“[W]hile it is never clear whether they are on the same wavelength, the woman understands that she wants what Jesus is offering her. “Sir, give me this water,” she says, which is when he tells her to go fetch her husband. It is an abrupt change of subject, to which she might object. She might say, “I thought we were talking about religion. Why are you getting personal?” Or she might lie. Instead, she squares her shoulders and looks him right in the eye. “I have no husband,” she says, and with that shred of truth from her, he tells her the rest of the truth about herself. Note that he does not pull away from her. If anything, he gets closer. He still wants a drink from her, and he wants to give her one too, only the intimacy of it all seems suddenly too much for her. So she changes the subject back to religion again, trying to draw him back into an argument about Jews versus Samaritans. You can hardly blame her. If he knows about all her husbands, there is no telling what else he knows about her, and she decides she would rather not find out. It is time to introduce some mental static so that the man with the X-ray eyes cannot read her so well, time to step back from him and cover herself up again. But it does not work. When she steps back, he steps toward her. When she steps out of the light, he steps into it. He will not let her retreat. If she is determined to show him less of herself, then he will show her more of himself.” – Barbara Brown Taylor Have you ever felt like Jesus was getting a little too personal with you? That he wanted to explore parts of your soul that you are generally content to leave alone? Have you had the impulse to “hide” in prayer and focus on things you feel more comfortable looking at—things “out there”, things that don’t require the vulnerability of being-seen in places you’d rather avoid? What might it look like to engage God in this dance of vulnerability? To see and be-seen, love and be-loved - in all the truth of who you are?

Posted by Jamie Bonilla at 2022-09-02 14:07:39 UTC