That "Naughty Lady "

by John Stallings


There was once a beautiful young girl named Nancy. 

She was tall & thin & when you saw her you thought of a future model & later in life a corporate executive. She was attractive, smart, outgoing radiant & happy. She very often would speak in the youth services at her church. Her words were always thoughtful & insightful, full of wisdom far beyond her years. Nancy was a stunning, well adjusted young woman brimming with life.

One evening, the phone rang in her home & Nancy answered. Almost immediately she collapsed & was rushed to the hospital emergency room & subsequently admitted as a patient. When her pastor walked into the room the drapes were pulled & the atmosphere was gloomy. Nancy laid in a hospital bed, weak, pale, listless almost the picture of death. Only hours ago she was the picture of vital, radiant life. Her mother explained “after they returned from church last night Nancy got a call. She hung up quickly & fainted & they couldn't revive her.”

 Nancy’s mom was asked if she knew what could have happened to Nancy. She said, yes; this girl who’d always gotten everything she went after had just been told that the thing she wanted most at that moment was denied her. The mother said that the sorority Nancy wanted in had rejected her. Someone had black-balled her & the trauma of that blunt rejection was too much for her. She couldn’t handle it. The doctors were sure that she was so hurt it crushed her emotionally, physically & spiritually. Here we see the awful pain of rejection.

Without question... the most brutal weapon we human beings can use on each other is rejection.

One lazy summer day Isabella & her family were enjoying family time, lying on the grass outside their home watching the clouds float by. A plane was flying so high above their heads it was barely visible. Her Dad made a joke & everyone laughed-- it was just a time of lazy conversation & being together. Daddy glanced at Isabella & said, “Run up to the house & fix me a cheese sandwich.” She jumped up & ran to fix that sandwich, feeling so special, getting to do something for her daddy.

When she proudly handed the sandwich to her daddy he took a big bite & as he chewed he asked, “Did you wash your hands first?” She answered, “No I hadn’t even thought of that.” He sputtered & spit the chewed-up food out onto the ground as he tossed the sandwich into the air. Cheese & bread flew everywhere. Isabella’s brother & sister rolled with laughter at the sight. She swallowed hard & tried to blink back her tears.

“Now, go back to the house & wash your hands & fix me another sandwich,” he said.

Isabella turned & walked slowly back across the yard struggling not to cry, torn between hurt & anger. This was the first time that her dad had made her feel inadequate but certainly not the last. Many times through the years when she failed to meet his standards he would ask, “Are you stupid?” As time went by, on one level Isabella knew she was smart because she made good grades in school & was a member of the Honor Society, but on another level there was always that little voice asking “are you stupid?”

Later in life her dad mellowed & was an affectionate grandfather to her sons & showed his love in many tangible ways. Isabella always wondered if her dad had used the “cheese sandwich caper” in a more positive way, maybe the little voice that asked, “are you stupid” wouldn’t have had a chance to develop.

Isabella’s story continues. The day came when she was at a low point in her life. For no reason she could understand she’d made a mess of everything that was important to her. Frustrated she looked in her mirror & screamed at the women looking back, “you’re so stupid.” On this day she walked into her bedroom & turned on her tape player. Thankfully what she heard next were the words of a gospel song that spoke of being sheltered in the arms of God. Suddenly she felt as if her heavenly Father had picked her up like a little child, wrapped her in His arms & said, “Isabella, you’re My child. You don’t ever have to worry about being good enough for me.” As she rested in God’s healing grace, the hurt was taken away.

Most of them are gone now. 

The ones who knew me as a boy of sixteen in my fathers church in Orlando, Florida. We lived there longer than any place dad ever pastored. They were the ones who first endured my efforts to try to sing & preach. They said I was good but I feared I was a little less than mediocre. I remember how I used to look forward to the church dinners because there were so many good cooks in the church. They all called me “Brother Johnny.” They remember seeing me drive into the church parking lot the day I got my first drivers license. At Christmas time we always had a Christmas play & I remember being in many of them. When I was about 18 my dad made me his assistant & I can remember conducting a funeral for a 96 year old man. When I was married it was in a small town about fifty miles away but many from my home church in Orlando participated.

These people saw me off to college & were supportive when we started our evangelistic ministry. They helped us buy our first car that we prayed would make it to California.

Most of them are gone now; the Hecks, the Dumphs, the Halls, the Coopers, the Singletons, the Hummels & the Stewarts. When we returned after our first year long tour across America, I remember our homecoming to Orlando. Everyone in the church was so proud of us. They asked questions about our travels & made us feel like world conquerors.

Somehow it was very important to us that the people in that church approved of us. I can’t imagine what it would have felt like to come home & be received coolly. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to return home to disapproval. I can’t imagine my friends’ rejection.

But that’s exactly what happened to Jesus.

Mark 6:1-6 is one of the most awesome passages in Holy Writ. Jesus returned to His hometown, the town where He grew up, & His friends & neighbors rejected Him. He’d been enormously successful. He had healed & restored a mentally ill man, a feverish old woman, a paralytic, a woman with a twelve year hemorrhage, & a dead little girl. He had reached across the barriers that divided His society, ate with sinners, touched the untouchables & painted a picture of the kingdom of God. Everyone knew Him & had an opinion about Him.

And now, for the first time since He left—since the day He walked away from the carpenter shop to be baptized by His cousin John—now for the first time He came home to Nazareth. His parent’s village, where Mary had been born & where Joseph had been a carpenter. It was a small town & everyone knew the rumors about Him. They had watched Him grow up.

These are the people who met Jesus when He joined with His friends in the old synagogue on that first Sabbath of His homecoming. Was He proud to be there? I think so. Was He a little nervous when they asked Him to read & interpret the scriptures? Probably! This was a tense homecoming moment. Jesus must have been a good reader because they handed Him the scroll to read & interpret.

But then Mark tells us that the people got a mite testy. They started to ask some sarcastic questions. Where did this local boy get all this? Is this not the carpenter’s son, the son of Mary? Usually men were known as their father’s sons so when they referred to Jesus as “Mary’s son” it was a slur, the equivalent of calling Him a “Bastard.” The people took offense to Jesus & He responds not by being argumentative, but by stating the obvious; “Prophets aren’t honored in their own hometowns.” Mark tells us He could do no mighty works there. Nothing changed in Nazareth. Nothing new emerged. Life quickly returned to normal & why not? They had rejected Jesus! Pick any word you want; jealousy, resentment, tradition, or even— “if He came from us He can’t be much.”

And now we read one of the saddest verses in the New Testament, “He went about the villages teaching.” That is, He left His own hometown & never came back.

Have you ever been there? 

Your reputation has been trashed? The only ones who will speak to you are losers? When you walk past little groups of people they say something in a whisper you know isn’t complimentary? You lose your appetite & make excuses why you don’t want to go anywhere. You quit going to the places where you know everyone will be. The sting of rejection saps your energy so that all you want to do is sleep. You dream of moving somewhere that no one will know who you are.

But one day you’re sitting alone by a little stream listening to the birds sing. They seem to drown out the faces & stares that are usually part of your day. Suddenly you’re aware of a presence of another person sitting a few feet behind you on a large rock.

This stranger starts a conversation with you but you don’t feel awkward. After talking to Him a few short minutes you feel you’ve known Him forever & He knows all about you & understands your rejection.

If the person I've described were Jesus, what could He say to you that would heal the lacerations of your heart?

Jesus had left Judea & gone back once more to Galilee. Now He had to go through Samaria. He came to a town called Sychar & being tired He sat down by an old well called “Jacob’s well.” It was about the sixth hour.

When a Samaritan women came to draw water He asked her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into town to buy food.) The woman asked how He could be asking her for water because she was a Samaritan & Jews didn’t speak to Samaritans.

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God & who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked Him & He would have given you living water.” “Sir”, the woman said, “You have nothing to draw water with & the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?”

Finally Jesus tells this woman that He can provide water she can drink & never be thirsty again. He told her, “Go call your husband & come back.”-- “I have no husband” she replied.

Jesus said, “You’re right when you say you have no husband. The fact is you have had five husbands & the man you have now isn’t your husband.”

“Sir” the woman replied, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place we should worship is in Jerusalem.”

Jesus said, “Believe me woman, a time is coming & has now come when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit & in truth for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.”

This lady forgot her water jar & went into her village & told the people about the man who told her everything she ever did & her town came out to meet Him. John 4:1-30.

This woman could have written the manual on rejection. It’s very possible that all of her five husbands had rejected her because in those days women didn’t walk away from a marriage. All a man had to do to get rid of a women was to say “I divorce you” three times & the woman was out on the street. These women knew rejection.

When I was a kid in the fifties there was a popular song called, “The naughty lady of shady lane.”

Here we have the original “Naughty lady of shady lane.” She experienced two miracles that day. First, men didn’t waste their time talking to women & secondly, Jewish men certainly didn’t talk to Samaritans. Jesus smashed a 720 year old barrier when he treated this woman as an equal.

When you think about it, this poor woman had been promised the moon by at least five men but they delivered nothing but ashes; nothing but rejection. But Jesus offered her acceptance when He told her He had the power to forgive her sins.

It’s in forgiveness that we find the ultimate acceptance. The slights & snubs of others melt into insignificance in the reality & security of God’s acceptance.

The opposite of rejection is acceptance. The most powerful weapon we have against rejection is Ephesians 1:6;


To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us “Accepted in the beloved.”


Blessings,


John