I’m a cheerleader for the underdog. That’s why Living Well exists, that’s why I want to highlight the humanity of Black women through #BeyondTheMagic. But if I’m honest, I’m not always content with being dignified by Jesus. Sometimes I want people who are a part of oppressive systems to know I’m dignified, to know I’m loved by Christ, and that their theology doesn’t reflect Christ––because some people’s theology doesn’t dignify Black lives.

I’m rightfully agitated when I think about oppression and people––fellow image bearers––who are shunned by society. And, at times, when I think about the dignity and wholeness that society’s outcasts are still offered through Christ, I don’t want the rest of society to have access to that, too. I don’t want to love my enemies the way Jesus loves me, even if “loving” them simply means telling them about the true Jesus, not the idol they’ve built.

But I was challenged by the woman at the well in John 4. This woman is a Samaritan, receiving compassion and connection from a Jewish man––unheard of in those times! Not only would a typical Jewish man have nothing to do with someone like her in those days, her own people didn’t want anything to do with her either. She was systemically and socially outcast. Other Samaritan women didn’t want to hang out with her because she had a bad reputation. But as soon as she is dignified and offered living water by Jesus, her first inclination isn’t to keep that good news to herself. She’s compelled to tell others, and because of her unselfish urge to share Jesus and not seek revenge, many Samaritans believed.

While I know I won’t always choose to love my oppressors the way Jesus loves me, I’m challenged and encouraged to know that type of selflessness in light of newfound dignity is possible. It’s possible for me to share, not withhold, the truth about Christ with the very people who want nothing to do with me.

John 4:28-29 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”
John 4:39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”