Tag: Samaria

The Samaritan Woman

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

John 4:7-15 (NRSV)

There are a lot of people who, if given the choice, we would not choose to talk to – people we might deem to be unworthy of our time or attention. It may be also that we simply wouldn’t choose to talk to them because we don’t know who they are and they don’t know us, so there is no real reason to stop and carry on a conversation. There could be many reasons why we would choose not to talk to someone, or to avoid someone if she or he tried to talk to us.

Jesus had every reason in the world not to talk to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. Jesus had stopped to rest there because he was tired. The unnamed Samaritan woman approached the well to draw water. Jesus, being a Jewish rabbi, would not be expected to give a woman from Samaria the time of day let alone engage in a lengthy and meaningful conversation with her. Nevertheless, it was Jesus who instigated such a conversation with her at the well.

That conversation revolved around water. We today well know the significance of water to the Christian faith. Water is a symbol of life because it is life-giving. We need it to survive. Jesus tells this woman about a different kind of water. In the end, not only did this woman receive the living water Jesus told her about, but so did many others because of her story about the man she had never met before in her life, but who nevertheless told her everything she had ever done. This man couldn’t possibly be the Messiah, could he?

May we leave our buckets behind and receive the living water from the well that never runs dry during this season of Lent, and share that water with others.

Along the Border

11 On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten men with skin diseases approached him. Keeping their distance from him, 13 they raised their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, show us mercy!”
14 When Jesus saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” As they left, they were cleansed. 15 One of them, when he saw that he had been healed, returned and praised God with a loud voice. 16 He fell on his face at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. 17 Jesus replied, “Weren’t ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 No one returned to praise God except this foreigner?” 19 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up and go. Your faith has healed you.”

Luke 17:11-19 (CEB)

In this text, Luke tells the story of how Jesus healed ten men of leprosy. The focus of this story is often on the fact that, out of all ten of those men, only one man came back to Jesus to give thanks for the healing and grace he received. We often consider the fact that this man was described as a “stranger” in the KJV and as a “foreigner” in more recent translations. He was a Samaritan, someone who would have been considered unclean. Luke does not tell us the ethnicity of the other nine men. It is possible that some of them were Samaritans, while others were Galileans.

All of that is interesting, but what interests me most about this text is in verse 11: “On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee.” Jesus probably could have travelled through different areas on his way to Jerusalem. Luke makes it a point to tell his readers that Jesus traveled “along the border” between these two regions, suggesting that Jesus deliberately chose this particular route over other possible routes to Jerusalem. Because Jesus chose to travel along the border, he was in a position to encounter people from both regions. Even on his way to his eventual betrayal, arrest, conviction, torture and crucifixion, Jesus chose to travel along the border, to encounter and heal along the way those whom he would soon suffer and die for. These people, who held animosity between each other for various reasons, all found healing together in the Christ.

There is a lot going on in this story, but one thing that stands out is the call upon us as disciples to travel along the border with Jesus to bring hope and healing to all who would come and receive it. The risen Christ still travels along the borders of our relationships with each other, seeking to heal our brokenness and unite us in fellowship one with another.

May we travel along the border with Jesus, in this liminal space, this in-between, and experience healing, joy, and freedom together as whole persons in Jesus Christ our Lord.