Our series this month is called Sin City.
One of the things that sets Jesus apart, from other religious leaders was the humility with which he associated with ordinary people. Most of us don’t have broad and diverse groups of friends. In general, people choose friends of similar age and race. We’re also friends with people we do things with, as much as we are with the people we resemble. Jesus was in that sense very different from most of us. He sought people out. He was the kind of person who welcomed all sorts of people into his social circle and who refused to apply labels and to exclude people.
Read John 4: 4-24
The Samaritan woman had her guard up and with good reason. She was a woman. She was from a despised minority community and she had a reputation as a loose woman. Jews actually used to use a route twice the distance just to avoid passing through Samaritan territory. Women in those days not unlike some places today were second class citizens. And because of her past, she is defensive because she expects him to suggest that he is better than her. In each instance she tries to push Jesus away by saying, you and I have nothing in common. I am not the kind of person you should be talking to.
Jesus refuses to apply labels and tells her she is a candidate to be a true worshipper. In this passage we see Jesus talking to an unlikely person, about an unlikely subject, the kind of worshipper God is looking for.What is surprising about this passage is that Jesus does not give the woman a list of preconditions to fulfill after which she can become a true worshipper of God. In fact it is the woman who throws all sorts of roadblocks into the conversation:
- We have nothing in common.
- Are you better than me?
- It works for you but not for me.
Jesus boils down the conversation to one thing: God is looking for worship from the heart. In other words he is saying: You can seek God where you are no questions asked. Jesus was basically saying to this woman, God is not located in a particular place and you don’t need to be a particular way. You can seek him in your heart right where you are.
Can you imagine God not looking down at you with a spotlight turned on all your faults and failures? God is interested in us, not just in our performance. We think of God as a prosecutor preparing charges against us, mostly because that is what we encounter from others many times in the name of God. But Jesus’ dialogue with this woman throws all that out and exposes us to a different perspective of God. Even though Jesus eventually discloses to her that he is fully aware of her situation, his concern is not to tell her that she is in the wrong, but to tell her that she is a candidate for true worship.
We never let our guard down. We live in a world where if you don’t have your act together, sharks will feed on you. When we encounter stuff about people we don’t know how to deal with we make the sin the most defining thing about the person. One of the ones many of us don’t know how to deal with is homosexuality. We have made homosexuality a shameful thing to talk about. The gay movement is just waiting to tear the church apart on this issue. We are as fearful as people used to be of AIDS twenty years ago.
As an individual where do you need to demonstrate acceptance? Is there some one or some people that you need to redefine as bearers of God’s image who are worthy of dignity? How do we accept people who have become comfortable with sin? What can you do as a life group this week to demonstrate the acceptance of Jesus? All of this life is theory until we start to put credible action to it.
Mavuno is a church for real people, with real issues and a real God. As the leaders of Mavuno, we want you to know that this is the culture we want to encourage. One of the ways we will know that Mavuno is doing well is when people refuse to play church; when we refuse to pretend that our lives are nice and tidy and when we continue to share our ‘ five husband’ predicament stories and the ways in which God is changing our lives. What is your ‘five husband’ predicament? Which situation have you categorized as incompatible with true worship?
The word of God to you today is: You can seek God where you are no questions asked.
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