Seeing Beyond the Mess

I am continually fascinated at the myriad of ways that God teaches and corrects me.  This year He has given me more than the average dose of correction.  My pastor gave an excellent message that touched me and spoke to me in many ways, but there was one sentence that struck me deeply.  Part of his message focused on the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:1-30).  My pastor said that he believed the Samaritan woman “got a bum rap.”  My mind froze at that statement.  I was shocked.  What did he mean, “bum rap?”  How did she get a bum rap?  She deserved her reputation as a promiscuous, immoral, and, shameful woman.  I determined that after church I would seek the Lord and ask Him to give me HIS perspective.  Was my pastor right or was she truly a woman of ill repute who deserved all the judgment and condemnation she has received over the millennia?  During my lunchtime, I prayed for God to reveal His perspective as I re-read the passage over again.  I was reading verses 16-18 when I clearly heard God tell me (very firmly, I might add): “NO teenage girl grows up with dreams of being divorced five times and living with a sixth man.  People who do that, whether yesterday or today, are very broken and in deep need of my healing.”  I was stunned.  My pastor was right. 

It is astonishingly easy to take a cursory glance at the Samaritan woman’s mess and immediately judge her.  Why is it so difficult to look PAST the mess to see her broken soul?  Jesus saw what no one else could see, maybe not even herself: that she was a broken, possibly abused woman, who needed a Savior.  She was broken, but not so broken that she would immediately and callously dismiss his initially-confusing statements (especially about “living water”).   As Jesus sat at that well, even though John tells us that He was weary from His journey (John 4:6), He still had enough compassion for her to muster up some strength to feed her soul.

As I analyzed the conversation between the two of them, just Jesus and this woman of ill repute who needed to hide from society, I began to see her through Jesus’ eyes for the first time.  I began to see a woman who herself was worn out from life and was starving for Jesus’ offer of salvation (though she did not understand that).  It occurred to me that she had many opportunities during the course of their conversation to dismiss his statements. 

First of all, He tells her that He would have given her “living water.”  She questions Him about this statement.  Then He says something that to the casual observer would indicate that she’s conversing with a delusional man.  He says that “whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.”  Instead of dismissing him as a lunatic, she proceeds to inquire and tell him that she wants this water … then she tells him why she wants the “living water:” so she won’t have to come to the well again.  My supposition is that she not only wants the convenience of eliminating the daily chore of drawing water from the well, but her clever mind is figuring out that if she has this “living water,” she will have one less reason to appear in public on a regular basis, thereby minimizing the shame from the townspeople.

Next, He baits her by telling her, “Go, call your husband, and come here,” fully knowing that she doesn’t have a husband.  When she admits she doesn’t have a husband, He proceeds to insult her with these sharp words: “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands and the one whom you now have is not your husband.  In that you spoke truly.”  (John 4:17)  She must have been a tough broad, because many women I know would have either lashed out, verbally defending themselves, or run away crying and deeply offended.  Instead, she responds very calmly, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.” 

I mean, I began to admire her more and more.  Before my eyes, in those few minutes, she was transformed in my mind from a promiscuous, immoral woman from whom I could learn nothing to a deeply-wounded woman who was hungry for salvation.  She never tried to deny or minimize her mess.  She was genuinely open to all of Jesus’ statements, and looked past the insult to perceive that He was not crazy, but there was something unique about Him and this uniqueness drew her to Him.  This quiet, unassuming conversation between two strangers at a well opened the door for her salvation.  She woke up that morning the same person she had always been, but she went to bed that night forever changed—finally able to see herself through her Savior’s eyes and receive His free gift of salvation.  Countless Jews rejected Jesus during the three years of His ministry.  Yet this Samaritan woman, who should have rejected Him immediately simply because He was a Jew, embraced the Son of God and overflowed with so much joy that she had to run and tell all the men of the town about Him.  They were so intrigued that they come to meet Jesus as well, and they urged Jesus to stay with them.  After listening to Him for two days, they told the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world (John 4:42).” Jesus’ willingness to look past her mess and minister to her brokenness opened the door for a whole town to be saved.  Had Jesus ignored God’s prompting that day, and simply asked for water and left it at that, an entire town would have been robbed of an opportunity for salvation.

Another interesting, but perhaps unimportant, observation is that she is the one who asks all the questions in this exchange.  She was so obviously starving spiritually and probably emotionally, and Jesus could not leave her in that state.

Another thought occurred to me as I was reading.  I began to feel sorry for her and the bad reputation she is stuck with.  I began to feel sad that so many of us miss the whole point of this story—Jesus’ wiliness to look past her mess and minister to her brokenness, AND her willingness to be transparent and immediately and wholeheartedly embrace His offer of salvation, then offer it to many others also.

Then I began to think of my own life.  Just like the Samaritan woman, it would be easy to look at my life and see nothing but one series of messes after another.  As I began to feel compassion for her, I began to reflect on my own life as well.  I began to think about all of the times have I been grieved because people cannot see the brokenness behind the mess of my life when I wished desperately that they could.  Instead, they judge me as well.  Then God asked me, “How many times have you closed yourself off from seeing the brokenness behind other people’s messes and just callously dismissed them, causing them the same pain you experienced?”  I felt like God had just punched me in the gut.  He then proceeded to tell me that I need to work at seeing the brokenness in others, not the mess.  I need to stop being so quick to judge and instead have compassion for their brokenness.  I have been praying that God would bring me someone whose life is a mess on the outside, but it is a reflection of brokenness on the inside.  I have asked God to bring me someone like the Samaritan woman, not just anyone whose life is a mess, but someone who is open to allowing God to transform her life, little by little.  And I have asked God to use me to speak into that person’s life in the same way Jesus did.  I am a little bit scared, but I do want to be all that He has created me to be, so if He tells me that I need an attitude adjustment, I cannot think of a better way than to put myself in a situation where I have to live it for a while.

We are called to give grace and minister to those who need and are open to it.  Colossians 3:12-17 says that “Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.  But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.  And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.  And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him."

And let’s remember Galatians 5:22-26:  “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.  And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”

I hope that God, through His Holy Spirit, has touched your soul today and encouraged you.

God bless you!

Wow!  I was perusing through my blogroll, and came upon this VERY recent post from "Vivre dans la grâce" which has a very similar theme!  I think it's so amazing that God can speak the same thing (virtually) to two strangers on two separate continents!  CAVEAT: the post is in French, so I'm not sure if your browser translates (I think Chrome has an option to translate).