In a vacant hostel set amidst the snow-laden Black Forest, I read the Good News Bible for the first time in my life. I have not eaten anything for days, but the thin, tattered pages of this book have become my communion bread, my nourishment.

I am fascinated by these stories of men and women rejected by people and embraced by this guy Jesus. When man disappoints, scorns, judges, rejects; Jesus touches, has compassion on, heals, forgives, loves. There are people the world seems ready to dispose of, who Jesus treats with utmost respect. Their past doesn’t bother him; the opinions of people in their community don’t phase him; he sees them through purely loving eyes. And his love frees them to walk in dignity and respect for themselves, no matter where they’ve been.

When Jesus spoke with the Samaritan woman, he broke every chain that bound her. Jesus went to the well because he was tired and thirsty from a long journey – the very same reason why I finally went to the well.
The Samaritan woman walks up to get some water – not in the morning or in the evening, when it was customary, but in the middle of the day – probably to avoid running into people who knew her reputation.
Jesus asks her for a cup of water.

Stunned that he would even speak to her – Jews and Samaritans hated each other – she questions him, “How can you even ask me for a drink?”

Jesus answers, “If you only knew who it is who asks you for a drink, you would ask me and I would give you living water.”

Then she tries to argue that he doesn’t even have a cup!

But Jesus isn’t moved. “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,” He says, “But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.”

Then it all comes out in the open – she’s been with many men and the man she is with now isn’t her husband.

Why does Jesus tell her about the living water? Why doesn’t he tell this to the demon-possessed man? To the blind, poor, sick, lame? Why her?

Because he knows this woman’s thirst. He knows her hunger. And he knows that he is the only source that can fill it.

He was the source from which she was made, and he is the source from which she needs to drink to get “full.” But she has been going from man to man to man to man, looking for fulfillment. And Jesus is saying to her, “Sweetheart, what you need is me. What you need is a well that doesn’t run dry, a love that doesn’t run out, a water that will satisfy.”

She leaves her water jar at the well, goes back to the town and says to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did!”

Why does she leave her water jar? Because she realizes that she has found the source of her thirst. A man who knows everything she ever did and does not judge her? Does not ask anything of her? He only offers free fulfillment? She has found what she has been looking for her entire life.

My knees are pressed hard to rocky soil. My head is in my hands. I am weeping. The tears come from the center of that little girl inside of me who had gone into the world searching for love. She is in a heap on the ground, with not a soul in sight.

“Help me,” I cry through broken sobs. “In the name of Jesus Christ, help me God . . . .”
In the snowy, frozen winter of the lightless forest, I feel a growing warmth on the back of my head, and then heat on my hair and neck. I look up. The dark, ominous clouds shift, and the sun beams through an open space.

I have come to the right place. I have come to the well, after a long and tiring journey. And it is a well that doesn’t run dry.

Hungry? Thirsty? Unsatisfied? Empty? At bottom? Restless? Disappointed? On rocky ground?
He’s got what will fill you. You just need to ask. If you do not ask, he can not and will not force it down your throat – he loves you too much for that. He is too patient for that. He’s just offering: I am the living water. I am the well that won’t run dry. I can fill you.

And I can wash you clean. Only I can do that, my dear child. Only I can do that.

There was this woman with a big “A” on her chest. No, not Hester Prynne from the Scarlet Letter, but her predecessor. Her name in the Bible is simply “a woman caught in adultery.” Maybe she is nameless because that’s how she felt the day the teachers of the law and Pharisees brought her to the center of town and made her stand in front of everyone so they could stone her, or at least jeer at her. Maybe that day she felt nameless … until Jesus stepped in.

As the story goes, the religious leaders tried to trick him into condemning this woman along with them, but Jesus refused. Instead he bent down silently, writing something in the sand with his finger (perhaps a list of their sins?). They kept questioning him, so finally he straightened up and said, “If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” At this, they all walked away.

“Woman, where are they?” he asked her. “Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she replied.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

The men had gathered to throw some stones that day. To point the finger and expose her shame. And Jesus certainly could have done the same. But he didn’t. He didn’t rebuke, criticize, judge, scorn, lecture or remind her of all the bad things she had done. Instead, he exposed their judgement: their shame. And he treated the woman with love and compassion.

Jesus had this compassion for people that is tough to find on earth, even in churches. As humans we feel compassion for children suffering disease, the poor and lame, those who experience a tragic loss. Compassion comes easily for the innocent.

But the guilty? Those who have clearly done wrong? Clearly forsaken their loved ones? Compassion simply is not the natural human response.

We all know people who we wish would change. We wish they would see the consequences of their poor choices. We wish they would see their sin, their shortcomings, their character flaws and fall at God’s feet saying, “I’ll change!” But this does not happen, so we argue, cry, plead, beg, criticize, scorn, remind them of their shortcomings … to no avail. Why doesn’t this approach work? Because judgment and shame do not bring about lasting change, which can only begin in the heart — the place where God and man meet one-on-one.

I have been called judgmental before — and I say that to my own shame. I see people who I love still trapped in the ways that I lived before Christ came into my life and became all that I needed . . . and I feel so helpless to get them out of that slavery to drugs, alcohol, sex, whatever it is that has them in that empty, repetitive cycle. And sometimes I may not throw a stone, but I might shake my head. I don’t think I’m better than them; I just feel so frustrated that they do not hand these things over to the only One who can truly turn their lives inside out.

But this is what God is teaching me: Jen, do not judge. It will never bring change. Only love will. Look at the world through my eyes. See the woman with the “A” branded on her chest as I do: as my child, lost and hurting. Hold out your hand to help her up, and if she does not take it, pray for her. Do not lift your hand to throw a stone — for you too were lost and alone; you too are in need of a Savior.

Who in your life might need less criticism from you and more compassion? Who do you wish would change? Try Jesus’ approach: faith that if they only knew how deeply you love them, how much you sympathize with whatever they are facing, they would change … for good.