Jesus is my favorite person to talk about. I’m thankful that we have eternity to gaze upon Him. It’s interesting to me that as the state of the world changes and shifts, different aspects of Him are highlighted and more readily talked about.
Lately, one of the themes has been “provocation,” in that Jesus did things that seemed provocative and reforming. The theme is often paired with the story of Jesus flipping tables in the temple. Now, while I don’t disagree with this association, I’ve noticed that when these stories come through muddied filters, they bring forth unholy fruit. Muddied filters cause us to miss the whole picture. They cause us to champion certain parts of Scripture, and disregard others. We will miss the ends to the means, the full why behind His ways when we stop looking for Him after finding a story that appears to prove our point.
In attempts to round out the topic of “Jesus the Reformer,” I’d like to pair this word “provocation” to a different story instead. The ends to the means of this story were the same as the cleansing of the temple, which was to make a way for a river, a river of living water. It’s a story that takes place in Samaria.
In John 4, Jesus has just been baptized and is about to make His way up to the Galilee. Before He does that, Scripture says that “He needed to go through Samaria.”
For those who don’t know the history between the Jews and the Samaritans, let’s just say that these two groups did not jive. The Samaritans were actually considered to be somewhat of “apostates” to the Jewish people. Back in the day, they had chosen to intermarry with the Canaanites and accept some of their religious practices. Jews would avoid travelling through this region at all costs, but not this Jewish man.
While travelling in the heat of the day, Jesus becomes tired and weary from His journey. He then comes upon Jacob’s well and finds a woman drawing from it. Jesus, willing to show His weakness, asks for a drink from this woman.
What?
Not only is Jesus talking to an apostate Samaritan, but she is a woman—and Jesus has just asked her for help. This would be humiliating, and possibly even considered unclean to any religious Jew at the time. To add to the madness, Jesus (by the power of the Spirit) knows that this woman's life is riddled with adultery. Jesus has asked for a drink from an adulterous, apostate, Samaritan woman.
Let’s lean into the irony of this situation just a little more. Why is this provocative? Well, the Jews believed that the Samaritans have highly offended God by breaking the law of Moses. The Jews looked down upon the Samaritans, because they believed that God also looks down upon them. Yet, Jesus went and humbled Himself before her. It didn’t look like Him marching on in, standing up on the well and preaching down at her. He went in as a humble man, willing to accept help from her.
Why?
Because the ends to the means of this Law of Love is seeing captives set free and restored to Him. The Law of Love goes anywhere and humbles itself before any person, that it may break their chains off. This is provocative and reforming, because religion derives its “holiness” from its separation from that which it deems dirty. Love sees filthiness and says, “I’ll wash you.” Love draws itself to the broken; religion separates itself to preserve its own whitewashed walls.
This is the provocation of the love of God, that it chooses to rest upon a sinner with a broken spirit, over a prideful heart with all their ducks in a row. It’s the table of all tables to flip; choosing to be in the midst of the broken and loving them in humility. This upside-down or provoking Kingdom sometimes looks like aggressively dismantling impure worship, while sometimes it looks like lovingly coming eye-to-eye with the one you’re supposed to be offended at. To be effective in the dismantling, you often have to come eye-to-eye first. Jesus’ table-flipping was provoking, but the fact that God chose to humble Himself and be in our midst provokes me more.
I believe the concept of “Samaria” still exists in the hearts of the religious today. I believe this can be a good indicator if we are walking in religion—if we look at other groups of people, movements, churches etc. and say something like, “They offend God, and He would never show up there.” It keeps us fearful of people different than us and far from His heart, which is to break all chains everywhere.
Without a heavenly mindset, we will bind up love, and not let it go where it desires to go. Our lives will become cut outs of our favourite copy-and-pasted scriptures, instead of the whole Word transforming us into love.
When Jesus was with the Samaritan woman, He said, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
I can’t help but see a tie between this moment, and a moment when Jesus is on the cross. In John 19, it says:
“After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, ‘I thirst!’ Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished!’ And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.”
I see these two moments where Jesus thirsts, and takes a drink from the hands of sinners—two very provocative cups. The drink from the Samaritan would cause others to look upon Him with disdain—to shame Him—and the sour wine did the same. In these ways, our shame was cast upon Him. But while the taking of the sour wine brought Him our shame, our receiving of His drink brought us His life. The bowing of His head became the lifting of ours. The giving up of His spirit meant Holy Spirit could dwell within us. We must take this amazing freedom everywhere!
I’ve deemed certain places, people and movements as “Samaria” before, the place where Jesus “for sure” would not be seen, nor would He ever bless. But the law of love hopes, believes and endures all things, that chains may be broken and people set free. Be willing to accept the scorn in order to bring healing. Give up your rights to bring others liberty. Provoke not just by flipping tables, but by humbling yourself before those whom others have called apostates. If you believe certain places don’t have the pure living water from Jesus, go bring it to them. Don’t just look to flip a table, look to fill the house with the river. The fountain is inside of you now—so go give the people of Samaria a drink.
Tayler Gust is a singer-songwriter who lives with her husband and children in the Golan Heights of Israel, where she serves FAI Training initiatives at Camp Golan. Listen to her music on Apple Music, Spotify, and any other streaming platform.
