Spiritual Hiccups - Church Unbound

I'm in Montreat, NC for the next few days at the Church Unbound conference.  Brian McLaren is a presenter so the conference will clearly have an "emergent" flavor.  In thinking about emerging Christianity and the Church being unbound, I was struck by a line in today's gospel from John.  It's part of the "Samaritan woman at the well" story.  The disciples have been away while Jesus has talked with the woman about living water.  "Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was  speaking with a woman."

I'm not sure we appreciate the shock of the disciples.  Rabbis did not teach or talk to women, not to mention a Samaritan woman.  In a world filled with boundaries, this woman was on the outside, and Jesus' crossing of that boundary was nothing short of scandalous. 

All religions create boundaries.  Perhaps they can be helpful at times, but Jesus went out of his way to cross them.  The religious boundaries that accrue over the years often become so much a part of the landscape that we don't actually see them, and so we are astonished when someone crosses one. 

The Church has lots of boundaries, many of them simply presumed to be the way things are, the same way the disciples presumed that Jesus shouldn't talk to a Samaritan woman.  And when boundaries become presumed, so taken for granted that they are like the air we breath, we don't even know they are there.  At least we don't until someone violates them.

What are the boundaries that are constraining the Church, that we must throw off if we are to be the body of Christ to the world?  One thing is certain, we will take offense when some of those boundaries are questioned or crossed, even when those boundaries are the very thing binding Church and Gospel.

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