Jesus was heading from Judea to Galilee so he headed straight up North through Samaria. but this was not the route Jews normally take. in fact, Samaria was seen as unclean to jews. So Jews did not associate with those people. But Jesus walked right through Samaria and struck up a conversation with a Samaritan woman at a well. (see the story in John 4)
There are a lot of different things i could talk about in this story of Jesus.
I could talk about priorities and how Jesus put aside his physical needs to help this woman in spiritual need.
i could talk about acceptance and how Jesus accepts even the dirty, down and out of society.
but today i'd like to focus on Mercy. Great mercy was shown to that woman by Jesus. Great mercy has been shown to us also.
if we've received such a great mercy then what does it look like in our own lives that we should give that mercy to others?
Jesus walked through Samaria. When will you walk through Samaria? It's easy in our suburban life to get comfortable with our own schedule and never cross paths with those who live in Samaria.
What about taking a new path? Perhaps you could change your route to lunch and stop and visit with that one kid that always sits alone for lunch. Or maybe you need to take a drive downtown to see where 9,600 homeless people in Denver live. The point is that we need to walk through Samaria so we can extend the mercy of God to those in need.
Christianity is not about meeting once a week in an air conditioned building and praising God. it involves getting dirty with those who are dirty. But in order to see the dirt, we have to be willing to walk through Samaria! it's about making ourselves less so others can have more. We extend mercy because of the mercy he extended to us. Let me leave you with this quote:
"If we enter into the pain of this world we must be prepared for the people to not respond the way we want. We are loving them because of not what they can offer but because of the mercy of God first displayed in us."
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