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Jesus: The Ultimate Reconciler
If the mutual responsibility model is based on our Christian faith, then
we should be able to see elements of it in the life of Jesus. As a Christian
I have been taught that Jesus lived a perfect life.1 Jesus also had to deal
with those who differed from him ethnically.2 There is scriptural support
for the idea that Jesus initially came to reach the Jewish people but soon
extended his ministry to non-Jews.3 His outreach to non-Jews allows us
to see how he approaches intergroup relations.
We are in an especially good situation to learn from Jesus’ life because
he was neither at the top nor the bottom of his society. At times he was
a member of the majority group and at times he was part of the minority
group. As a Jew he was an ethnic minority in a society dominated by the
Romans. However, other groups had less social status than the Jews.
Furthermore, Jesus was a Jewish teacher and therefore had higher status
than many other Jews in his society. We can see how Jesus reacted to sit-
uations in which he had a superior social position and situations in
which he had an inferior social position.
The first area we should examine is the value Jesus placed on recon-
ciliation. Some may ask whether reconciliation is important. The Bible
talks about reconciling humans to God, but why is it so important that
humans be reconciled to each other? I will address that issue before I
Yancey, G. (2006). Beyond racial gridlock : Embracing mutual responsibility. InterVarsity Press.Created from amridge on 2023-06-11 15:04:13.
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look at how Jesus interacted with those of a lower social status than him-
self and then with those in a higher social position. Finally I will look at
the life of Jesus as the ultimate balance between the need to use power
wisely and the need for relationships.
JESUS PRAYS FOR US
Mark DeYmaz, a pastor friend of mine, recently blessed me with a valu-
able teaching about the importance of oneness in the Christian body.
The teaching comes from John 17. It was the night of Jesus’ impending
arrest. Jesus knew that he was going to die for us in only a few hours.
Jesus prayed first for his disciples and then for the rest of us (John
17:20). While everything that Jesus said is of great importance, these
words must be especially valuable since they are among the last lessons
of his mortal life.
Jesus prayed to his Father for unity among believers, that we would
all be one “so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John
17:21). If Christians are unified, then the world will believe that God
sent Jesus. The two actions are connected. The evidence that Jesus was
sent by God is the fact that those who call on his name are one. We often
go to Jesus to ask things from him in prayer. But reconciling ourselves to
each other is actually a way we can answer Jesus’ own prayer. It becomes
clear that doing the work of racial reconciliation is doing the work of
Jesus. Reconciliation is not some side issue that we can engage in if we
want. If we are going to be an answer to Jesus’ prayer, then we have to
find ways to unify alienated believers.
The opposite of Jesus’ prayer can happen as well. If Christians do not
become one, the world will fail to know that Jesus has been sent by the
Father. When we have segregated churches and when Christians perpet-
uate racial misunderstandings, then it becomes easier for non-Christians
to argue that there is no special power among Christians. We argue, fight
and bicker like everyone else. We are less powerful witnesses because we
Yancey, G. (2006). Beyond racial gridlock : Embracing mutual responsibility. InterVarsity Press.Created from amridge on 2023-06-11 15:04:13.
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fail to become reconciled, first within the body of Christ and second in
the larger society, which suffers from the pain of racial division.
If Jesus took reconciliation so seriously, then we would expect him to
model reconciliation in his own life. Jesus’ middle position in the society
of his day allowed him to demonstrate how to deal with intergroup hos-
tility. First we will look at how Jesus acted when he had a superior social
position. In Roman society there were groups who were lower than the
Jews. Although the Romans held political control, they allowed Jews to
run their own local affairs. The prejudices of the Jews often showed in
the way they handled local issues. The Samaritans were the targets of
Jewish prejudice. How Jesus dealt with Samaritans shows us how Chris-
tians should act when we are part of the majority group.
JESUS AND THE WOMAN AT THE WELL
In 2 Kings 17 we learn that Israel was exiled to Assyria. The king of As-
syria replaced the Israelites who had lived in Samaria with people from
Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim (2 Kings 17:24). These
people did not worship the Lord, and he punished them with wild ani-
mals. So the king of Assyria sent some of the Israelites back to that area
to teach the people about the Lord. The migration set up a situation in
which many Jews would intermarry with foreigners. The people who
arose from this intermixing were eventually called the Samaritans. The
Jews came to look down on the Samaritans as half-breed foreigners who
had been forced on the Jews. It is not surprising that the Jews resented
the Samaritans and treated them as a despised minority group.
The Jews did not even respect the Samaritans enough to travel
through their cities when they moved about. The Samaritans lived in the
barrio or ghetto of their day. When Jesus “had to go through Samaria” on
his way from Judea to Galilee (John 4:4), he was making a political state-
ment. He was saying that we cannot pretend that our intergroup differ-
ences are illusions. We must meet these differences with intentional ac-
Yancey, G. (2006). Beyond racial gridlock : Embracing mutual responsibility. InterVarsity Press.Created from amridge on 2023-06-11 15:04:13.
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tions. Jesus recognized the incompleteness of a colorblindness approach
to hostile relationships.
In Samaria Jesus sat down by Jacob’s well while the disciples went to
find food. The Samaritan woman who arrived at the well could not have
been at a lower position in the social order. She was a minority. She was
a woman. Because she had to come to get water in the middle of the day,
we know that she was not rich. Jesus clearly enjoyed a higher social po-
sition. So how did he approach her? Did he begin to teach her and help
her? No. He asked her for help. He asked her for a drink of water (John
4:7). The member of the majority group made himself vulnerable to the
member of the minority. His approach was exactly opposite what we
would expect from the Anglo-conformity model. Jesus’ actions show
that people from all walks of life have something to offer. Jesus did not
come into the encounter with an attitude of arrogance and paternalism
but in weakness and need.
The Samaritan woman was amazed that Jesus would request any-
thing from her because that was simply not the way things were done
in Samaria. If a Jewish male did come through Samaria, he certainly
would not waste his time talking to a Samarian woman. Because Jesus
treated her as a person instead of as a ministry project, she opened
up to him. He began to talk to her of living water. The woman had
trouble understanding the spiritual nature of the conversation, but
she knew that she was tired of coming to the well. So she asked for
this living water. Jesus wanted her to understand the full conse-
quences of accepting this water. She had to deal with the sins in her
life. He made a request that would show her how sin had wrecked
her life. He asked her to go get her husband, knowing that she had
been married five times and was now living with a man without the
covering of marriage (John 4:16-18). Jesus, as a member of the ma-
jority, called a member of the minority to account for her sins. Even
though he treated her with respect, he would not let her believe that
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all her problems came from her lower social status. Her actions had
led her to develop an unseemly reputation and made her life harder.
Her own sin nature had led to decisions that placed her in an even
more difficult position.
Jesus’ approach is contrary to what we would expect from a white re-
sponsibility model. That model would correctly identify that the woman
was a victim of societal forces, and it would place nearly the entire re-
sponsibility for her problems on those social forces. But such an ap-
proach would fail to give the woman what she needed for a complete life.
She needed to come to grips with how her own sin nature had contrib-
uted to her social situation. Blaming the majority group for her position
in life would be inaccurate and ultimately disempowering. By being held
accountable for her own actions, she could begin to take the steps to
eternal life, and no one in the majority could prevent her from taking
those steps.
The woman reacted in the way most of us react when we are con-
fronted with our sins. She tried to change the subject. She began to talk
about where the Samaritans worshiped (John 4:19-20). She attempted
to assert the rightness of her culture over Jewish culture. For Jesus the
argument was not important. It does not matter so much where we wor-
ship but what we worship. He said that the Samaritans did not know
what they were worshiping (John 4:22). Jesus did not bother to critique
their culture in other areas, but he held his ground concerning who
should be worshiped. Advocates of the multiculturalist model are cor-
rect when they hesitate to critique other cultures on unimportant issues.
But on the important issue of what worship is, Jesus did not practice a
multiculturalist approach. He enunciated a path that was not relativistic.
Jesus demonstrated that there will be times when one group must cor-
rect the cultural errors of another group.
The rest of John 4 relates the results of Jesus’ encounter with the Sa-
maritan woman. She not only accepted his living water; she eagerly told
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