Tearing Down Walls

small.


When we tore this west wall down , you know why that excited me? It was not the physical wall that came down.

It was the invisibles wall that I heard you tearing down and saying, “ We want people to go to Heaven , we want to make room for outsider in church. This not our church this is God’s. Let’s tear down walls of tradition to make room for God’s children.”

Jesus encounters a woman today in our story that people around here had was built to keep her out.

And out of this story oozes a 2 step example that Jesus models to tear down walls that separate us.

Read with me verses 1-9

Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman
4 The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)


The well was not the nearest to the residents of Sychar. And at a depth of 10 feet it wasn’t as convenient as the springs in town.

But you could always be assured of the privacy of the well outside of town.

And this woman cherished her privacy more than her convenience.

It’s tough to be stuck in a small town when you have a bad reputation, and her private or not so private life was among the most talked about in the town.

As she approached the well, she passed a band of 12 Jewish men. “They must be in a hurry”, she thought, “for only Jews in hurry would pass through Samaria.”

Samaria was between Judea in the south and Galilee in the North both were Jewish towns.

But Samaria was made-up of a bunch of 1/2 breeds that neither the Jews or the Gentiles had any use for.

In fact, if you were a Jew any contact with a Samaritan made you ceremonially unclean.

Therefore they would not risk contacted a dog on the way to worship. Therefore most Jews traveled across the Jordan a longer route to avoid seeing any dirty Samaritan people.


That is why it is surprising and ironic this one Jewish man named Jesus talked with her by the well. He was not like everyone else. He did not have walls. In fact, he came to break down walls.

This well where they sat was rich in Jewish history. The land had been purchased by Jacob and was given to Joseph on his death bed.

This well and area had become home to the Samaritans since there Assyrian captivity. About 750 years earlier the Assyrians had captured the Northern Kingdom of the Jews.

Now Samaritans were inhabitants of some of the most treasured parcels of Jewish land.

Jesus walked this shortcut path because the Pharisees in Judea were making trouble over his disciple’s practice of baptizing His believers.


Jesus watched with interest as the Samaritan woman approached him.

He said nothing as she went