the unique power of radical hospitality
Lent 3A | John 4:5-42
Jesus’s disciples were baptizing people in the Jordan and the numbers they were baptizing were starting to outnumber the baptisms of John the Baptist. This is what it says in the opening verses of chapter four of John’s gospel. Isn’t it curious that this is a thing to note? That we’ve always been competitive and read too much into it. Oh my gosh, Jesus is baptizing too many. He needs to move along. But that seems to be the motive here for putting Jesus on the move. In verses three and four it says “he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria.”
Let’s note, too, this articulation of “had to.” There is a compulsion here, suggesting that Jesus had no other choice but to walk through enemy territory to get back home. But this isn’t literally true. Judeans routinely went around Samaria so as to avoid conflict. It’s like being from Michigan: we try to avoid going to Ohio. There are other ways to get there from here!
This means that this having to is not because of a lack of choice but because of a presence of something else. Jesus seems to be compelled to go there. And I think there are two worthy things to speculate on: 1) the Holy Spirit said you gotta go and he was like, sure thing. Or 2) there was something he felt he needed to do there.
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