Pride and Prejudice 2

At this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, "What do You seek?" or, "Why do You speak with her?" (John 4:27)

Marveled, astonished, surprised – these are other descriptions used by various versions of the Bible to describe the reaction of the disciples. But what underlies this amazement, this astonishment?

It seems to me that nearly everyone in this story is by this time in a state of amazement except possibly Jesus. But I don't think Jesus was devoid of intense emotion Himself either. I suspect that His emotions at this point were at a very elevated state of joy as revealed by His response to the disciple's words inviting Him to eat. He was by this time so overwhelmed with God's passion, the feelings that one experiences each time a sinner responds to the transforming grace of heaven, that His need for food and water were pretty much totally eclipsed.

By this time the woman He was speaking with was also in a very excited state of amazement of her own. She had just had one of the most life-changing rendezvous a person can ever have with God Himself in the person of Jesus and was so overcome with emotion that she absolutely had to drop everything quite literally and race away to share the incredibly good news with everyone she knew.

But the astonishment being felt by the disciples was unfortunately not based on an encounter with the presence of God or a reaction to seeing His character more fully but was almost totally rooted in the violations of their ethnic and gender prejudices that still controlled much of their thinking and perceptions about what was important in life. This kind of surprise was not reflective of what God was doing in a woman's life to save her but was rooted in ethnic prejudice and just plain male chauvinism. This mindset was so deeply entrenched into the culture they had grown up in that anything like what Jesus was doing that violated these norms was a source of great suspicion and surprise.

What arouses my curiosity as I look at these verses is why the writer notes that they did not ask the listed “why” questions. He takes pains to point out the fact that no one asked either Jesus or the woman about why they were having such an inappropriate conversation alone with each other. About the only main reason that comes to my mind right away is because of their respect for Jesus as a person with more authority or social status than themselves. They may have been afraid to question His motives for fear of insulting Him or disgracing Him publicly. But at the same time the very fact that John wrote this sentiments down indicates clearly that they were certainly thinking these questions.

Which then leads to the next point of interest. Maybe John wrote this down as a record of the regret that the disciples later felt for not asking those questions. Maybe if they had been bold enough to ask Jesus to explain what was going on here their own prejudiced thinking could have been exposed and diminished much sooner than it was. Instead of allowing doubts and suspicions about Jesus to go unaddressed in their own hearts they could have glimpsed a much clearer picture of how God feels about all people and could have advanced far more quickly in their personal journey toward freedom from the darkness of pride and prejudice that so deeply enshrouded them.

But they missed their chance to see the real truth about God that was being demonstrated so plainly right in front of them and that this woman herself had just experienced and accepted. Because of their failure to take hold of these lessons and appreciate them, they remained handicapped in their service much longer while this woman was immediately available to be used by God to bring light and truth and joy to a whole city full of people ripe for conversion.

This story if allowed to be seen in its true perspective should be a strong rebuke to many of us who assume that we know the truth about God better than most others around us. We assume that we are the ones that have most of “the truth” and believe that we are the chosen people of God to convey what we believe is God's messages to the world just as the Jews believed. But far too often we are blinded severely by deep prejudices that we cannot even discern ourselves which prevent us from even asking the tough questions of God that could unmask the fact that the biggest problems lie with our own condition instead of with Him.

Somehow deep in our thinking we tend to assume that we have to pray and work hard to try to get God to bless our plans for evangelism so that we can bring others into our chosen group and become pretty Christians much like us. We assume that this is what God expects us to do and when we see other people using methods or relating to people with too much familiarity that we look down on, we become very suspicious and begin to question their religious validity. We often talk about them behind their back, criticize their music, their worship style, their dress, their diet or any other number of things that don't fit what is comfortable in our circle of friends. But the one thing we often fail to do is to approach that person directly and try to find out what their real motives are without imposing the filter of our prejudices onto what we perceive they are doing.

I know that I am too often guilty of doing this very thing. But I can also remember many times when I felt the Spirit of God convicting me to withhold my opinions and restrain my assumptions about others and allow time for them to reveal what is deeper in their heart as they do things that seem at first to be violations of social norms while they attempt to reach out to others for God. And many times I have discovered that often their spirit is more in harmony with the true spirit of Jesus and how He related to people on a personal level than my own spirit has been. I am then exposed as the one who has the greater problem and the one who is in greater need of repentance.

If only they had asked... I would love to know what Jesus might have said to them.