike up a conversation
with that woman – something that virtually no one else in that community was
willing to do – great and wonderful things began to happen. Not only did that woman have her life changed
as she came to believe in the good news that Jesus was offering her, but also
many people in that town started to believe as well when she began to tell them
what Jesus had done for her.
My
guess is that almost every day we encounter someone like that woman at the
well. My guess is that almost every day
we encounter someone who we just don’t interact with, because we figure that
based on first impressions, they’re not the kind of person that we have
anything in common with. But what would
happen if we made the effort to set aside those first impressions, and allowed
ourselves to take in a second impression of that person – to try to see that
person through God’s eyes, to try to see that person as someone who God loves
and who God cares about? My guess is
that if we were to do that, in time amazing things would start to happen.