And he had to pass through Samaria.

Did he have to go through Samaria? Of course not. What Jew had to go through Samaria? Samaria was a defiled land. When Israel fell to the Assyrians, all of the inhabitants of the land were taken into exile. Years later, the Assyrians exported their own people back to Samaria. For Jews, Samaritans were the ultimate basket of deplorables. They worshipped all sorts of gods and did their best to make life miserable for the Jews. Suffice it to say, the term “good Samaritan” was the ultimate oxymoron.

So why did Jesus have to go through Samaria? Because that is what God does. In the eyes of God, there are no deplorables, only wayward sons and daughters. I think Jesus had to go to Samaria because of a divine appointment with an outcast woman in an exiled land. The disciples peeled off for lunch, leaving Jesus alone, when along came his lunch appointment.

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”

The stage was set—Jacob’s well, high noon, a Samaritan woman, and the Son of God—and they were about to engage in a conversation we are still talking about. Here was Jesus in a place where no one could have predicted, with a person no one would have expected, entering into a conversation no one could have ever imagined.

That’s what God is like. And I’m pretty sure it’s what he wants us to be like.

PRAY

Abba Father, thank you for your Son, Jesus, who crushes our categories of who is in and who is out and where we should and should not be. Come, Holy Spirit, and so fill us with the love of God that such prejudgments can no longer remain in us. We pray in Jesus’s name, amen.

JOURNAL

Where do you think the Samaritans are in today’s world? Do we think that by connecting with and conversing with certain kinds of people that it will be read as our affirmation of them and their activities? So, what if that happened? Why do we disassociate with people we consider to be deplorable? What does this say about our understanding of God?

SING

Today, we will sing “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” (hymn 37) from our Seedbed hymnal, Our Great Redeemer’s Praise.

For the Awakening,

J. D. Walt

John David (J. D.) Walt Jr. is the Sower-in-Chief for Seedbed and the pastor of the Gillett Methodist Church in Gillett, Arkansas. 

Subscribe to get this in your inbox daily, and please share this link with friends.