The Why of How
“How is it that you, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” John 4:9 NASB
How? – The Greek is the pos, a word that introduces a question. This is a particularly interesting question. It contains many of the implications about spiritual truths that we face today.
It is a question of surprise. What this woman at the well expresses is shock that Yeshua would even speak to her. Why is she surprised? There are several reasons:
1) This is a gender issue. She is a woman. He is a man. Men who are strangers do not speak to women in this culture. Especially foreign men. This is a violation of protocol. Yeshua stepped over gender boundaries.
2) This is a nationalism issue. Jews and Samaritans hated each other. They had a long-standing blood feud. Centuries of animosity. Perhaps no one even remembered why they hated each other, but they knew that they did. Yeshua stepped over these nationalism boundaries.
3) This is an ethnic issue. There were significant cultural differences between Jews and Samaritans. They were from the same stock but different lines. It was a case of group sibling rivalry. Yeshua put aside all these ethnic issues.
4) This is a religious issue. Jews and Samaritans argued about how to worship, where to worship and why to worship. There were divisions about Scripture and morality. But Yeshua ignored all these boundaries too.
5) This is sin issue. A sinful and humiliated Samaritan woman was not worthy to be conversing with the holy Messiah. Some would say it was wrong to be in His presence. But Yeshua removed these boundaries because He came for exactly those who are wrong, who don’t fit, who think differently, who worship another way, who are not the right gender or from the right place with the right heritage at the right time.
If we are going to follow in His footsteps, we will have to step over a lot of boundaries. “How is it that you ask me?” she said. The answer must be, “I was sent to be asked.”
If someone is not asking you the question of your life, what boundary haven’t you crossed?
Topical Index: how, pos, questions, boundaries, John 4:9
The account of the Samaritan woman is the best example in Scripture, I think, of the tolerance of heaven. The woman felt the love that it took to actually FORGIVE her of all those walls, those fractures, that lay between herself and the Saviour, that Skip outlined so succinctly above. He did not TOLERATE her, which would have been the action of carefully LEAVING all those walls in place, and tiptoeing around all the differences that lay between them. Only true forgiveness can break down those walls of partition. But neither did He have to ignore any of the ways she was breaking the Law. Forgiveness honors the Law. Halleluah!
Tolerance, if you stop to think about it, builds a wall behind which hatred and bigotry can continue to hide. We can continue to smile to the face but still wield the knife of strife; of difference (I am better than you); of the sin of COMPARISON, which is the basis for all bigotry, deep in the heart. Sneaky adversary!
She had no way to forgive herself. She lived a life of shame, condemned by her own heart. He stepped in and gave her what she was not in a position to do for herself. He forgave her. She felt it; felt the release it afforded her; felt the new chance it gave her to be human again. The shame vanished. She ran home with a witness: her past no longer bound her. Instead, it gave her a way to proudly show off her redemption. “Come see the Man Who showed me all I ever did!”
Tolerance is the rock under which the world buries its shame, and it dares anyone to touch that rock. Forgiveness plops itself down on top of that rock, and asks for a drink of water; requests hospitality; expects to share true humanness. Forgiveness does not honor shame – it eats shame for dinner. Forgiveness is the true Sin Eater. Forgiveness says “Yep, you have thrown up walls of fracture between us in all these ways, but I am exercising the Veto Power of heaven to cancel those debts between us: Hey! let’s start over!”
Laurita, you write so well!
Hallelujah! Thank-you for sharing your insight.
Thank you. Ditto to you, Mr. Walsh.