Last Sunday at The Story, Kale Kinchen, our Timbergrove Campus Pastor, shared a message about “Rahab the Prostitute,” and I can’t stop thinking about it. Kale’s point was that, even though Rahab was a sex worker with an unholy reputation, God intentionally chose her to carry out His mission on the earth. This is a running theme in Scripture: God insists on using the least worthy people to do the most important things. So prevalent is this pattern that we are only left to assume that God is more comfortable with our sins and our scandals than we are. Not only did Rahab’s past not disqualify her, but her imperfect track record made her the perfect candidate for God’s purposes.
In John 4, Jesus traveled to Samaria, which was known to be enemy territory because the Jews hated the Samaritans, and vice versa. John tells us it was the middle of the day, and scorching hot, so Jesus stopped for a drink of water at the well his ancestor Jacob built more than a thousand years before.
While he was there, a Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water for her family. Jesus knew something was off with her, because it was the middle of the day, and in those days, women drew water early in the morning. So he spoke to her, which was unexpected, because by speaking to her, he technically broke two or three religious laws. Nevertheless, Jesus told her about this special water that you can drink once without ever feeling thirsty again.
It’s hard to know whether she really believed him at first, or whether she was just playing along, but she said, “Sir, I’ll do anything to not have to come back to this well again.” So Jesus told her to go get her husband and come back, and then –
“The woman answered, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman…
Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! Could this be the Messiah?’ Many Samaritans from that city believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word.” John 4:17-18, 27-29, 39-41
Now we know why the woman didn’t want to come get water in the morning with the other women: she was an outcast. She’d been married five times and was shacking up with some guy who wasn’t even her husband. She was the woman all the other women talked about. That’s why she said, “I’ll do anything to never have to come back to this well again.” Almost immediately, Jesus confronted her with brutal honesty about her sin – both past and present – and the moment after she acknowledged her sin before Jesus, she found the courage to go tell the whole village about him. This woman with a past became the world’s first woman preacher, and because of her testimony, everyone in her village decided to follow Jesus.
Several years ago I visited that town, and it’s one of the last Christian villages in the Holy Land. One of the world’s oldest churches still stands about a mile from Jacob’s well, and there is a shrine built in honor of this woman, who had five husbands and was living in sin with a sixth, and came to draw water alone in the middle of the day.
It’s easily lost on us how crazy God can be. Preachers and churches try to domesticate Him and normalize Him by making Him more like us, but God cannot be gentrified or sanitized. By modern-day standards, God is insane. He is perfect, but He loves imperfect people. He is holy, but He insists on using unholy people to do His bidding. It doesn’t make sense, but that’s who God is, and that’s good news for us, because it means that God can take your worst mess, your greatest shame, and turn it into your greatest blessing.
And He gives you a part to play in your own redemption story. Just like Jesus confronted the woman with her reality, as uncomfortable as that must have been, He confronts us with ours. If you’re ever going to overcome your past, you’re going to have to own your past. That means confessing your mistakes, refusing to point fingers or to blame others.
We’ve all got people we can blame for our problems. I hear it all the time. It’s not my fault I have a temper; my dad had a temper. It’s not my fault I failed that class; that teacher hates me. It’s not my fault my marriage fell apart; my ex had the affair.
When I think about all of my problems, and all the things that have gone wrong in my life, all the mistakes, mishaps, and misfortunes, there’s only one person they all share in common. Me. I am the only common denominator for all of my past issues, and the same is true for you and your problems. So we can keep blaming everybody else, or we can own our past like the woman at the well.
Owning your past doesn’t mean getting down on yourself. It doesn’t mean hanging your head. You’ll always have doubts about yourself. You’ll always wonder if you’ve strayed too far, and for too long, to be redeemed. You’ll always have haters and naysayers reminding you of who you were. All the women in Jesus’ family tree faced the haters every day. The woman at the well faced the haters even while she stood up to share the gospel. They all owned their past without their past owning them.
Owning your past is the best way to avoid being owned by your past. Anytime Jesus confronts you about your past choices or sins, it’s not just to judge you or punish you; it’s to redeem you. No matter what choices you regret making, no matter how the consequences of those choices may haunt you today, there is no mess too messy for Jesus. Just look at his family tree: Jesus came from the mess. He’s right at home with your mess. Whatever it is, just trust him with it. Tell him about it. And let him lead you toward a future that’s brighter than your past.
