World’s Greatest Boundary Breaker

Sunday afternoon I went with my elderly friend, Ilene, to church. The pastor made the statement that Jesus was a “Boundary Breaker.” He went on to read John 4 where Jesus talks to a woman at the well in the city of Samaria. (I encourage everyone to read this Bible passage in order to understand today’s devotional.)

To give you a general idea of the story though, Samaritans and Jews did not associate with one another, because of the hatred between the two. In this instance, Jesus, a Jew, goes to the well and starts up a conversation with this Samaritan woman. The Samaritan woman was in shock that He would talk to her, let alone make eye contact. This was a huge boundary that was broken in a matter of seconds, because Jesus chose to show compassion and unconditional love to the woman rather than judgment and hostility.

John 4:7-9
“7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ‘Will you give me a drink?’ 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to Him, ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?’ (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)”

I know it is often hard to be like Jesus (as we are instructed to do) when we think of how perfect and flawless He was, so I will tell you more of my Sunday story to help you out - On Sunday, after reading John 4, the pastor mentioned that Mr. Rogers, the TV host of “Mister Roger’s Neighborhood,” was also a boundary breaker!

Not knowing much about Mr. Roger’s background, I was blown away by what the pastor spoke of when describing this TV host. I learned that even though Mr. Rogers was famous (for a number of reasons, including his TV show), he remained humble. When being interviewed, he would be reluctant to talk about himself, but rather ask the interviewer questions about himself. He would also sit in the passenger seat in his limo so that he could talk with and get to know the limo driver. One day he even asked to meet his limo driver’s family!! What an amazing love he displayed! And to think Jesus shows us even greater love each and every day!! :-D

So I’m not encouraging us all to “be like Mr. Rogers” haha. Of course our first example of boundary breaking should be seen in Jesus’ life. BUT I do believe we can learn a lot from his great example and witness of what it means to be a “Boundary Breaker” as well. Let us be encouraged, knowing that this radical kind of lifestyle is, in fact, possible and well worth striving for!

On a lighter note, I found a neat video of Mr. Rogers learning to break dance :) Oh, and I apologize for the poor quality. It’s the best I could find of the entire clip.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1143755758031732423#

God bless!
<3 Shannon

“Deliver Me” – Bethany Dillon
http://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music.artistalbums&artistid=10825243&albumid=13396763
The song is #8 on the playlist :)