What do We Avoid?

July 15, 2011

John 4:7-9

V 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “how is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

In this passage Jesus and the disciples did something that most Jews of the day didn’t do, they didn’t go around the long way to avoid Samaria. Many Jews would add time and miles to what was probably a hard enough journey just to avoid Samaria. Yet, Jesus and His disciples didn’t, and Jesus even went so far as to ask a Samaritan for something to drink. He was willing to drink from her cup. To say that the Jews of this day disliked the Samaritan’s would be putting it mildly; there was no love lost for them. However, like in all things Jesus was so much more than just a Jew. He talked with this woman where she was, both at the well and in her sin (which I’ll get to eventually!). Sometimes I find myself avoiding the hard people in my life. This has always been my normal fleshly way to do things, ignore what I didn’t want to deal with. Yet, this is not Jesus’ example. He actually went out of His way to deal with the hard people. He goes out of His way to deal with me, and I know I’m certainly hard to deal with at times. If He is to be our example in how we live our lives doesn’t that mean that we should also seek out the people that the world would avoid? I’ll be honest in saying that this takes me out of my safe bubble. I’m scared of the prospect of talking to people one on one. Yet, I believe that for a believer this is unavoidable; we must make every effort of reach out to those who are hurting, or those who are belligerent and angry, or those who are so caught up in sin that they have lost their way. Because there is no doubt that this is what Jesus did and what He would do if He were here today.

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