Driven: Compelled to Missions by Christ’s LoveSample

Drawing out the Samaritans

Jesus “had to go through Samaria,” the text says, but most pious Jews would not take that route, going the long way around to avoid contact with Samaritans. Our Lord, writes Kenneth Bailey in Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes, knew that “defilement came from within,” not from contact with Samaritans. Jesus chose the direct route, which put Him in the path of a Samaritan woman.

By asking for a drink, says Bailey, Jesus crossed social barriers. In Jesus’ day, a man, particularly a rabbi, would not speak to a strange woman. Jesus also ignored hundreds of years of animosity between Jews and Samaritans. Further, He asked her for help. On His mission in a foreign location, He put Himself in need of assistance, rather than offering it. Then He engaged in a long dialog with the woman, who was likely an outcast and therefore alone at the well in the midday sun.

After Jesus spoke to the woman with intelligence and truth, the disciples arrived with food. Things quickly grew awkward, and the woman left to tell others of her encounter with Jesus. With social conventions seemingly gone and groceries still on their minds, the disciples hardly knew what to say. 

The woman, however, did know. She told the people in her city, fellow Samaritans. They were intrigued enough to come to Jesus and ask Him and His bewildered disciples to stay for a couple of days. Bailey notes that the Samaritans were looking not for a messianic ruler, as the Jews were, but a teacher like Moses. They found all that and more. Jesus’ words and actions convinced them that they had found the true “Savior of the world.” Over time and through years of interactions, Jesus would reveal to His disciples the Kingdom of God that reaches across cultural and social barriers. 

Have you considered placing yourself in a culturally unusual situation to be “Jesus with skin on” to someone else? Maybe to ask that person for help? Or to ask questions to which you don’t yet know the answer? Sometimes the least likely paths can put us right where Jesus wants us.