One day Jesus led his disciples through Samaria, a route these young men would have otherwise avoided. In their generations-old hostility toward Samaritans (half-breeds whose worship practices defied God’s law) the Jews prided themselves on being “right.” While Jesus rested beside a well, He sent the disciples to purchase some food. They returned later, appalled to find Jesus talking with a Samaritan woman. On so many levels this conversation looked wrong. And as a group they secretly want to demand, “Why are you talking to her!??” (John 4:27). They’d learned by this time not to question Jesus’s ways aloud, but they likely judged this the least godly action their leader had ever taken. Yet Jesus cared about this woman.
Far too often I, too, make snap judgments based on insufficient knowledge. With my limited insight, and usually based on outward appearances, I make assumptions or draw conclusions I later regret. Reading John 4:1-30 we discover the beauty of Jesus’ conversation as He offered her living water, which resulted in an entire town meeting their Messiah. But at the time, the disciples assumed Jesus was consorting with the enemy.
A few years later in the book of Romans, Paul wrote to a mixed group of believers—Jews and Gentiles. Conditioned by centuries of law-based living, converted Jews were judging the Gentile believers for their liberty. And the Gentiles, in turn, judged the Jews for their narrowmindedness. This prevented unity among those believers. Therefore, Paul coached them in how to lay aside their personal preferences to show love to one another.
In Romans 15:1 and 7 (HCSB) Paul encourages, Now we who are strong have an obligation to bear the weaknesses of those without strength, and not to please ourselves. Therefore accept one another, just as the Messiah also accepted you, to the glory of God. In other words, even if you think you’re right and they’re wrong, love trumps all.
Having attended churches of many flavors over decades, I see now that I focused far too much on what was “wrong” instead of affirming whatever level of truth each expressed. Despite their differences, both the Samaritans and the Jews had been waiting for their Messiah. So as Jesus conversed with the Samaritan woman—a “sinful woman” at that—He brought revelation and spoke truth that set her, and presumably many of her neighbors, free. Rather than condemning her for her loose living and for worshiping the wrong way in the wrong location, Jesus spoke the truth in love and revealed Himself as the Messiah. That’s what she ultimately needed.
And that’s what people need today. Whether they acknowledge it or not, everyone wants to know the truth, and the God, who can set them free. They simply don’t know where to look. As we meet them in the grocery store aisle or at work, we can offer them a taste of that same living water. The truth of God’s love is the answer we all need.
