Save The World, One At A TimeSample

Shaping Caring Communities

Jesus entered Samaria – a territory that Jews despised. He had no prejudice but only intent to save those that are lost. He strikes a conversation with a woman who had come to draw water at a well he was sitting near. His opening line was: “Give Me a drink.” She wondered, how Jesus a Jew could talk to her a Samaritan and a woman. He overcomes man-made barriers by simply asking for water. He even used his physical thirst for water as a means to satisfy her spiritual thirst for God.  

Countering her hesitancy, Jesus invites her to get to know him and consider the living waters he could offer to her, and in drinking, she would never thirst again. Possibly assuming she would never have to come to the village and face taunting remarks of other village women about her personal life, she asks Jesus for the living water. Jesus did not want to deal with the woman without her husband’s consent and therefore asks her to bring her husband. It was her turn to become vulnerable, and she confesses that she has no husband – a grain of painful truth in the ocean of her misery.

Jesus offers her ‘unconditional positive regard’ with no trace of judgement and affirms her using, what I call, a sandwich principle. He said, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.” He affirms her for the part truth she spoke that she has no husband, ends with reaffirmation, but in between, he places the bitter truth of five husbands and a live-in relationship. When Jesus melted her defenses with a gentle confrontation couched in affirmation, she was quick to see the prophet in Jesus. Her inner thirst to worship the Lord was brought to the forefront. The politics of religion and legalism of religious practice obscured the light of the Biblical truth. Jesus ushered her into the worship of the Lord in spirit. No sacrifices, no uncleanness and no ritualism. Freedom in spirit to worship.

The Samaritan woman was eagerly looking forward to see the Messiah and dispel all doubt and darkness. Jesus declared that He was indeed the Messiah she was hoping for. She believed him and led the whole village to Jesus.

When Jesus interacted with the Samaritan woman, he did not look at her miserable state of being widowed or divorced five times nor did he look down on her live-in relationship. He saw her intense thirst for the Messiah. What about you and me? Let us with grace see past people’s faults and failings and notice their faith. God always comes through to such. Let us go in his name and do likewise. Communities will be saved, one at a time.