"He had to pass through Samaria."
I've been thinking about how many of my routes are designed to avoid discomfort.
The longer path around a conversation so I don't have to address the tension.
The faster pace through a room so I don't have to linger with someone I don't understand.
All the extra energy and miles so I never have to sit across from someone who unsettles me.
I'd never call it avoidance; it’s just the way I get there.
Jesus' heart informed his route
Look at a map, and Jesus' route in John 4 seems like a logistics decision.
Samaria sits between Judea and Galilee. It's a straight shot, and the most direct route. If you know anything about Jews and Samaritans, "strained" doesn't begin to describe it. They had centuries of bad blood and theological contempt.
Most of us would walk the extra miles to go around.
But read the story, and something else is happening.
Jesus sits down at the well. He's tired, and he doesn't hide it. When a Samaritan woman shows up, he does something nobody would've predicted. He asks her for something. "Will you give me a drink?"
The God of the universe opens the conversation in a position of need.
Maybe the route through Samaria was a relational decision more than a logistical one.
Our two defaults (and a third option)
Most of us pick one of two options when we encounter the people who make us uncomfortable.
Some of us go through - We take the direct route, but we keep our head down. We keep our walls up and our pace fast. Or we go through swinging. We engage, but we arrive on the other side carrying all the friction of the encounter. We go through, but we come out wounded or having wounded…or both.
The rest of us go around - It requires more miles, but we have less exposure. We get where we're going, but we spend all that extra energy making sure we never have to sit across from someone who sees the world differently.
Both options leave us carrying something heavier than we were meant to carry.
And then there's what Jesus does.
He's on his way somewhere, but he stops. He sits down at the well and honors an unlikely person along the way. He asks the woman for a drink of water.
Look at what happens.
By the end, the woman leaves dignified. She's been seen and known and told the truth about herself without being destroyed by it. That she has something to offer. She goes back to her town and tells everyone.
Something in her stood up that had been sitting down for years.
And Jesus?
He's free. There's no baggage or relational debris from the encounter. He gave something restorative, received refreshment himself, and kept moving without the weight.
The question this week
Who are you walking around or through on your way somewhere?
And what would it look like to sit down long enough for both of you to walk away whole?