Listening: The Importance of Story
Ever since I was little, I have been struck by the power of story. Initially, I was fascinated by the characters of Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, The Chronicles of Narnia, Riding Freedom, and so many more. But, as I got older, non-fiction stories and memoirs became my go-to. Books like She Said Yes, The Hiding Place, books by Donald Miller, books by Brennan Manning, Into the Wild, and many more I can't even remember at this point. When it comes to movies, I feel a special pull towards stories that are based on actual events. I am fascinated by how the human mind works, the way our soul often directs our behaviors, and the resilience and adaptability that we humans are capable of. Donald Miller's words were the first that highlighted how humanity and God are beautifully entwined in story. Seeing God as an epic story-teller did much more justice to His creativity than a series of church programs or object lessons, at least to me. Reading Donald Miller's words on the subject was like zooming out of a religious compartment to see a much larger picture with characters all connected and a story line that spans all of history, the present, and the future. My love of story has consequently translated into who I am and how I conduct myself in loving others. I think it's so important to mindfully take the time to hear the stories of others. Listening, to me, is one of the greatest acts of love there is.
After the last election, there were many comments floating around about how each demographic only sought out news stories that supported their already-held opinions. Algorithms on social media seemed to make exposure to differing viewpoints totally avoidable. Hiding in a comfy shell of our own world views is undeniably possible for the most part, but is it healthy and compassionate? This is a concept that, to me, isn't really even political in nature. It's more so about maintaining our empathy as humans.
As you can even surmise from my book selections above, I grew up in a relatively sheltered home. I was homeschooled for some years and was in Christian private school for others. Most of my friends came from families similar to my own--friends from church or fellow homeschoolers or people from the same schools. My exposure to mainstream music was limited. My parents kept a watchful eye on the kinds of things we watched and read, and I didn't watch or read or listen to everything that my friends did. In part, much of this contributed to a protection of my innocence. But, with that said, there was also a strong sense of identity cultivated in my household, and a dedication to teaching us to listen to God for ourselves. We weren't clones. We were taught to think for ourselves, question things, and we were taught to seek out people in need and people who looked lonely. By the time I reached high school age, I had made a lot of decisions about the kind of person I wanted to be and had some personal convictions based more on a personal relationship with God and less on my parents' expectations. All of those things were good because I went to a public high school. It was a culture shock to say the least. But, those years were so important in teaching me how to truly care about people who were so different from me. College was even better in that regard.
The truth of the matter is that the story of who we are, what we've experienced, and how we've interpreted what we have experienced is the foundation of being known. In order to really receive love, we need to feel truly known. And, in my opinion, the people who are representing the greatest love that exists, whose name is Jesus, need to be the best listeners, the kind of people who invite the stories of others no matter how unsettling. I also think that Jesus provides the greatest example of that. As a celestial being and part of the Trinity, His life story and experiences were from a realm of perfection. He had known perfect love, had seen the world and time from beginning to end, and pain as a personal experience was initially a foreign concept. As a human, his life experience was growing up in a home of God-fearing, God-obeying people. His family honored Jewish customs. They would perhaps have been considered churchy people within our modern times. With that said, Jesus came from a legacy of a crazy story. His whole life, the circumstances of his birth had to have been shrouded in mystery, questions, and unsavory assumptions. His whole life, he had to have encountered at least some people who thought, "That Mary--what a hypocrite. We all know she got pregnant without being married even though she acts all religious. And Joseph! How dumb can a guy be? He must have been desperate, or he must have just let Mary walk all over him. Or maybe he actually is Jesus' father and screwed up." Growing up, I would imagine that Jesus desperately would've wanted people to take the time to get to know His real story. That hardship, perhaps, led to his associating on purpose with people who probably didn't grow up in loving, churchy homes. People who were considered unclean. People whose life stories looked nothing like Jesus' own life story. People's whose actions didn't reflect God's desires for their life story.
With Jesus as example, I'd love to say all of His followers are exemplary in seeking out the stories of others and truly listening. But, I'd be remiss if I did. We're complicated creatures, and fear often interferes with empathy. I think we fear the unknown, the things that are different from our perceptions of ourselves. Like the Pharisees of Jesus' day, I think there is this idea that if we spend time with someone who is associated with sin or even just a gray area, that sin or ambiguity will somehow adhere itself to us, tainting our beliefs or, perhaps, more so our reputations. I can concede there is something to be said for caring for, protecting, and giving time to children and young people to not be bombarded with the many painful, complicated issues the world can throw at them. God demonstrated in the Garden of Eden that there is a timeline for learning that correlates with maturity. But, choosing to live all of our lives far from the pain and different experiences of others, isn't really what I feel like Jesus demonstrated. Along with the fear of somehow being tarnished, I think humans also haven't learned that you can love people and even spend time with them without agreeing with their choices or beliefs. Kris Vallotton recently said that he believes that in this day and age, true Christians will be best recognized by how well they can lovingly disagree with one another. God is bigger than the gray areas. His love covers a multitude of sins. And, He isn't afraid of our questions or the questions of people who don't yet know Him.
Oftentimes, I know that there is a general distrust or even snap judgments from disagreeing sides. Because we've been surrounded by subliminal messages and have discovered ulterior motives at every turn, we've become jaded. We more easily believe the stories we make up in our heads than we take the time to listen to the stories of individuals. We assume the worst, and a lot of times, unfortunately in terms of media or institutions or political movements, we may be very right because we're dealing with masses of flawed humans. I get the frustration with feeling like someone is trying to indoctrinate us, persuade us with a crafty or emotional sales pitch, or twist our arm through manipulation to budge us in our convictions. But, I'd also assert that perception is reality. If we're going to meet someone with love right where they are, we need to take the time to understand their reality. We don't have to agree with the conclusions they've reached due to their experiences, but part of loving is at least acknowledging the importance of someone else's experiences. That's part of building trust.
Growing up in church, I was taught over and over how to evangelize to other people. A lot of those lessons were composed of various steps or ABCs or convenient lists of verses to memorize and work into a conversation. Other methods included stacks of tracts to stealthily stick on someone's windshield or to hand out in a crowd. And, to be honest with you, initially, as a kid, I could jump on the bandwagon because that was what was expected. But, over time, those ways of interacting with other humans made me squirmy. Everyone has their own gifts, and there are people who have a special, God-given charisma to lovingly reach people through some of those methods. Those methods have successfully touched the hearts of some people. Perhaps, it goes along with the truth that some plant, some water, and some harvest. But, as an introvert, who regularly feels uncomfortable when stuck in a door-to-door sales pitch or who does not make good purchasing decisions when being followed and pressured by a salesperson, those methods sparked too many of the same feelings those experiences caused. They felt inauthentic to me. They made people seem like faceless quotas to fill. Those inclinations sometimes made me feel guilty--isn't this evangelism something that we're supposed to do as followers of Jesus? Why did it make me want to throw up to approach people with that agenda? With time, however, I came across a lot of books that validated who I am and how I naturally share. If I am sitting on a bench with someone I don't know well or do know well or have just met, if I'm there long enough, either because of my own demeanor or reputation, or just because I'm sharing of my own life experiences, many times mention of my beliefs will come to light. It's not something that I force, and I definitely do my best to listen just as much or more than I talk. But, God is interwoven into my story in the same way that my mother or brother or best friends are. He's a character, the Character, the Designer, of my story. It's only natural that He would be present in my anecdotes and memories.
Jim Stump says in his book, The Power of One-on-One, "In all my years as a believer, I've never known anyone who came to Jesus because they lost an argument. But I've known countless people who surrendered their lives to Christ because someone cared enough to love them into the Kingdom." This goes beyond going through the motions of conversation while having a secret agenda. People pick up on that kind of stuff. We've all experienced it--we're telling a story that we enjoy telling or we're spilling our guts about something emotional, but the person listening isn't giving us eye contact. The person is looking elsewhere or subtly glancing at the time on their phone. The person is nodding or saying, "Yeah, definitely," at all the right moments, but we can tell via social cues that we've lost our audience or that the person is just waiting for us to shut up so that he or she can pipe in with whatever they want to say. That is what it feels like to sniff out when someone has an agenda and isn't being a real person in a real conversation. The heart of the matter, then, is motive. It's being able to get to the point where we truly trust the Holy Spirit to do the work and to lead us in love and conversation. It's valuing the seed planting and the seed watering just as much as the harvesting and being comfortable with the possibility of never seeing a harvest. It's surrendering even our well-meaning agendas as followers of Jesus for moment-by-moment obedience. It's letting go of what we think we're supposed to do in order to just naturally be who we are. Salt doesn't have to decide to be salty. It just is. Light doesn't have to come up with a set of ABCs in order to illuminate a dark space. It just does. When we walk closely with someone we love, we'll naturally start to talk more about Him, talk like Him, and be like Him. And, people also pick up on that.
For a long time, especially since college, I have had a personal code in terms of the kinds of things that I publish to the masses. I have my own personal beliefs and convictions, sure. But, I also feel like political or even religious viewpoints on an issue that fit in a meme or in a photo are very two-dimensional. People--the people who are reading those viewpoints and applying them to their own messy life experiences--are not two-dimensional. I never wanted to be the kind of person who cut myself off from a whole population of people just because of a two-dimensional stand I took on Facebook that caused hurt. Everyone has their own convictions, and I'm definitely not knocking you if yours are different than mine. I understand that we all have to stand up for what we believe in. I just know that I believe in relationship more than I believe in almost anything else. I believe in listening and earning trust. If I've taken the time to do that, and you want to know my political or religious viewpoints on the issues, I will by all means share, and we'll talk with an air of loving trust rather than hostile argument. Chances are if you feel passionate about something, there is a story behind it. I know that to be true because it's true for me too.
Over my short span of life on this earth, I have collected a wide variety of friends. I have friends who believe in God and friends who don't. Friends who are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and who have never voted. I have friends from a variety of countries who speak a variety of languages. I have friends who own personal firearms and friends who adamantly believe in gun control. I have friends who drink alcohol and friends who feel like that's not for them. I have friends who have tattoos and friends who believe that having tattoos is not taking care of your body. I have friends who have a lot of kids and friends who never want to have kids. I have friends who are vegans and friends who eat meat with a side of meat. I have friends who have very strong opinions on both ends of the spectrum in terms of immigration, abortion, same-sex marriage, and healthcare. I have friends who wouldn't be caught dead in a church and friends who have grown up in church their whole lives. The list could go on and on. But, among all of these people, one thing rings true--God cares about each and every one of those people and their stories. And regardless of whether I agree with all of their viewpoints or life choices or not, I am privileged that I can call those people friends or people who have entered my life or crossed my path.
So, in conclusion, I guess I wonder--what would the world look like if we spent as much time and energy seeking out and listening to people's stories as we do taking two-dimensional stands? If we're adamant about immigration issues, have we taken the time to personally hear the stories of people on both sides of the argument? I'm not talking about listening to stories because we're somehow loose in our convictions or because we should change our minds or opinions. I'm talking about listening to stories so that we can consider the feelings and experiences of all parties involved before we take a two-dimensional stand. If we're adamant about abortion, have we taken the time to hear the stories of those who have had abortions and regretted it, those who have had abortions and haven't regretted it, those who thought about having abortions but didn't, and the reasons for all of those people to make the decisions that they did? There are people trying to persuade us of things everywhere. But, if we're so established in our convictions, hearing the experiences of someone different from us, shouldn't shake us. We can listen to them lovingly without changing our minds. We can love them and treat them with kindness and respect even if we disagree. I can't help but think that when we publish a two-dimensional stand on an issue, we are guaranteed to get applause from our yes men peanut gallery and vigorous nods of agreement from those who believe the same, and that is easy and predictable. The cost may be that we alienate the people who don't agree with us due to their own story that we don't know, and maybe those people are equally hostile, and we feel like they deserve it. But no change will come from that kind of behavior. I think it's much harder and braver to seek out people who are different from us, spend time with them, listen to them, and treat them with love, respect, and kindness even if we continue disagreeing with them. The cost of that choice would perhaps be our reputation with our yes men peanut gallery but what a great example!
When Jesus encountered the woman at the well, she expected him to take a two-dimensional stand that she'd heard before. She expected Him to treat her as unclean and beneath Him. She expected Him to fear being tainted by her water. She expected Him to refuse to associate with her because they came from two different worlds. She expected a religious response to her existence and her lifestyle. Jesus is the Word of God in the flesh, so we know that He didn't agree with many of her life choices. But she was totally caught off-guard by His compassion, by how He knew her but wasn't rejecting her. She was caught off-guard because his response to her existence was relational. He didn't just say, "You've had a bunch of husbands, and you're not married to the guy you're with!" That would have been stating the obvious, taking a two-dimensional stand. Instead, He offered her friendship, respect, hope, and the challenge to see herself as more valuable than she'd seen herself before. He treated her like she was worthy, and as a result, the end of her story was that she became the very first missionary sent out by Jesus. She proclaimed that same hope to others. Jesus' peanut gallery of disciples came armed with some backlash when they saw Him talking to her, but they had to keep quiet because His example spoke louder than their two-dimensional stands.
We exist here on this spinning planet with other human beings. I don't think that's an accident. I think God placed us here in connection with others because His design is for us to learn to love and be loved. The times in my life when I've had to mature the most have been when my life has encountered the lives of others who were different from me, who made life choices that disappointed me, who took hurtful two-dimensional stands, or who rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. The truth of the matter is that I wouldn't be who I am today if I wouldn't have been challenged by the diversity of the people I have encountered. And, more often than not, it's been my love of story that has been the first step in leading me to seek to learn to love rather than judge, to mature rather than to hold a grudge, and to let go of myself and my own ego to truly listen to how God can speak through circumstances and the lives of others. If God is love, learning to love someone who is hard for me to love just means taking a step closer to Him. I want to be a part of His story by valuing the stories of others.
After the last election, there were many comments floating around about how each demographic only sought out news stories that supported their already-held opinions. Algorithms on social media seemed to make exposure to differing viewpoints totally avoidable. Hiding in a comfy shell of our own world views is undeniably possible for the most part, but is it healthy and compassionate? This is a concept that, to me, isn't really even political in nature. It's more so about maintaining our empathy as humans.
As you can even surmise from my book selections above, I grew up in a relatively sheltered home. I was homeschooled for some years and was in Christian private school for others. Most of my friends came from families similar to my own--friends from church or fellow homeschoolers or people from the same schools. My exposure to mainstream music was limited. My parents kept a watchful eye on the kinds of things we watched and read, and I didn't watch or read or listen to everything that my friends did. In part, much of this contributed to a protection of my innocence. But, with that said, there was also a strong sense of identity cultivated in my household, and a dedication to teaching us to listen to God for ourselves. We weren't clones. We were taught to think for ourselves, question things, and we were taught to seek out people in need and people who looked lonely. By the time I reached high school age, I had made a lot of decisions about the kind of person I wanted to be and had some personal convictions based more on a personal relationship with God and less on my parents' expectations. All of those things were good because I went to a public high school. It was a culture shock to say the least. But, those years were so important in teaching me how to truly care about people who were so different from me. College was even better in that regard.
The truth of the matter is that the story of who we are, what we've experienced, and how we've interpreted what we have experienced is the foundation of being known. In order to really receive love, we need to feel truly known. And, in my opinion, the people who are representing the greatest love that exists, whose name is Jesus, need to be the best listeners, the kind of people who invite the stories of others no matter how unsettling. I also think that Jesus provides the greatest example of that. As a celestial being and part of the Trinity, His life story and experiences were from a realm of perfection. He had known perfect love, had seen the world and time from beginning to end, and pain as a personal experience was initially a foreign concept. As a human, his life experience was growing up in a home of God-fearing, God-obeying people. His family honored Jewish customs. They would perhaps have been considered churchy people within our modern times. With that said, Jesus came from a legacy of a crazy story. His whole life, the circumstances of his birth had to have been shrouded in mystery, questions, and unsavory assumptions. His whole life, he had to have encountered at least some people who thought, "That Mary--what a hypocrite. We all know she got pregnant without being married even though she acts all religious. And Joseph! How dumb can a guy be? He must have been desperate, or he must have just let Mary walk all over him. Or maybe he actually is Jesus' father and screwed up." Growing up, I would imagine that Jesus desperately would've wanted people to take the time to get to know His real story. That hardship, perhaps, led to his associating on purpose with people who probably didn't grow up in loving, churchy homes. People who were considered unclean. People whose life stories looked nothing like Jesus' own life story. People's whose actions didn't reflect God's desires for their life story.
With Jesus as example, I'd love to say all of His followers are exemplary in seeking out the stories of others and truly listening. But, I'd be remiss if I did. We're complicated creatures, and fear often interferes with empathy. I think we fear the unknown, the things that are different from our perceptions of ourselves. Like the Pharisees of Jesus' day, I think there is this idea that if we spend time with someone who is associated with sin or even just a gray area, that sin or ambiguity will somehow adhere itself to us, tainting our beliefs or, perhaps, more so our reputations. I can concede there is something to be said for caring for, protecting, and giving time to children and young people to not be bombarded with the many painful, complicated issues the world can throw at them. God demonstrated in the Garden of Eden that there is a timeline for learning that correlates with maturity. But, choosing to live all of our lives far from the pain and different experiences of others, isn't really what I feel like Jesus demonstrated. Along with the fear of somehow being tarnished, I think humans also haven't learned that you can love people and even spend time with them without agreeing with their choices or beliefs. Kris Vallotton recently said that he believes that in this day and age, true Christians will be best recognized by how well they can lovingly disagree with one another. God is bigger than the gray areas. His love covers a multitude of sins. And, He isn't afraid of our questions or the questions of people who don't yet know Him.
Oftentimes, I know that there is a general distrust or even snap judgments from disagreeing sides. Because we've been surrounded by subliminal messages and have discovered ulterior motives at every turn, we've become jaded. We more easily believe the stories we make up in our heads than we take the time to listen to the stories of individuals. We assume the worst, and a lot of times, unfortunately in terms of media or institutions or political movements, we may be very right because we're dealing with masses of flawed humans. I get the frustration with feeling like someone is trying to indoctrinate us, persuade us with a crafty or emotional sales pitch, or twist our arm through manipulation to budge us in our convictions. But, I'd also assert that perception is reality. If we're going to meet someone with love right where they are, we need to take the time to understand their reality. We don't have to agree with the conclusions they've reached due to their experiences, but part of loving is at least acknowledging the importance of someone else's experiences. That's part of building trust.
Growing up in church, I was taught over and over how to evangelize to other people. A lot of those lessons were composed of various steps or ABCs or convenient lists of verses to memorize and work into a conversation. Other methods included stacks of tracts to stealthily stick on someone's windshield or to hand out in a crowd. And, to be honest with you, initially, as a kid, I could jump on the bandwagon because that was what was expected. But, over time, those ways of interacting with other humans made me squirmy. Everyone has their own gifts, and there are people who have a special, God-given charisma to lovingly reach people through some of those methods. Those methods have successfully touched the hearts of some people. Perhaps, it goes along with the truth that some plant, some water, and some harvest. But, as an introvert, who regularly feels uncomfortable when stuck in a door-to-door sales pitch or who does not make good purchasing decisions when being followed and pressured by a salesperson, those methods sparked too many of the same feelings those experiences caused. They felt inauthentic to me. They made people seem like faceless quotas to fill. Those inclinations sometimes made me feel guilty--isn't this evangelism something that we're supposed to do as followers of Jesus? Why did it make me want to throw up to approach people with that agenda? With time, however, I came across a lot of books that validated who I am and how I naturally share. If I am sitting on a bench with someone I don't know well or do know well or have just met, if I'm there long enough, either because of my own demeanor or reputation, or just because I'm sharing of my own life experiences, many times mention of my beliefs will come to light. It's not something that I force, and I definitely do my best to listen just as much or more than I talk. But, God is interwoven into my story in the same way that my mother or brother or best friends are. He's a character, the Character, the Designer, of my story. It's only natural that He would be present in my anecdotes and memories.
Jim Stump says in his book, The Power of One-on-One, "In all my years as a believer, I've never known anyone who came to Jesus because they lost an argument. But I've known countless people who surrendered their lives to Christ because someone cared enough to love them into the Kingdom." This goes beyond going through the motions of conversation while having a secret agenda. People pick up on that kind of stuff. We've all experienced it--we're telling a story that we enjoy telling or we're spilling our guts about something emotional, but the person listening isn't giving us eye contact. The person is looking elsewhere or subtly glancing at the time on their phone. The person is nodding or saying, "Yeah, definitely," at all the right moments, but we can tell via social cues that we've lost our audience or that the person is just waiting for us to shut up so that he or she can pipe in with whatever they want to say. That is what it feels like to sniff out when someone has an agenda and isn't being a real person in a real conversation. The heart of the matter, then, is motive. It's being able to get to the point where we truly trust the Holy Spirit to do the work and to lead us in love and conversation. It's valuing the seed planting and the seed watering just as much as the harvesting and being comfortable with the possibility of never seeing a harvest. It's surrendering even our well-meaning agendas as followers of Jesus for moment-by-moment obedience. It's letting go of what we think we're supposed to do in order to just naturally be who we are. Salt doesn't have to decide to be salty. It just is. Light doesn't have to come up with a set of ABCs in order to illuminate a dark space. It just does. When we walk closely with someone we love, we'll naturally start to talk more about Him, talk like Him, and be like Him. And, people also pick up on that.
For a long time, especially since college, I have had a personal code in terms of the kinds of things that I publish to the masses. I have my own personal beliefs and convictions, sure. But, I also feel like political or even religious viewpoints on an issue that fit in a meme or in a photo are very two-dimensional. People--the people who are reading those viewpoints and applying them to their own messy life experiences--are not two-dimensional. I never wanted to be the kind of person who cut myself off from a whole population of people just because of a two-dimensional stand I took on Facebook that caused hurt. Everyone has their own convictions, and I'm definitely not knocking you if yours are different than mine. I understand that we all have to stand up for what we believe in. I just know that I believe in relationship more than I believe in almost anything else. I believe in listening and earning trust. If I've taken the time to do that, and you want to know my political or religious viewpoints on the issues, I will by all means share, and we'll talk with an air of loving trust rather than hostile argument. Chances are if you feel passionate about something, there is a story behind it. I know that to be true because it's true for me too.
Over my short span of life on this earth, I have collected a wide variety of friends. I have friends who believe in God and friends who don't. Friends who are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and who have never voted. I have friends from a variety of countries who speak a variety of languages. I have friends who own personal firearms and friends who adamantly believe in gun control. I have friends who drink alcohol and friends who feel like that's not for them. I have friends who have tattoos and friends who believe that having tattoos is not taking care of your body. I have friends who have a lot of kids and friends who never want to have kids. I have friends who are vegans and friends who eat meat with a side of meat. I have friends who have very strong opinions on both ends of the spectrum in terms of immigration, abortion, same-sex marriage, and healthcare. I have friends who wouldn't be caught dead in a church and friends who have grown up in church their whole lives. The list could go on and on. But, among all of these people, one thing rings true--God cares about each and every one of those people and their stories. And regardless of whether I agree with all of their viewpoints or life choices or not, I am privileged that I can call those people friends or people who have entered my life or crossed my path.
So, in conclusion, I guess I wonder--what would the world look like if we spent as much time and energy seeking out and listening to people's stories as we do taking two-dimensional stands? If we're adamant about immigration issues, have we taken the time to personally hear the stories of people on both sides of the argument? I'm not talking about listening to stories because we're somehow loose in our convictions or because we should change our minds or opinions. I'm talking about listening to stories so that we can consider the feelings and experiences of all parties involved before we take a two-dimensional stand. If we're adamant about abortion, have we taken the time to hear the stories of those who have had abortions and regretted it, those who have had abortions and haven't regretted it, those who thought about having abortions but didn't, and the reasons for all of those people to make the decisions that they did? There are people trying to persuade us of things everywhere. But, if we're so established in our convictions, hearing the experiences of someone different from us, shouldn't shake us. We can listen to them lovingly without changing our minds. We can love them and treat them with kindness and respect even if we disagree. I can't help but think that when we publish a two-dimensional stand on an issue, we are guaranteed to get applause from our yes men peanut gallery and vigorous nods of agreement from those who believe the same, and that is easy and predictable. The cost may be that we alienate the people who don't agree with us due to their own story that we don't know, and maybe those people are equally hostile, and we feel like they deserve it. But no change will come from that kind of behavior. I think it's much harder and braver to seek out people who are different from us, spend time with them, listen to them, and treat them with love, respect, and kindness even if we continue disagreeing with them. The cost of that choice would perhaps be our reputation with our yes men peanut gallery but what a great example!
When Jesus encountered the woman at the well, she expected him to take a two-dimensional stand that she'd heard before. She expected Him to treat her as unclean and beneath Him. She expected Him to fear being tainted by her water. She expected Him to refuse to associate with her because they came from two different worlds. She expected a religious response to her existence and her lifestyle. Jesus is the Word of God in the flesh, so we know that He didn't agree with many of her life choices. But she was totally caught off-guard by His compassion, by how He knew her but wasn't rejecting her. She was caught off-guard because his response to her existence was relational. He didn't just say, "You've had a bunch of husbands, and you're not married to the guy you're with!" That would have been stating the obvious, taking a two-dimensional stand. Instead, He offered her friendship, respect, hope, and the challenge to see herself as more valuable than she'd seen herself before. He treated her like she was worthy, and as a result, the end of her story was that she became the very first missionary sent out by Jesus. She proclaimed that same hope to others. Jesus' peanut gallery of disciples came armed with some backlash when they saw Him talking to her, but they had to keep quiet because His example spoke louder than their two-dimensional stands.
We exist here on this spinning planet with other human beings. I don't think that's an accident. I think God placed us here in connection with others because His design is for us to learn to love and be loved. The times in my life when I've had to mature the most have been when my life has encountered the lives of others who were different from me, who made life choices that disappointed me, who took hurtful two-dimensional stands, or who rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. The truth of the matter is that I wouldn't be who I am today if I wouldn't have been challenged by the diversity of the people I have encountered. And, more often than not, it's been my love of story that has been the first step in leading me to seek to learn to love rather than judge, to mature rather than to hold a grudge, and to let go of myself and my own ego to truly listen to how God can speak through circumstances and the lives of others. If God is love, learning to love someone who is hard for me to love just means taking a step closer to Him. I want to be a part of His story by valuing the stories of others.
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