John 4:7-9-There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”  8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 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.) 

Notice that a simple request from a Jewish man to a Samaritan woman turns into a dialogue about the racial disparity between the two.  She was shocked that a Jewish man even talked to her!  This gives us insight as to how “low” this woman saw herself, but she didn’t reveal it until the people who she saw as more superior than her approached her.  She showed how much she embraced the racial disparity by being amazed that a Jew would even talk to her!

Now why should you be surprised that a certain person talks to you, or you see it as a privilege to be addressed by such a person?  The answer is in the disparity you see in comparison to that person or group.  People who are shocked to be responded to are people who see themselves lowly, thinking their is some disparity between the two of you.   Not because God has ordained it to be this way in His perfect will, but society and it’s perversion of not respecting people because they are created in the image of God.

This is why Jesus approaching this woman is fascinating, because in doing so she now sees herself as at least approachable, when before she didn’t see herself in that way. Spirit-led evangelism is important and can be timely, because we see how Christ breaks the “silent barrier” by making a societal norm of “forbidden interaction” acceptable, because Jesus through grace is the only bridge between sin and God, that is the gospel!  Making the forbidden acceptable through extended grace!

Jesus challenges the heart of us as Christians, that we approach barriers that go against “the norm” that keeps us from engaging people, which societal and cultural norms happily resist.  This is what Jesus is doing here, bridging the gap that sin created through true love by extending grace, and shattering what is the norm for what is to be the norm!  Ask yourself whether you happily live in the cultural norms of creating disparities amongst people, instead of challenging them with the love of Christ?

In His Love, Ld