When A Stranger Calls
We live a world where strangers are often seen as dangerous, and there is a degree of wisdom to this philosophy. However, strangers also offer us an opportunity to venture into a new world. Through meeting strangers, who eventually become friends, our eyes our opened to new perspectives and new ways of seeing the world around us. Meeting new people is an engine of discovery in our lives.
“Encountering Jesus calls us to a different way”
Strangers act exactly the same way in our favorite stories. They are the ones that drive the action forward. What would Star Wars be if Obi Wan Kenobi never met Luke Skywalker? What would Harry Potter be if Hagrid never met him the light house? There would be no action. There would be no story.
Our scripture this week is a similar story where a stranger (Jesus) encounters at a Samaritan Woman at well. You can read about it below…
Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
Join us this week as we look at how God meets each of in our own place and time.
1. Jesus is in the wrong place at the wrong time, and yet meets this woman in her greatest need.
2. Encountering Jesus calls us to a different way.
3. You can choose two options when you encounter Jesus: Nicodemus or Samaritan Woman.
Our God is the stranger that calls to us.
See you Wednesday!
Click Below for Further Resources on John
