You are seen and known

He said, “Go call your husband and then come back.”

“I have no husband,” she said.

“That’s nicely put: ‘I have no husband.’ You’ve had five husbands, and the man you’re living with now isn’t even your husband. You spoke the truth there, sure enough.”

John 4:16-18 MSG

In many translations this parable is artificially named by bible translators “A Woman At The Well”. Much like the parable of the prodigal son is called, “The Prodigal Son”. In previous posts I mentioned how much I like how Dr. Dale Ryan calls the prodigal son story “The Running Father”. This fits with scholars who teach us that parables are stories primarily intended to teach us one small thing about God.

Applying these principles to this story, I would like to take the liberty of renaming this story, “Jesus Sees and Knows”. Because I suspect this is the larger point of this exchange.

Jesus knew things about this woman that make no sense. He doesn’t beat around the bush in getting to the point either. She reveals a partial truth to a guy she shouldn’t trust “I have no husband” and he replies with the full truth of her current situation.

The reasons why she has had five husbands and is now living with a man are not given. Women were often married off to older men at very young ages. It is conceivable that her previous husbands have died due to natural causes, since life expectancy wasn’t great in those days. This could happen without her being a serial husband killer. Obviously, something about this is not socially pleasing. Clearly she is withdrawn and isolated from the women in her community. But we do not really know why, do we? But Jesus knows and this is such a big deal. Here’s what we can surmise from the text without going crazy with speculation. Jesus “had” to talk to this woman; in this meeting, Jesus is revealing as much about himself (which is the point of a parable) than he is about her.

Here’s what I love - I love that Jesus continually allows the “least of these” to be let in on the love, grace, mercy, and “gushing fountains of endless life”. Feeling marginalized? Being told you are “less than”? Always feeling outside the inner circle? Maybe these feelings are valid, maybe they are not. But either way they hurt, don’t they? Consider the fact that Jesus knows your part in your isolation, the part of others in creating distance, and none of that matters as much as who he is and what he offers to us all.

Think about that!

Living in hiding is a form of pride

A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said, “Would you give me a drink of water?” (His disciples had gone to the village to buy food for lunch.) The Samaritan woman, taken aback, asked, “How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (Jews in those days wouldn’t be caught dead talking to Samaritans.)

Jesus answered, “If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water.”

The woman said, “Sir, you don’t even have a bucket to draw with, and this well is deep. So how are you going to get this ‘living water’? Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well and drank from it, he and his sons and livestock, and passed it down to us?”

Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.”

The woman said, “Sir, give me this water so I won’t ever get thirsty, won’t ever have to come back to this well again!” John 4:8-15 MSG

Notice the following:

* Jesus was behaving extremely inappropriately. He was initiating engagement with and asking for help from a foreigner he was supposed to despise.

* Jesus chooses to reveal himself to her, not as just some guy who has a hankering for cool drink of water, but he indicates who he is - the guy who gives “gushing fountains of endless life” - the Samaritan woman is the first person Jesus outs himself to.

* Jesus expresses a need. Outrageous!

* Women don’t go to the well in the middle of the day to draw water. We will discover more about why she was choosing to isolate herself from the community in future verses. Going to the well felt difficult for her; it was a potential point of exposure. She could only think in terms of survival and did not initially understand the possibility of a gushing fountain. She just wanted to avoid the well.

Notice that Jesus is willing to do uncomfortable things and behave in strange ways to reach out to the ONE. He was not efficient and uninterested in following the societal norms when they did not serve his purpose (That’s a big deal; he’s not being a rebel just to stick it to the man.). Tomorrow, we will find out another amazing thing about Jesus.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend

So Jesus left the Judean countryside and went back to Galilee. To get there, he had to pass through Samaria. He came into Sychar, a Samaritan village that bordered the field Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was still there. Jesus, worn out by the trip, sat down at the well. It was noon. John 4:3-6 MSG

“He had to pass through Samaria” cannot mean that he geographically had to pass through Samaria to get to his destination. Israelites regularly went around Samaria to get from point A to point B. Why? The Israelites had irreconcilable differences with the Samaritan people. They considered them “less than”. More on that in a minute, but first a question: who can you no reconcile with? Who do you avoid as a people group?

Last night we went with friends to MamaZu’s in Oregon Hill (a neighborhood in downtown Richmond, VA) for dinner. It’s a dive of a place with a crazy door. The screen door is on the inside of the establishment and the heavy metal door is on the outside of the building. It looks like a dump but the food is delish. Joe, one of my dinner companions made the comment that when he was a youngster, Oregon Hill was one of the roughest neighborhoods in Richmond and was to be avoided at all costs. Today we have several neighborhoods that vie for that spot but Oregon Hill is not one of them. Part of this historic avoidance was a people group thing. Throughout history, we struggle with creating false systems of us versus them. Brene’ Brown attributes this to the need for intimacy. This is a quick and dirty, fake way to feel intimate. We can believe that if we have a common enemy, then we are friends. But what if our common enemy is a friend of God’s? How do we reconcile that?

The Samaritans in biblical times occupied the country formerly known as the land of the tribe of Ephraim and Manasseh. Samaria was the capitol and had once been a wonderful city. When the ten tribes were carried off to captivity, foreigners moved in and the populations intermarried - hence, the first split. Eventually the Samaritans mixed their religious practices. They followed the Torah but kept some pagan practices as well. They opposed the rebuilding of the Temple after the Israelites returned from captivity. They served as a refuge city for outlaws from Judea. This was all a problem for creating harmony between these people groups.

No, Jesus did not HAVE to pass through Samaria for geographic reasons, tomorrow we will see WHY he HAD to. But do not miss this point: this was a naughty thing Jesus did in the eyes of the Israelites. This is breaking the brotherhood code. This goes against conventional wisdom. This stirs up conflict. This creates a PR nightmare. And yet, Jesus went.

How does our own desire to go along to get along interfere with making tough but right calls?

God desires peace between us

I once new a gal, decades ago, who had gotten divorced. She said that initially the divorce was painful for her because she thought she was displeasing God. After the divorce was finalized and a few years had passed, she came to a new way of seeing. “Teresa, God hates divorce because divorce is so painful for his children. He knows how heart wrenching it is for the two of us to pull apart the life we had joined together.”

I love that. Sin matters. Not because we are competing for God’s job in the holiness department but because, as we will see tomorrow in a very special way, God loves his children and cares about their suffering. It has nothing to do with winning, and everything to do with running the race well.

1-3 Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! Hebrews 12:1-3 MSG

I think we work so hard to compete for attention, affection and significance that we forget that we already have God’s full attention (he is after all the running father). In tomorrow’s post, we will consider who ELSE the triune God is.

Suggestions for reflecting God's image

Yesterday I talked about the implications of discovering things about ourselves that are inconsistent with being image bearers of God. Today, I want to suggest some very practical applications. (Read yesterday’s post to make more sense of this one.)

1. Be aware when what you are thinking, feeling, and doing is not a match with what the scripture says is the nature of God. Just be aware.

2. Do not compete to be more GOd-like than you really are - just notice it!

3. Take responsibility for the harm done when you live as an enemy of God (stand in opposition to his inspired way of seeing).

4. Practice the spiritual disciplines that challenge your way of thinking, feeling, doing and seeing the world.

5. Surround yourself with people that love you no matter what, but make sure a few of them have the courage to call you out in a loving, kind, way, every once in awhile.

6. When you can, do better.

7. When you cannot, at least own it and do not justify your choices or try to deflect blame to others.

Notice that this very short list of possible applications does NOT suggest that we can behave all willy nilly without consequence. Sin - what we affectionately define as “living independently of God” - is no small thing. But the question is WHY is it not small thing?

To be continued….