Posted on 09/12/2015 9:06:04 AM PDT by Salvation
There is a story in the Gospel of John that you surely remember: the Samaritan Woman at the Well. She was a woman with a “past.” She’d had five failed marriages, and was now just “shacked up.”
And Jesus reached out to her in that searing noonday heat. He reached out to her across the barriers of race and sex. He endured her initial anger and stayed in a conversation with her. He spoke to her of her struggle with sin; as she recounted it, “He told me everything I ever did” (John 4:2). Yet despite this she did not feel rejected.
Jesus reached her soul that day and she realized that the “well” of this world could never really satisfy her. In a glorious sign of newfound freedom from sin and detachment from the world, she “left her water jar” and ran to town to tell others of her healing. “Come and see,” she told the townsfolk.
And the procession began.
That procession of a woman leading many lost souls across a field to Christ is beautifully show in the video clip below, from the movie The Color Purple. It features a woman named “Shug” (Sugar), who has lived a sexually indulgent life and pridefully absorbed the attention of many men as well as the accolades of her fans (she was a singer). But suddenly, after another night of carousing in a backwater speakeasy, she hears the distant sound of an old hymn: “God is trying to tell you something.”
And the procession began.
Just like the Samaritan woman of old, “Shug” set out for Jesus. Her fans and lovers fell in behind her, down the path and across the field.
Of that ancient procession of Samaritans coming across the field, Jesus beautifully told His disciples,
Do you not have a saying, “Four months then the harvest”? But I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest (Jn 4:35).
You’ll see that same procession in the video below. It is set in the Deep South, but it’s the same procession. Behold, a beautiful picture of evangelization! Look at the fields; they are ripe for harvest.
Monsignor Pope Ping!
Nice post. Thanks
I remembered the movie scene, in general, from when I saw the movie in the theater when it came out (with my aunt Kathleen, namesake of my baby girl). It made me cry then and still does.
What an example of how the church should react when sinners come in with open hearts! I noticed how the soloist in the choir looked annoyed, at first, but then got a big smile and joined in with the response, letting Shug do the call. And the welcome from her father, the pastor. The only slightly false - entirely human - note is the resigned look on her mother’s face.
Don’t forget that Jesus also told her, “GO THOU, AND SIN NO MORE.”
People tend to forget that part.
He did when he saved the woman from being stoned in John 8.
However He did not this time in John 4. Not to the Samaritan woman. You might want to check it out.
39 Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman[o] who testified, “He told me everything I have done.” 40 When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 Many more began to believe in him because of his word, 42 and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”
Saint Photine was the Samaritan Woman who encountered Christ our Saviour at Jacob's Well (John 4:1-42). Afterwards she laboured in the spread of the Gospel in various places, and finally received the crown of martyrdom in Rome with her two sons and five sisters, during the persecutions under the Emperor Nero.
Apolytikion of Photine, the Samaritan Women in the Third Tone
All illumined by the Holy Spirit, thou didst drink with great and ardent longing of the waters Christ Saviour gave unto thee; and with the streams of salvation wast thou refreshed, which thou abundantly gavest to those athirst. O Great Martyr and true peer of Apostles, Photine, entreat Christ God to grant great mercy unto us.
Kontakion of Photine, the Samaritan Women in the Third Tone
Photine the glorious, the crown and glory of the Martyrs, hath this day ascended to the shining mansions of Heaven, and she calleth all together to sing her praises, that they might be recompensed with her hallowed graces. Let us all with faith and longing extol her gladly in hymns of triumph and joy.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.