sinners

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water,Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”
John 4:7

John chapter four has shock value: the Son of God greets an ethnically impure, sinful woman (someone who’s apparently shunned by her own people; five husbands and now shacked up with a guy she hasn’t married). The “Hester Prynne” of Samaria. Just Jesus and the woman alone. She seems shocked that he wants to talk with her. His own disciples return to the scene surprised. The air is filled with awkwardness.

Jesus was often accused of being “a friend of sinners.” In response to the religious complainers who didn’t like the company he kept, Jesus once responded, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:31-32)

Jesus met the jug-toting Samaritan outcast right where she was – in all the muck of life. He gave her a drink of “living water,” and she became His disciple. She then went and brought others to Him, too!

Hold that thought. Maybe you’ve heard the story so many times it’s lost the shock value. Here’s an acid test to check your actual comfort level with the situation described by Luke. Exchange the woman in the story for other characters who might visit the well:

A representative of the A.C.L.U.
A promiscuous homosexual
An Islamic terrorist
A drug addict
A drug dealer
A pimp
An abortion doctor
A pervert
A white supremacist
A serial killer
A rapist

What kind of people do you consider worthy of your time when it comes to disciple making? Christ’s grace and mercy extends far and wide – to all of us! He came to make disciples, not to throw a church picnic for religious people. He spent His time looking for lost sheep – stinky ones! It was messy business. He was lambasted, mocked, hated, and eventually crucified for it!

Here’s the sobering part: He calls us to go after lost sheep, too! “Go and make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28:18-20) Notice what He didn’t say: “Build a nice church building and camp out there. Don’t get your hands dirty. I’ll send the riff-raff your way and let you deal with them on safe turf.”

What if our hearts became more compassionate and merciful toward characters that we consider very unsavory. What if “hell raising pagans” began to see Christians practicing the kind of mercy that Jesus did? What if many of them fell in love with Him and began repenting because we made an intentional, focused effort to love them. The church would be a gloriously messy place! The Kingdom of God would advance!

Lord, please open our eyes to fields that are now white unto harvest. Give us eyes and hearts to see people the way You do. Pour Your Spirit on us in such a way that we become authentic fishers of all kinds of men and women. In the Name of Your Glorious Son Jesus.

Mike