Daily Devotion, August 30, 2023

 

Devotion:

Read John 4:4-9, 27-30.

This is one of many examples of Jesus doing things that went against the culture of his time. For him to be talking to a woman, and a Samaritan at that, was surprising to everyone around him. In the gospel of John, Jesus’ ministry leaves the confines of tradition and turns to the people whom his Jewish contemporaries reckoned as outsiders and enemies: the Samaritans. When Jesus speaks with a Samaritan woman, he is speaking to an unnamed female of an enemy people. The disciples were truly astonished! (as the NRSV translates it).

This was one of those moments when the disciples realized time spent with Jesus meant that they learned something new every day! Their eyes were to be continually opened to Jesus’ ways, and that he came to be the Messiah for all people.

John’s gospel was written many years afterwards and these verses support John’s words and purpose in writing. John 1:12-13 says, “Yet, to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God---children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”

God sent Jesus not just for one group of people but for all the people of the world. As Dr. Gail R. O’Day says, “Jesus treats the Samaritan woman—and later Samaritan villagers—as a full human being, a worthy recipient of the grace of God, not as the despised enemy from whom to fear contamination.”

If the good news of Jesus Christ had never gone beyond one group of people, we might not know that Good News today! Worldly wisdom too often tries to limit God’s grace, but God’s grace through Jesus Christ is offered to all people!

O’ Day continues, “John 4:4-42 summons the church to stop shaping its life according to societal definitions of who is acceptable and to show the same openness to those who are different just as Jesus did when he traveled in Samaria.”

Personal Worship Option:

Where do you find yourself in this story? As the astonished disciples following Jesus to people beyond your comfort zone? As the Samaritan woman being accepted and offered living water from Jesus? Or as the townspeople who hear her story and run to meet Jesus? May our eyes always be open to let Jesus astonish us with his ways of grace!