John 4

Scripture: John 4:1-26

She sits in the parking lot, eye on the clock, waiting until she’s sure services have started before she hurries in. Eyes are raised barely enough to scan the room for an available seat – one that isn’t too close to anyone else. One more week she’s been able to avoid speaking to anyone – or even worse, risk that no one will speak to her. She knows intuitively that healing is here; yet most often she’s experienced the very rejection she fears. Consequently, the walls are high and the armor is on as she circles the outer edges of hope.

The Samaritan Woman was such a woman. An outcast in her own world, she was even more of one in the Jewish realm. Jesus broke the silence. He crossed the divide. He provided her with acceptance – the one longing she tried to hide. She responds with questions of her own. They were a lot more about testing him than they were about securing answers. “Here’s who I am --- will you stay?” Through the years my daughter has played a game with me called “Would you still love me if_____” filling in the blank with increasingly worse scenarios. I think that is what the woman was doing too.

What can we learn from Jesus? He made the first move. Her questions didn’t frighten him or disgust him. He knew it wasn’t about finding answers – it was about finding acceptance. It was about finding God with skin on. When you see that person come in after services are started and sit all alone you make the first move. You speak. You draw them out. You show them that no matter what is in their blank, you will still love them. Finding a safe place where you aren’t defined by the mistakes you’ve made is what people are dying to find. I know. I was that woman in the first paragraph.