3rd Sunday of Lent
Jesus is breaking down the
cultural norms of 1st century Jewish life
But he is showing us another way
to look at scandal –
Jesus shows us that scandal can
be a good thing
Here we have Jesus going to
Jacob’s well at midday
He sits down next to a Samaritan
Woman and asks her for something to drink
From her response, I imagine this
woman giving Jesus a very strange facial expression here
She wonders why a Jewish man is
there at noontime speaking with her
The Jews never went to the well
at midday because it was very hot
But the Samaritans went to the
well at this time… it was the cultural norm
Jesus enters into scandalous
activity right from the beginning as he starts talking to a Samaritan woman.
Not only was it culturally
unacceptable for Jews to interact with Samaritans -
It was very scandalous for a
Jewish man to speak with a woman who was not his immediate relative
Even Jesus’s disciples enter into
the scene and begin to ask questions to themselves … why is Jesus doing this
Why does Jesus do all of this?
He does it for a variety of
reasons
But I think Jesus enters into
scandal here to show us that some scandal can be good
Most of the stories we hear in
the New Testament sound normal to us.
Jesus cures, Jesus speaks to
people, Jesus does other miracles
But to a 1st century
Jew, He is being very scandalous – going against everything in the Jewish
culture
But Jesus always explains why He
does what He does
He always puts the person first –
even if that means He has to enter into the dirtiness of their life, our life
