Last week we explored how Nicodemus, a religious leader of significant power and position, comes to Jesus as a curious skeptic. He wants to see what others are seeing, but first he will have to address his own obstacles to faith. Nicodemus is stuck in the box of his previously developed categories of religion and life. He can’t see the radical move of God unfolding before his eyes.
Contrast Nicodemus with Jesus, who steps outside the box of conventional religion to intentionally connect with a religious outsider… a Samaritan woman (John 4:4-42).
Jesus came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.” He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food.
The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?”
Don’t you know the rules?!
Jesus said, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”
“But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket and this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water? And besides, do you think you’re greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?”
Who do you think you are?!
Jesus said… “Those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”
Jesus showed us the importance of living every day with a kind of relational radar 
tuned in to the hurts and hopes of those around us… tuned in to opportunities for God to transform the life of another. This is the way of life that has been birthed in us from above. God has washed and commissioned us in water and spirit. We have the fire… the breath… the living water of God’s Spirit… so that we might walk in newness of life. God has called us out to be light and hope in a world of dark despair.
Yet… more days than I care to admit, it seems like I approach life with Nicodemus-like peripheral blinders… focused on the next thought, conversation, or activity. Sometimes my mind is in such overdrive, that I reach a destination and suddenly realize how little I was focused on actually driving. How did I get here? Scary! Perhaps that’s also happened to you. Some days it feels that life is on autopilot. I suspect I’m not alone in this experience.
Entrusted with the living water of God’s Spirit, we would benefit from regularly asking – who are my neighbors? Who are my classmates and co-workers? Maybe if I tune in to the relationships around me, I can actively listen to another’s story and over time guide them toward a life-shaping encounter with Jesus. What might it look like for God to restore your relational radar and have you intentionally tune in to the hurts and hopes of people around you? Is there a particular person in your life who needs living water these days? Is that person you?
javaballard 