3 Traps
Have you ever hunted with a trap? I haven't either or at least successfully. I remember as kid my cousin and I would try to catch a local skunk in a box trap at our cabin. We would stay up all night trying to see if we could get him, however we were always out smarted by the skunk. When you have a trap there are 2 keys to making it work: something to entice the prey, and a well-hidden trap. I think it was the latter that we had troubles with, ours was just a box propped on a stick.
What I found reading through John 4 are 3 traps that we can fall into in our relationships with people. Unfortunately, I have found myself in each one of these traps at some point or another. But praise the Lord that he provides a way out of these traps. Let's take a look at what they are.
The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) John 4:9
Prejudice - The woman immediately responded to Jesus based on an assumption of how he was going to treat her. Her perspective of him was shaped by a culture that she lived in, instead of the actual interaction that she was having with him. Prejudice is simply pre-judging someone. How many times have we framed our interaction with someone based on their clothing, color of skin, or some other trait? I have done this with people on the street that I have met, people that I have worked with. I have seen this in action at a check out stand where people are visibly hostile toward migrant workers that they know nothing about. Yet they allow their interaction with them to be framed by the culture's perspective of the immigration crisis.
The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? John 4:11-12
Personality - The woman's responses strike me, they seem so short and maybe even a little mean. What we don't know is if her responses are a protection that she has developed based on the interactions of her past or if she was just set with this demeanor. What I do know is that we all have at some point or another struggled with someone else's personality. Maybe it was that nasty thing your spouse said to you yesterday, or the dictatorial actions of your boss. It is so easy for us to write someone off because of how they treat us or what they post on Facebook. As I was thinking about this I felt like the Lord reminded me of a person that I was actually having personality issues with, I had to deal with it right there and forgive them.
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. John 4:16-18
Past - Jesus addresses her past here, and because of this issue Jesus should not have been talking with this woman based on the cultural norms. This woman had a past and that past would have caused her to be looked at as an outcast in society. This one is so easy for me to fall into, it is easy for me to point to someone's past as a disqualification. Do we hold peoples past mistakes against them? Do we like to bring up the past failures and remind them of how they screwed up?
Jesus walked around each one of these traps, he did not let things divide them, he did not bristle at her sharp responses, and he did not focus on her past. He looked beyond it all with great concern for her soul. Jesus operated on a higher law, the law of love. For us to avoid these traps in our relationships, we must walk on the higher level called love. Jesus destroyed the power of all these traps at the cross. He united us as one family, breaking down every wall we try to separate ourselves with. He sanctified our personalities at the cross, and he erased the past with his blood.
The question we must ask is, are we going to judge according to the flesh? Or walk according to love that Christ gave us?