Cultural Baggage

Principle - *something catchy*

We set our cultural baggage aside when we join with Jesus

Illustration - Samaritan Woman

Application -

Why is this Important for us Right Now?

Whether we realize it or not we bring a lot of cultural baggage with us when we enlist into the Kingdom of Jesus.

Our Secular culture is a framework built from personal life experience, spheres of influence around us (family, friends, coworkers), and the broader culture in which we find ourselves (country). What may be culturally acceptable or expected here in the north east coast of the united states is going to be very different from the culture in India, or Korea, or even just California!

So we’re going to spend some time examining what baggage we might be carrying around, so that then you can go off in your discipling partnerships to actually unpack and deal with it.

Spotting Our Cultural Baggage

Where does our baggage come from?

Question: What are some examples of personal/sphere of influence/society baggage? *show the three types*

Personal History: (Experiences and Traumas)

Examples: break up/relationships, books and movies you’ve read

Sphere of Influence: (Family, Friends)

Examples: strict or abusive parents, bad influence friends

Society:

Examples: Racial stereotypes, Excessive Patriotism, Gender Roles, Modesty, Morality, Social politics

We need to recognize and remember that we all bring baggage with us into our relationship with Jesus and his body. And working through that baggage is a process of continual repentance, refinement and self denial.

Jesus fully knows us, he knows our baggage and how it effects us better than we know ourselves. But our brothers and sisters don’t, which is why communication and discipleship is so important.

We regularly traverse a minefield of cultural acceptability especially when out speech is magnified through the global city square of the internet. We need to be aware that the things were are saying are being evaluated and judged from cultural lenses not our own.

*this part needs more*

Church culture baggage

Legalism, Tradition, Ritual, Gender Roles

*this can be merged into the previous section*

*transition to example of Samaritan woman*

Lets look at an example of someone working through their cultural baggage when interacting with Jesus

John 4:1–26 NIV

1 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John—2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When 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.) 9 The 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.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

Question: What Cultural baggage did this woman bringing to her interaction with Jesus?

Personal History: (Experiences and Traumas)

(divorce) shes had 5 husbands

(different spiritual upbringing) - Because they were separated they had their own version of the Torah. that would have colored the Samaritan woman’s view of Jesus

Sphere of Influence: (Family, Friends)

(Social status) - The woman was drawing water alone in the middle of the hot day. Not a time when people would normally draw water. This may have been because she did not want to be seen by the other townspeople.

Society:

(man/woman) - Men would not speak to women in public

(mixed race) - Samaritans were considered half breeds. They were the offspring of Jews from Israel who were relocated after having been conquered by the Assyrian empire and were mixed with conquered people from other places.

(Political differences) - A Jewish Family called the Hasmoneans destroyed the Samaritan Temple in 128BC so there would have been significant fear and resentment between the two peoples.

John 4:27–30 NIV

27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

Question: why did she leave her water jar?

Where were her cultural hangups now? was she only speaking to women about this as she ran through the city streets? She was telling them that she had just spoken to a man outside of town, what would they have thought? what would the man she was living with have thought? did she care? Was she concerned about the fact that Jesus was a Jew when she called people to him?

*expand here too*

Lets look at how the Samaritan woman reacts

The New International Version Chapter 4

Many Samaritans Believe

39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.

42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

How did this woman help break down the cultural baggage of this town of Samaritans and a Jew?

What did the culture of that town look like after this?

Acts 17

is paul being culturally sensitive or biblically sound

god doesnt change, culture does

we cant change god along side the culture

john 12, 1 peter 2, any of the word scriptures

what are examples of cultural baggage

is genesis 1 literal? predestination . start high and then get deep

how we view money, how we view politics