September 13, 2015: The First Preacher – Landon Lynch

Though business and trade would suck it up and go through Samaria and risk being close to “those people”, many pious rabbis, in order to prove their piety and to avoid any unnecessary uncleanness, would walk around Samaria on their way to Galilee. Jesus heads straight through. Incarnation yet again. Meeting a woman at a well at midday, he seemingly systematically transgresses every significant social boundary he can come up with. Everyone is caught off guard because he speaks to someone. 

But it’s not just that he speaks that is provocative, it is the content of his speech as well. He speaks to someone with a questionable past, a woman, and a Samaritan as if she has something to contribute. And he chooses her to reveal his nature and a great, saving truth: that there will be a new kind of worship, done by a new kind of worshiper, and she is uniquely equipped to be one of them. Spirit and truth could be interpreted more accessibly as posture and honesty. Apparently the lowly, the broken, the outcast, the ‘stripped of their rights and dignity’ have a leg up in their ability to receive and live this kind of worship the father seeks.