God created us to live in communities and gave us each unique potential to contribute to the common good. In a competitive culture, rejection is inevitable. Sooner or later, we won’t make the grade; we’ll slip up or reach the end of an era where we can’t do what we could before. Rejection often starts early, and we’re fortunate if we learn how to cope and respond in a healthy way.
Research confirms that rejection, to our brains, is a lot like physical pain. Have you considered treating rejection with Tylenol? Researchers also confirmed that treating rejection as physical pain reduces some discomfort. An article by Kirsten Weir, published by the American Psychological Association, has the subtitle: “As far as the brain is concerned, a broken heart may not be so different from a broken arm.”
According to Weir, research has shown that “Social rejection can influence emotion, cognition, and even physical health. Ostracized people sometimes become aggressive and can turn to violence.”
Nathan DeWall, PhD, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky, writes:
Social rejection increases anger, anxiety, depression, jealousy, and sadness. It reduces performance on difficult intellectual tasks and can also contribute to aggression and poor impulse control. Physically, too, rejection takes a toll. People who routinely feel excluded have poorer sleep quality, and their immune systems don’t function as well as those of people with strong social connections.
We’re wired to contribute to a vibrant community. We can feel it when it’s working and when it’s not.
The Bible offers numerous illustrations of vibrant and not-so-vibrant communities. In his gospel, John shares a story about a time when it wasn’t working, and Jesus stopped by to make some much-needed changes.
John is unique among the four gospels in several ways. First, his gospel has no parables but includes lengthy monologues spoken by Jesus. While the other three follow a consistent timeline, John doesn’t appear to try to tell His stories along a timeline. Last, and perhaps most powerful, John’s gospel is full of symbolism and metaphors.
We’re not given a name for this week’s friend of Jesus, although she is quite recognizable. Often referred to as the “woman at the well” or the Samaritan woman, she seems an unlikely choice to be the first person for Jesus to reveal Himself as the Messiah.
The Samaritan woman is an outsider—a woman in a man‘s world, a stranger to Judaism, outside the physical center of Temple worship, outside conventional morality, and a stranger to Jesus and the gospel. John does not name her in his account of her story.
She is a nobody, and most people want to avoid the pain of being a nobody. Don’t we all want to be recognized and cherished as somebody who matters?
This text is good news for anyone who has felt the pain of feeling like a nobody because Jesus engages her. As a result of their conversation, she is lifted from nobody status to someone of importance. Millions will read about her for centuries and be amazed by her story.
John begins the story by explaining that Jesus had to pass through Samaria. At the time, this would seem preposterous, as Jews avoided this route. However, the scene is set for something very special to happen along the way.
The group of travelers reach the village of Sychar, the location of a landmark known as Jacob’s Well. A place with a long story of its own. Jesus chooses to sit by himself at the well while the others go into town to find food.
It’s midday when the sun is directly above, and it is noticeably hotter when a woman approaches the well to draw water. So far, it’s a rather dull story. But why would this woman go to a well during the warmest part of the day? It was customary for the women of the village to meet up early in the morning to draw water and exchange stories and gossip. The plot thickens.
This scene is dramatically reenacted in Season One, Episode Eight of The Chosen. The writers add words not found in scripture that enrich the story without compromising the truth of the text. At seven minutes, it is longer than others, so we’ll watch it in segments during Sunday worship.
Jesus asks the woman for a drink of water. Again, this request is reasonable and understandable in a different place and time. First, Jesus is a man and a Jewish man at that. There is a customary expectation of rejection before a word is spoken. Second, Jesus comes from the side with a long history of disdain for her people.
Third, as a Jew, the Samaritan woman would be considered unclean, and to drink from her bucket would result in Jesus being unclean.
The woman also has a past. There’s a reason she comes to the well when no one else would be there. She has been rejected by husbands and by society. She has given up on ever being a part of a vibrant community. She is an outcast.
Now, the pieces fall into place. As an outcast, she is exactly the person Jesus is looking for. Someone who needs help to set aside their past and live into a greater future. A lost sheep who needs to return home to her flock.
Jesus offers the woman living water from the Messiah and reveals himself as the Messiah who provides water that becomes a spring, giving them lifegiving water and eternal life.
The water I will give them will become a spring, giving them life-giving water and eternal life.
John 4:3-29, 39-42
Jesus is the “living Word” who does not conform to prior expectations. Jesus welcomes the nobodies into discipleship and to be a part of His church. This story is a reminder that people who we may see as nobody, Jesus, see as somebody special.
On that day in Sychar, Jesus asked a Samaritan woman for a drink. Since she was willing to talk to this stranger, a new future unfolded before her. She was given access to living water, to the living Christ, and to the living Lord. This woman was empowered that day by a conversation with a stranger whom she had been carefully taught to fear and hate.
We’re all invited to come to the well. We’re invited to drink Living Water. We’re all invited to come to the One who calls you by name. Just as we.
Jesus already paid the price for all of us so that we, too, can drink from the wellspring of life.
You can join us each Sunday in person or online by clicking the button on our website’s homepage. Click here to watch. This button takes you to our YouTube channel. You can find more information about us on our website at FlintAsburyChurch.org.
This is a reminder that we publish this newsletter called the Circuit Rider each week. You can request this publication by email. Send a request to FlintAsburyUMC@gmail.com or let us know when you send a message through our website. We post an archive of past editions on our website under Connect – choose Newsletters.
Pastor Tommy
Parts of our series are inspired by The Reverand Adam Hamilton’s series “The People Jesus Loved.” © Church of the Resurrection, 2025. Link. And by Amanda Jenkins, Kristen Hendricks, and Dallas Jenkins. The Chosen: 40 Days with Jesus.© Savage, MN: BroadStreet Publishing, 2019.
Kirsten Weir. “The pain of social rejection.” © American Psychological Association, 2012, Vol 43, No. 4. Retrieved from: Link.