John 4:7-11 (ESV)
A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 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.) 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 nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?
Here is something to think about. The following verses are taken from the story of Jesus at the well with the Samaritan woman who was an outcast in her society for being a Samaritan (Jews hated Samaritans … they were 1/2 Jew and 1/2 gentile) and she had been married several times and was currently living with a man that was not her husband.
A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 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.)
The interesting thing here is that Jesus talks to her (that was counter-culture for the day) even though she is a Samaritan (she points this out). However, it is equally compelling that he (a man) compelled her to give him a drink (that is what men would do in those days). Whereas he practice social justice by going across the diversity lines of her race, He did not in regard to her gender.
But, yet talking to her, as a woman (especially with her reputation) He also crossed the lines of the culture as we can see from the disciples response when they returned to the well and found Him talking to her:
Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?”
We can see that Jesus was very much counter the culture of His day and reached out to cross the diversity lines. It is interesting, however, that he compelled her to get Him a drink, which was very much the in-justice toward gender of the day.
I don’t think it gives us permission to do one over the other, but I do think it shows us that these things are waters to navigate that often come with waves hitting us from multiple directions while we attempt to live out Christ in our lives. The key here is that Jesus was trying to give her a spiritual lesson about the fact that He, Jesus, was the living water. Her coming to draw water was the metaphor He used. You could say, the lesson to be taught needed her to do the drawing. (We should also note that when He came to the well He didn’t have anything to draw water out of the well, a point she will make later in the discussion - vs 11).
In the story He broke several cultural norms and broke the diversity puzzle of the day. Yet, Jesus also, while teaching a lesson that He is the water and bread of life, used the social injustice of the day to do so. Interesting!!
I am NOT suggesting we continue in gender bias while breaking through on culture bias. I am simply suggesting that navigating the waters of a culture to teach Kingdom truths is more complicated than people think.
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