"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together" (John 4:34-36).I have been anticipating this weekend for months. As our leadership team planned for this 40-Day Journey, we imagined a celebration right from the beginning. God celebrates. He has led his people in mighty celebration throughout our history. He celebrates amazing accomplishments like the building of the temple in Jerusalem, and he celebrates the return of the one prodigal who was missing from home. Celebration is part of God’s nature.
But what are we celebrating, and how?
The passage I opened with (John 4:34-36) is in the midst of a paradigm shifting experience for the disciples of Jesus. He had led them into the "foreign and forbidden territory" of the despised Samaritans. It must have felt to them like they were doing something wrong. Historians record that the Jews traveling north and south (from Jerusalem to Galilee or vise versa) would travel several extra miles, even on foot, to avoid going through Samaria. Jesus led them right into Samaria, and more importantly, into a head-on collision with their own prejudices, fears, and misunderstandings of the God they served.
When they approached Sychar, a small town in the middle of Samaria, He sent them into town on their own to get groceries while he set up the discipleship moment. Jesus chose to reach out to the Samaritan woman because she was on God’s heart. The passage reveals that her view of God and the world was, like His disciples, full of misconceptions and misunderstandings. By the time the encounter with Jesus was over, she has been restored to God and her community. She has become an “unlikely evangelist” to her community and they actually come to faith. (Notice John 4:28-30 and 39-42).
But the disciples are also going to receive a powerful challenge. I have often wondered what the apostle John was feeling and thinking when he wrote his gospel many years later and reflected on what it was like to be there as an eye-witness to the events. He was there that day when they returned with the groceries and stumbled onto Jesus openly visiting with a Samaritan woman. Jesus was not scolding, scorning, or snubbing her. He was engaging her in a life-changing conversation that affirmed her value to God, himself, her community, and to herself. And, by way of association, Jesus was also clearly demonstrating that the disciples should also embrace her value. If she was precious to Jesus then she would be precious to his followers.
But they could not see that. Notice in that John reveals what was going on in their hearts,
Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her” (4:27).There could only be one reason you would talk with a Samaritan woman: You want something. Maybe directions. Maybe the time of day. Maybe to ask her to leave. But you don’t talk with her to get to know her. You certainly do not talk with her as an equal.
She represents the invisible people in our world. They are almost like street signs, trash cans, elevator buttons, or any other function we look to in order to get on to where we are going. We do not see them as people. We see them as a function, and this keeps them invisible to us. The Samaritan woman was invisible to the disciples at the relationship level of life. They could see her with their eyes but not with their hearts.
That is why Jesus has to tell them, "Open your eyes!"
God saw among the Samaritans a great harvest of souls for eternal life. And the early preachers of the gospel found willing hearts and great joy among the Samaritans as they shared the gospel there. (Acts 8:1-7, 8:25)
This 40-Day Journey Toward a Life of Active Compassion is all about Jesus taking us on a similar, paradigm-shifting mission. Through the story of the Good Samaritan, he calls us to see invisible people through His eyes, feel them with His heart, and to reach out to them with His hands. The "invisible" Samaritan in the story becomes the example of how someone sees the "invisible" wounded man on the side of the road. Jesus uses that sacred irony to press us toward the shift he wants to see in us.
Let's open our eyes to His harvest! Throughout these 40 Days we’ve been moved into situations and conversations that opened up opportunities to serve others and to know them in a deeper way. This is a step into the harvest about which Jesus is talking in John 4:35. As we continue to grow into this life of active compassion, the desire of God’s heart to love the world sacrificially will become more and more a part of our daily experience. People will no longer just be functions in our path, but people, precious to us and to God.
I want to challenge you to take a moment and write a sentence to answer each of the following questions:
1. Who did you serve during the 40-Day Journey?
2. How do you know them better now than you did before?
3. How will you follow up with them, or others, as a result of this journey?
- Don McLaughlin
