Read John 4.
Jesus sits by a well and meets a Samaritan woman in the middle of the day. In that time and place, this would have raised quite a few red flags. First, Jews and Samaritans didn’t like each other. Second, she was a woman. In that day Jewish men believed they should avoid unnecessary conversations with women. This woman is coming out to the well alone in the middle of the day. Normally, women collected water together when it was cool out; in the mornings and the evenings. It was safer, more comfortable… So why was this woman alone? He asks her for a drink. This Jewish rabbi wants to put his lips on a cup which this Samaritan woman touched with her spiritually unclean hands. When Jesus looked at this isolated woman, he didn’t see an unclean Samaritan. What he saw was a child of God. What he saw was someone who deserved life. Jesus understood that the path out of isolation begins with dignity.
One thing we usually don’t think about with this story is just how little power women had in the ancient world. It was unheard of back then for a woman to divorce her husband. It only worked the other way around. So how did she have so many husbands? It might have been because she had been cast aside. Or that her husbands had all died and left her destitute. We don’t know.
Whether she was immoral or a victim of injustice or somewhere in between, Jesus knew who she was and he wanted her to find life. Jesus saw through her isolation, treated her with respect, and he offered her hope.
This story begins with an isolated woman walking alone to a well in the heat of the day. And it ends with this same woman as an effective evangelist, sharing the good news of Jesus and walking back to that well surrounded by her neighbors.
All it took was the compassion of someone willing to set aside cultural expectations, to risk their own reputation, so they could offer dignity to someone alone.
The path out of isolation begins with dignity.
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'You Were Made for More' because God created you ON purpose FOR a purpose. This is the vision of Grace Church, led by Pastor Barry Rodriguez and based in Indianapolis, IN.
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