John ch 4
Today we experience the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well.
Things to note
Never alone and never at noon. This was the protocol for women in the time of Jesus going to a well to get water.
They would go in groups, Safety in numbers. They would go when it was cool, less of a risk to faint or pass out. They would go at dawn or dusk. Never lone and never at noon.
But this woman is alone and it is noon. This in itself suggest according to biblical scholars that the woman was dealing with shame in her life and perhaps wanted to hide from ridicule. She was ether shunned by the community or she was shunning her self because of guilt and shame. Her lifestyle wasn't the norm and thus open to judgment.
She wanted to get o the well, get the water, and get home with out any interruptions. She was looking to avoid confrontation and avoid notice and go on her merry way.
Then there is this interruption. There is a man at the well. Not only is there a man but he wants to talk and he wants water. She has a choice to make. She can enter int o the interruption and receive it as a gift or she can let frustration boil over into anger and demand her time and her plan to be kept unscathed by such interruptions.
How many unexpected interruptions come our way. How many interruptions do we have in our daily routine or our plans for the day. How many annoying realities interrupt us. Maybe not just in our daily routine but perhaps in our life. Perhaps, sickness or failures or surprises.
Like the women we can get defensive, we get angry, we can try to blame or manipulate or we can receive and enter into the conversation God is wanting to have with us.
This is what Jesus wants when he ask for a drink, he is asking for communion, he asking for a deeper relationship. He wants to get to the dirt and he wants things to get personal. In is in the dirt that seeds are planted and able to germinate. How quickly Jesus moves form the surface to someplace more meaningful, way more personal.
Maybe This is exactly what every interruption in our life is about; it is about getting more personal; maybe it is about moving beyond the surface; maybe its about getting to the dirt so that God can till the soil of our lives and prepare for a more meaningful encounter with freedom.
In it all, Jesus never points the finger or condemns but he elevates and invites the woman to more personal reality, getting to the dirt so that she might find true freedom. We see this when she bodly goes to the community and invites then to come and see.
What Jesus does for this woman and giving her freedom from shame and guilt and from her own self perhaps he wants to do for us. He wants us to do this for one another. We can't live on the surface of our lives, we have to get to the dirt, get personal only then can true freedom be discovered and God ultimately be encountered.
She invites us to get deeper and more personal.
