Genesis 3:23-24 — therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man: and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Yesterday I wrote about what made the Samaritans so special to Jesus. I said He loved them because they were cast outs? Today, I want to stand on my head and say they’re not so special after all!
God sent Adam forth. The expression in the Hebrew (the word is “gairesh” which can be translated as “to expel, drive out, or eject by force”) is the same as one used in Deuteronomy of a man divorcing his wife And more pointedly in 1 Kings 9:7:
then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people:
Did you see it? “Cast out”. Adam was “cast out”. All of us who are Adam’s children are cast outs. We are cast out from Eden. God’s punishment of Adam was the first example of His parental kindness. He expelled Adam, but left him a home and a way to gain a living — with enough pain to teach the lesson.
Jesus knew the sin of the Samaritan woman at the well. He knew her history, and He knew her heart. He saw past her pain and to her faith. It’s what he does …
We all have pain. When we have faith, the longing in us calls out to the longing in Him to bind us back in to the family.
When I think about this I’m brought back to the deepest and most touching of Jesus’s parables. The story of the Prodigal Son has so many echoes of the expulsion from Eden and the return to the New Jerusalem. Of course it doesn’t map exactly, but many of the elements are there — the departure and repentant return, the “so superior” elder brother. One thing you can almost hear in the telling of it is Jesus’s longing for us prodigal outcasts to wise up, repent and return to our Father saying “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee.”
The Samaritans are not so special. We’re all cast outs. We all have pain. Jesus sees us and will speak to us if we let Him.