Astonished by Jesus

In today's gospel, we hear the tail end of the story of Jesus' encounter with a Samaritan woman at a well. We enter the story as the disciples return to Jesus and see him speaking with this woman just prior to her leaving. "They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman," not to mention that she was Samaritan.

They were astonished. Clearly this was not behavior they expected from Jesus. Now if this were the only time the disciples were surprised by Jesus' behavior, we might not be able to make much of it. But Jesus regularly surprises and confounds his followers. The very people who knew him best and who spent more time with him than anyone were often taken aback by the things he did, the people he hung out with, the things he insisted his followers must do.

How often does Jesus astound you? Perhaps that seems an odd question given that Jesus makes fewer personal appearances these days. But over the years I have occasionally been struck by the ways I have domesticated Jesus, fitting him in to very conventional slots that he rarely challenges, mostly because I never give him the chance.

It is amazing how, once we settle on an image of Jesus that works for us, we can keep Jesus shoe-horned into that image. I mentioned yesterday how we in the church have sometimes reduced following Jesus to faithfully attending worship. The discontinuity between the ways we live and act and what Jesus calls his followers to do can be quite striking, yet we often seem immune to being astonished by such discontinuity.

I suppose that those first disciples would have done the same thing if they had been able, but Jesus was too present to them and too new to them for such easy domestication. Perhaps that means it is more incumbent on us to seek out those moments where Jesus astonishes us, although we do not seem much inclined to do this.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the typical church-goer's lack of serious engagement with the Bible. Nothing is quite so challenging to the notions of Jesus and God that we construct for ourselves as the witness of Scripture. To hear Jesus or God speaking directly against notions that are dear to us can be a profoundly challenging experience.

Church doctrine can also be helpful here. Admittedly, Church doctrine can sometimes become nothing more than certain things you have to believe in order to be sufficiently "orthodox,"but it can also remind us of how our images of Jesus and church have strayed from any solid, biblically-based standard. I think of my own Reformed tradition's statement recommending "A faithful stewardship that shuns ostentation and seeks proper use of the gifts of God's creation." (See the Presbyterian Book of Order, F-2.05) This call to live simply for the sake of others is a faithful attempt to to do what Jesus asks of us, although looking at many church buildings I suspect the members would be a bit "astounded" to hear Jesus say anything of the sort.

So where has Jesus astounded you? How often does it happen at your congregation if you are part of one? I take it to be a given that if we are not astounded, surprised, and redirected by Jesus from time to time, the Jesus we are following is one of our own creating.

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