SERMON
“Walking in the Footsteps: Among the Outcast”
John 4:3-30
Sunday, March 30, 2014
A 12-year-old boy accidently killed one of his family’s chickens by throwing a stone. Figuring his
parents wouldn’t notice at one of the 24 birds was missing, he buried it.
But his sister called him aside and said, “I saw what you did. If you don’t offer to do the dishes
tonight, I’ll tell Mother.”
The frightened boy felt he had no choice but to do the dishes. Later that same day when supper was
over, he surprised his sister by telling her it was her turn to do the dishes.
When she quietly reminded him of what she would do if he didn’t wash the dishes, he replied: “I’ve
already told Mother, and she has forgiven me. Now you do the dishes. I’m free again!”
This morning, as we continue walking in the footsteps of Jesus, we learn first-hand what it means to
walk among the outcast. Adam Hamilton, in his book The Way describes the outcast as anyone who did not
adhere strictly to the Laws of Moses. The Hebrew phrase most commonly used in Jesus’ day to describe the
outcast was am ha-aretz which literally meant people of the land. It was a derogatory term; slang for anyone
who was second-class in any way. “If you were a faithful, religious Jew,” Hamilton writes; “’people of the
land’ were beneath you. To associate with them meant lowering yourself.” And yet it was these people, ‘the
people of the land’ that Jesus choose to hang out with: sinners, outcasts, and the poor. He ministered among
the people of the land to let them know that they, like the 12-year-old boy who was coerced into doing his
sister’s dishes for killing the chicken, are set free from all that had been forced upon them by the moral
minority of their day.
Thomas W. Mann in his book To Taste and See says that “God has become part of the human
family, warts and all .... God has become one with us. We may well not be whores, or social outcasts or
murderers, or adulterers, but each of us, like so many biblical characters, is a tangle of ambiguity,
sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes kind, sometimes mean, sometimes faithful, sometimes faithless
-- it is precisely to be with us as imperfect men and women that God has come in Christ.”
With this being said I turn now to the woman at the well. Her encounter with Jesus tells us much
about how Jesus would have us live among the outcast. She is described in John’s Gospel first as a
Samaritan.
Samaritan’s were considered by the faithful as half-breeds: in fact, they were so despised by the
Jews that Jews would go out of their way to avoid Samaria altogether. The bad blood between the
Samaritans and Jews started some eight centuries before Christ when the Assyrian Empire had conquered
Israel and forcibly exiled most of its citizens. The only Israelites remaining behind in the land were the poor.
Assyria repopulated the land with foreigners who would do the bidding of the Empire. Throughout the years
those loyal to the Assyrian Empire intermarried with the remaining Israelites. Their offspring became the
Samaritans.
Years later, the ‘faithful’ who had returned from exile found themselves unable to forgive their own
flesh and blood for intermarrying with the enemy. This hatred did nothing but escalate throughout the eight
centuries leading up to the time of Jesus. When it came to outcasts Samaritans were considered to be the
worst of the worst.
We also learn from John’s Gospel that Jesus encountered the woman at the well at midday. This was
a most unusual time of day for a woman to come to the well to draw water. Usually women gathered at the
well early in the morning long before the sun’s heat would make it unbearable to haul the water back to
town. So why was this woman at the well at midday? There could be only two reasons why: either she chose
not to associate with the other women or she was not welcomed among them. Adam Hamilton believes this
1|Page
woman was considered to be an am ha-aretz by her own people. She was than an outcast among the
outcast…the lowest of among the low.
John also informs us that not only had she been divorced five times but was currently living with a
man who was not her husband. This in and of itself would have forced her to be ostracized by her own
people.
As far as the religious faithful were concerned this woman had three strikes against her: a five-time
Samaritan divorcee living with another man. And yet it is to her that Jesus comes.
Hamilton describes the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman as follows:
“When the woman arrives at the well, Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’
‘Really?’ she replied. ‘You’re a Jew, a rabbi, and you want a drink from me?’ John reminds us
parenthetically that Jews did not share things in common with Samaritans, particularly when it came to
eating and drinking. This was every bit the social divide that existed in the American South in the 1960’s
and before, when there were two bathrooms and two drinking fountains, one each for blacks and whites.
And yet Jesus was going to drink from her cup.
‘If only you knew whom you were talking to,’ said Jesus, ‘you would ask of me and I would give you
living water and you would never thirst again.’
Think of it. Jesus sought out a woman who was considered an outcast even among the Samaritans.
She had found only rejection from the men she had loved. And yet Jesus offered her life ─ living water ─
and a love that would satisfy the longings of her heart. It is interesting to note that this woman became, in
John’s Gospel, the first person to whom Jesus openly revealed himself to be the Messiah. The story ends
with the woman returning to the town and telling others that she had met the Messiah. John records, ‘Many
Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.’ In other words, a woman who
had been divorced five times and was living with another man became the first missionary to the
Samaritans.”
Wow! Not only was she the first missionary to the Samaritans; she was the first person to whom
Jesus revealed himself to as the Messiah!
Walking in our Savior’s footsteps informs us that it was not the disciples to whom Jesus first
revealed himself, nor was it to the good old religious folks. Jesus, as far as John was concerned, first
revealed himself to an outsider…the lowest of the low…the least among the least. She is neither judged as a
sinner.
Why?
God loves the outcast. He loves the sinner. He loves the least among the least.
Jesus chose to lower himself in order to lift up and set free all. The New Interpreter’s Bible
Commentary says it this way: “Regardless of our sin God loves the sinner.”
Adam Hamilton, in his book further emphasizes this truth: “Religious people sometimes say things
such as ‘God loves sinners but hates their sin.’ But when you’re one of the sinners, that phrase sounds
different than it sounds to the ‘righteous people who say it.” Jesus, in his encounter with the woman at the
well did not judge her nor did he judge her sin. He simply loved her for who she was. Hamilton further
warns his readers: “the longer we are Christians, the greater the temptation to become like the Pharisees.”
To walk in the footsteps of Jesus means that we, as Jesus did, must humble ourselves and walk
among the outcast: not as judge, but as a lover of their humanity. Our job is to simply love as Jesus first
showed us how to love…nothing less…nothing more.
2|Page