Shechem/Sychar/Nablus--Jacob's Well

With the current violence between Israel and Gaza, Saint George's College Jerusalem has been advised to avoid the Palestinian city of Nablus.  Nablus is the same place as Ancient Shechem or Biblical Sychar.  As one of our pilgrim's said not too long ago, this is a land where even the place's names depend on who is telling the story.  Nablus is the place where Jesus met the Samaritan woman--the encounter is laid out in a fair amount of detail in John 4.

Ancient Shechem is now a partially excavated tell in the heart of modern Nablus, and the city gates are about 200 yards from the Greek Orthodox church that is built over Jacob's well.  The church is not old, being finished after 2000, but has been the scene of violence that is, sadly, almost expected in the area.  The Orthodox church obtained permission to build the from the Palestinian Authority, replacing a older Orthodox church on the same site, and has constructed a new and beautiful shrine in the middle of a very crowded Palestinian Muslim neighborhood.  The Orthodox Priest who was in charge of the project was murdered by an Israeli settler who objected to a Christian organization having control over a Jewish holy site.  The priest is remembered in the iconography of the church, and his role of the construction is remembered with a pair of mosaics on the church's front.

But what the church is about should provide food for thought for Christians, Jews and Muslims.  Jacob's well was the place where an observant Jew (Jesus) asked a Samaritan woman for a drink of water.  Even the Gospel recognizes what an unprecedented event this was.  "Jews have no dealings with Samaritans," the Samaritan women says, summing up the situation that had been in place since the days of Nehemiah.  As the conversation between Jesus and this unnamed woman unfolds, she begins to perceive that the Jew she is talking with is the messiah, and that the Jewish messiah promises her living water, and affirms that the day has come when the worship of God does not revolve about the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim or the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, but is a matter of Spirit and Truth--and this open to both Jews and Samaritans.

This is not the only time in the Gospels when Jesus makes it very clear that God's love is not bounded by race or nation or any other human construct, but this is one occasion when others immediately see hope in him and his words and come to believe.

The Church of Jacob's well in Nablus stands as a reminder that all of us are free to worship God in Spirit and Truth.  The living water is there for us all.  It reminds me of our Baptismal Covenant when we vow to respect the dignity of every human being; and we do so asking for God's help.

Drawing water from Jacob's Well

Mosaic remembering the Orthodox Priest