Before this was the calling of Martin Luther King, Jr., it was the message of Jesus.
Jesus brought a message of justice and crossed lines of prejudice. When we take a look at the stories, he told we find that many of the main characters, the heroes aren’t who we’d expect. They’re the down-and-out and the disenfranchised, the hated and the hurting.
But Jesus didn’t just tell stories of those kinds of people, he entered into their stories with them.
In fact, he went out of his way to do so.
In John chapter 4 we read the account of when Jesus took the path no one expected him to take so that he could enter into the story of a lonely woman at a well. Throughout their encounter, Jesus knocks down stereotypes, prejudices, and expectations, and through this scene, we begin to see answers to some of our biggest questions.
