Friends in Christ Message for March 26, 2011

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Friends in Christ Weekly Message
March 26, 2011

⁹ “You are a Jew,” she replied, “and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink of water when Jews and Samaritans won't have anything to do with each other?”

²⁷ The disciples returned about this time and were surprised to find Jesus talking with a woman. But none of them asked him what he wanted or why he was talking with her.
John 4:9, 27 (CEV*)

In this story, Jesus was breaking all sorts of codes about whom it was proper to converse with. Jews didn't have anything to do with Samaritans due to both religious and ethnic differences. As a matter of modesty and propriety, it was the custom for a man not to speak with a woman in a public location. Furthermore, there was the matter of the woman's morality, since it is noted in the text that she had had five husbands and was now living with a man to whom she was not married.

Most of us may not live in cultures where there are such rigid codes specifying with whom we cannot speak. However, there still is a tendency to look down upon certain classes of people. There might be certain categories of people with whom we might not think of engaging in serious spiritual conversation. Among the many lessons which can be learned from this story, one of them is not to judge people by the things the world tends to judge people - ethnicity, gender, religious affiliation, lifestyle, life history, etc.

Do we look at each person as Christ would, and act towards them accordingly? Are we willing to cross worldly boundaries of class, ethnicity, faith, gender, appearance, life history, etc.?

Bill Samuel