Church programs for Monday, Jan. 22 will resume their normal schedule at all locations this evening.
Leawood’s Sunday night in-person worship has been moved to 4 pm for Sunday, February 11.
4 Jesus had to go through Samaria. 5 He came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, which was near the land Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there. Jesus was tired from his journey, so he sat down at the well. It was about noon.
7 A Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.” 8 His disciples had gone into the city to buy him some food.
9 The Samaritan woman asked, “Why do you, a Jewish man, ask for something to drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (Jews and Samaritans didn’t associate with each other.)
10 Jesus responded, “If you recognized God’s gift and who is saying to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would be asking him and he would give you living water.”
11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you don’t have a bucket and the well is deep. Where would you get this living water? 12 You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave this well to us, and he drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks from the water that I will give will never be thirsty again. The water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will never be thirsty and will never need to come here to draw water!”
In Jesus’ day, most Jews looked down on Samaritans, even hated them. The shortest route from Jerusalem to Galilee was through Samaria, yet many Jews going north or south would travel east of the Jordan River through Perea just to avoid the Samaritans. Jesus did not physically have to go through Samaria. He made a purposeful spiritual choice to go through Samaria. In stopping in Samaria, and drinking from Jacob’s well, he was directly challenging an unjust prejudice of his day.
Lord Jesus, keep me from chasing convenience and an easier life. Guide me to your work, no matter how hard, that I may bear witness to your love for humanity. Make me willing to go out of my way for the sake of the world. Amen.
This is Aiden Sherrill’s second summer interning in Resurrection Kids. He is a Junior at KU and studies Music Therapy. Aiden loves to write music in his spare time. He started attending Resurrection with the opening of the Overland Park location in 2019. Worship music is one of his passions, and he really enjoys playing live music for the kids on Sundays.
I first read this passage when I was around eleven years old, and it made me so confused at the time. When Jesus said, “Give me some water to drink,” I thought it sounded rude. I questioned why he didn’t say, “Could you please get me some water?” This is mostly because I’m a big believer in please and thank you. I’m sure many of you reading this are too. The church I grew up in didn’t really break down why Jesus didn’t say “please,” but I know now that the culture of his time was very different, and that the woman wasn’t at all offended by his lack of pleases. Clearly, I was getting held up on the wrong point.
The important thing to focus on with this interaction is that Jesus making any conversation with the Samaritan woman showed her that he respects her. This woman had likely experienced even Jewish leaders meeting people like her with disgust simply because of the city she came from. Not only does Jesus treat her like a person, he also offers her the gift she gave him. His is more metaphorical, but also more than we could ever fathom. Living water. Water that forever quenches your thirst. Our bodies are composed of roughly 60% water, so water easily ties in to life. No Jewish person had ever spoken to her, and now this man was offering her eternal life. Jesus was so different than everyone else in his time. He went out of his way to show this woman that she was just as worthy of love and eternal life as anyone else.
I’ve been preparing for a mission trip to Honduras with the Overland Park location. We leave in early August, and one of the biggest things they’ve made sure we know is that sometimes we have to accept service from people in need in order to serve them. It took me a while to wrap my head around the idea, but it makes a lot of sense to me now. This is a way of empowering individuals we help. Jesus shows us a prime example of this in today’s passage. He meets the woman where she’s at. He asks her to serve him in order to empower her; to show her that he respects her. Then he serves her the gift of eternal life.
We see Jesus pursuing love and equality time and time again in the Bible. Jesus was rebellious in this time with his radical acts of love. Many religious leaders looked down on him for it, so this story leaves me questioning what it would be like if Jesus was here in the flesh today. Would he show love in ways that would make any of us, his followers, uncomfortable? Remember this story as you drive past homeless members of your community. Remember it as you interact with people that hold different political beliefs, social beliefs, and religious beliefs. We are called to love radically, and Jesus knew that speaking to this woman would be considered radical in his time. He’s calling us to love in ways that might make us feel uncomfortable. What are some ways that you could make marginalized people feel loved, valuable, or seen? This is your invitation to give those ideas a shot.