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Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Today's Frontline Devotion February 23, 2008 The Samaritan woman as our first missionary |
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Frontline Devotion for Saturday, February 23,2008 by Susan Hill
John 4: 7-42 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed two days. And many more believed because of his word.
Because I live in Gettysburg PA, site of the famous American Civil War battle (1863), it’s easy for me to think of today’s story in terms of North vs. South – in terms of a country once unified, then divided, because essential beliefs and practices in its defining philosophies were deeply questioned during changing times. Hatred and intolerance resulted. Common ground was eroded, and its recovery, in some instances, is still painfully slow. All Americans share in this story and its aftermath.
In Jewish (Jesus’) history, the divided land masses were Samaria, the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and Judah, its Southern counterpart. Cultural and religious conflicts had grown between Israel’s northern and southern kingdoms when foreign countries invaded - first in the northern kingdom - and then influenced the lives and beliefs of the ancient Jewish people by mixing cultures and races. After the Assyrian defeat of Samaria and its consequent exile (722 BCE), Northern and Southern Israelis – because of the Assyrian/Israeli mix in the north - no longer shared an unadulterated Jewish faith. The Judeans believed the influence of Assyrian gods in the north and a new temple at Mt. Gerizim had corrupted Jewish beliefs in one God, Yahweh, and the faith’s devotion to the holy temple in God’s chosen city, Jerusalem. Because of these differences, the people of the two kingdoms learned to treat one another with suspicion and disrespect despite remaining shared beliefs and ethnicity.
Fast forward to AD33 when this division still pervaded Jesus’ world and provided background for the Good Samaritan story. Enter Jesus and the Samaritan woman. In the midst of a patriarchal society, in the midst of prejudice, in the midst of rabbinical law, in the midst of centuries of religious and ethnic division, Jesus chooses an outcast Samaritan woman, an adulteress no less, to be the first to reach out to those whom the Jews believed had long ago broken trust with God. Jesus ventured beyond the borders of his societal and religious “comfort zone” to seek out those whom God loved and wanted to include in God’s kingdom. Jesus revealed his true identity to the rejected Samaritan woman and offered her and her people new life, new common ground, new freedom from oppressive rules, new promises of eternal truth and joy. The power of Jesus’ spirit and truth overcame centuries of differences when the Samaritans declared their belief in him as the world’s Savior. This also is a story that reverberates throughout our world today.
Enter my good friend who announced to me one day that she was going to venture outside her “comfort zone” by going to Bilouxi, Mississippi to help rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. She was willing to pay for a flight, leave her comfortable home, do jobs she would have to learn in the spot, sleep in a cot in a shared metal container, and fall into bed at night exhausted from an unaccustomed amount of daily physical labor…and do all this in a southern area of our country where language, history, and custom differ a bit from those of her northern roots. Why? Because Jesus called her to go – to tell others outside her “comfort zone” through her actions and words - that God’s word has the power to do the impossible…to rebuild, to repair, to reunite people of all times and all places. Like my friend, let’s dare to follow Jesus’ example - to be missionaries of reconciliation amidst brokenness despite our backgrounds or our discomforts– and let God do God’s enduring work through us.
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All are welcome to join and share in our Devotional Ministry on the "Frontlines" of the world. Frontline Devotions are sent via email daily. Sign up by clicking on the box to the left. Pastor Dave welcomes feedback. Contact him at pastordave@goodshepherdonline.org. |
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