| Have you ever been surprised that someone spoke to you? Perhaps you interned at a large company and the president unexpectedly struck up a conversation with you. Maybe you mustered up the courage to say hello to a celebrity on the street and they engaged in a real chat for a few minutes.
Interactions like these can throw us for a loop. We know rationally that someone’s job or place in society doesn’t stop them from being a person who is capable of casual dialogue. But our typical experiences tend to reinforce the idea that there are some people we talk to and others we don’t—or, we might say, some people who will talk to us and others who won’t.
During Jesus’s earthly ministry, such divisions were even more pronounced. For example, as Dena Dyer explains, most Rabbis would not speak to women—including their own wives—in public. Jesus not only shattered that norm, he did so spectacularly, carrying on his longest recorded conversation in the New Testament with a woman. She wasn’t his wife. In fact, she wasn’t even Jewish. She was a Samaritan with a bad reputation But as she drew water from the well, Jesus drew her to himself.
“Jesus not only asked for a drink, but he also engaged this woman—who was publicly known to have committed sins of a sexual nature—in theological conversation,” writes Dyer. “In doing so, he shared publicly for the very first time that he was the Messiah.”
The woman responded with belief and a newfound passion for evangelism. She was illuminated by the surprise of Jesus noticing and caring for her. From then on, she could not stop talking about Jesus in her community. As Jesus draws near to us, regardless of our reputations or standings in society, may drink deeply of the goodness of God and share it with others, just as the Samaritan woman did. |
