WEDNESDAY, August 11 (Clare of Assisi)

John 4:1-26. He had to go through Samaria.

Our meditation is moving into a great story in John’s Gospel, and we pause to look at this very human detail: “He had to go through Samaria.” This was in the course of Jesus’ journey from Judea to Galilee. Passing through Samaria was a distasteful experience for a Jew, and one that could be dangerous, for there was bad blood between Jews and Samaritans. What this tells us is that when the Son of God was made flesh and dwelt among us, he did not so choose his human company and his geographical habitat that he would never come into contact with people who were not of his sort. He was a Jew; he could not pass through Samaria without experiencing the hostility of most Samaritans and the hatred of some.

What did Jesus do as he faced this ever so human problem? He didn’t make a wide detour of the place where these human undesirables lived. There was voluntary, mutual segregation between Jew and Samaritan. Instead, he simply cut across that line. If “Samaria”—symbolizing the unpleasant people we don’t want to deal with face-to-face—stood in his path, he walked calmly through it rather than around it. And he met somebody there whom he regarded as abundantly worth meeting. That just could happen to us. (1970)

PRAY for the Diocese of Faisalabad (Pakistan)

Ps 101, 109:1-4(5-19)20-30 * 119:121-144; Judges 13:15-24; Acts 6:1-15

View the daily Lectionary Readings at Satucket.com.
Or view the Bible passages at Biblegateway.com.

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