The Risk Worth Taking

The woman’s invitation,

Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; could this be the Messiah?”, 

turned out to be quite compelling because the Samaritan men went out of the city and were coming to Jesus.

It could have been simple human curiosity.  Nothing better to do.  Nothing to lose.

So, they came to Jesus.

Check Him out.

See for themselves what’s all the hubbub about.

They could tell that there was something different about the woman the moment she returned from the well not carrying the bucket.  She used to spend her days avoiding being seen which only proved the rumors true and sealed her already scarlet reputation.  

But, this day, some Tuesday or Thursday, she suddenly got out of hiding and went pubic.  As if all the things that kept her behind the closed shutters, all the things that shackled her to her past, that kept her doomed to repeating the same cycle of regrets were suddenly severed and she was free… truly free, from the inside out!

Some of them, of course, might have felt like fools.

Because leaving the city – its comfort, its traditions and the safety of crowd-sourcing the truth – is risky and it does make you feel like a fool.

But, sometimes we might be called to risk the going out part, in order to come face-to-face with Jesus.

Sometimes we have to risk leaving the fortified fortresses of our minds and hearts, the safety of black-and-white world in order to meet face-to-face, eyes-to-eyes, nose-to-nose with God-in-the-flesh…

Sometimes we have to risk being fools and listen to the outrageous word of a disreputable woman…

The Wait's Over

When what we know (or think we know!) of God recognizes Him as real and present and active - but only in the distant future or the distant past…

… when we feel like we arrived at the party too late, stumbling upon the cleaning crew clearing the tables of the remnants of the feast somebody else enjoyed…

… with the candles burnt out and all balloons deflated and nothing but the dried-up crumbs left behind for us…

… when the disappointment is mingled with the waning hope that with a bit of luck, next time around… we, too, perhaps will be invited and won’t miss it altogether…

When we are stuck between the God of Yesterdays and God of Tomorrows, with no God of Today anywhere in sight…

… we all reach out … we all go back to our old, dinged up, leaky buckets. 

And just as the woman’s fingers curl around the crooked handle, she hears, for the first time hears the Voice:

I AM here.

I have come…to you...

I AM speaking with you…

You are hearing My Voice…

I know you…

I love you…

I want you to know Me…

And this Voice, produced by the vocal cords of the Galilean-Carpenter-turned-Rabi resonates through the bones and marrow…

… through the thoughts of the mind and intentions of the heart…

… the loves and the fears… and…

… deepest secrets of the Samaritan woman…

And the whole conversation, from the very beginning, when He asked her for a drink of water from her old dinged up bucket... everything suddenly clicks together!

In her astonishment, her shaky fingers uncurl without her even realizing, and the bucket drops on the ground next to His dusty feet…

And she races away…

Like any one of us would run away from the sheer wonder of God of Today…

And she runs into the city uncontainable – nothing to hide, nothing to cover up – and calls out to her friends and pretend-friends, her safe-distance-keeping neighbors,

Come and see a man who told me all the things that I have done! He can't be the Christ, right?

System Overload

It turns out all this God-talk…

…all this releasing-God-the-Spirit-God-the-Father-out-of-our-little-national/religious/location-box talk…

…all this throw-all-your-pretenses-and-come-to-the-Father-as-you-are, bringing-Him-the-heart-and-the-soul; everything- that-is-you- real-you-from-the-inside-out; the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-and-hand-it-all-over-to-Him-in-worship talk…

… all this God-as-our-Father-as-our-daddy-as-our-tata-as-our-papa talk turns out to be just a bit too much for the Samaritan woman.

It kind of overloaded her systems.

It kind of blew up her circuit.

Maybe it was just all too different from everything she’s ever heard and experienced before regarding this God…

Maybe it felt a bit like tearing down the walls of something we can control, like ritual and replacing it with something we can’t control like relationship… where prayer suddenly becomes a dialogue, a conversation rather than a monologue…

Maybe it was just too unnerving, too personal and she felt exposed and vulnerable…

Maybe the woman was just too tired of talking, even all this great God-talk-ing, but no real life change…

For she knew that everything always remains the same… the same old, same old…

Whatever the reason, she looks at Jesus and decides she had enough,

I don’t know Sir. You and I can shoot the breeze as much as we want… but it’s not gonna change one jota of my god-forsaken life. I think I’m gonna wait until God Himself  shows up on my doorstep and THEN I’ll figure it all out. When God comes down from heaven to this messed up, screwed up earth… and sees and feels for Himself what it is like to be a human… from the inside out... when He gets His hands and His feet dirty with this mess we made of our lives… when He learns what it is to be thirsty and tired, weary and weak... and... rejected and betrayed... When the promised One I heard about shows up, I’ll be all ears… until then, well... it’s just words. In our case,  your word against mine…

And she turns back to her bucket and bends over to reach it. 

Filial Imprinting

Somebody might say,

Well, good for you! With that kind of dad, it’s easy for you to imagine God as a good father.  You don’t know MY dad. You don’t know the scars, the wounds that man left on my soul… He left his bloody boot footprints all over my broken heart and nothing can ever change that!

I admit that my dad made it easy for me to ruthlessly trust God the Father.  In some ways the older I get the easier it becomes to trust, because now that I am a parent, I can understand his unwavering heart towards me better… I have gained a new perspective on old misunderstandings and disagreements. 

But, the reality is, even the best dads on this earth fail. Even the best dads are insecure, and weak, and tired, and bent in their own way. Or simply, mortal. Even the best dads, if they are honest, would admit that they feel incomplete, truly inadequate for the daunting task of being a parent to another human being! To a son or a daughter. 

If the thought of parenting a son or a daughter doesn’t scare you spitless, you must not be a parent.

The human fallibility however doesn’t scare Jesus off from bringing the Father, His Father, front and center, into our lives.  Our lives of worship – whether we are in the church or the courtroom; in school or soccer field; kitchen or bedroom…

He knows that all of us – who grew up with great dads, and those who grew up with horrible dads, or no dads – we all need new parenting order… or rather, new filial imprinting.  Just as the movie Fly Away Home so poignantly portrays…

Closer Than You Think

My Dad and I live in two very different worlds.  Divided by a lot more than just tens of thousands of miles of airspace that hovers over the continents and oceans. On any ordinary day, we live two very different lives and even speak two different languages. It's beyond weird. 

And even though I think of my dad virtually every day, I haven’t talked to him in over a month.  I’ve been sick.  I’ve been tired. No real excuses except, maybe, that last time I called, my mom answered the phone.

Yesterday, just after I finished posting my latest entry about dads, Your Dad, My Dad,  I felt I really needed to talk to my dad. So, I called:

 

‘Alo!  It was him!

Tata... It's me. 

‘Alo?

Sometimes my Dad is hard of hearing so I have to repeat myself… louder.

TATA!

What followed… well, it wasn’t so much the kind words that he said…or what we talked about… It was that he was sooo incredibly HAPPY, just tickled ... to hear my voice!  So genuinely delighted and pleased and glad… just to hear the distinct vibration of my own vocal cords as they form syllables and words coming out of my mouth.

We chatted for a while… our usual stuff of gardening and science, neighbors and projects, health and weather, kids and school… But all through the conversation I could tell it really didn’t matter to him what we talked about, he was just so happy to have me on the other end of the line, and hear my voice… And that made me happy… just to have my Dad on the other end of the line, and hear his voice...

The feeling lingered long after I hung up the phone… and I wondered if our God… our Father is just as happy, just as tickled to hear our voice… to hear my voice…calling Him...

Dad? … Dad?  TATA!

Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know. Jeremiah 33:3

Your Dad, My Dad

What an outrageously bold imagery this is – God…as Father.

We all have fathers. Dads. We carry their genes, semblance, little idiosyncrasies. In some small or big way, we display to the world what our father is like. Handsome. Ordinary. Hard-working. Smart. Shady. Kind. Bossy.

A complete stranger once told me that they recognized me, because I was a spitting-image of my dad! Even if I wanted to, I couldn't hide that I am my father's child!

This is as personal as it gets.

For better or for worse.

We don’t know what Svetlana’s dad was like.

He could have been a wonderful, caring, present father who made her feel loved and special in a thousand different little ways every day; who made her believe she could do anything she set her mind to… who gave her wings to fly and rubber-sole shoes so she could run a marathon… A father who had no greater badge of honor than being her dad…

Or he could have been a foul-mouthed, verbally and sexually abusive shattered soul who drowned his brokenness and inadequacies in alcohol, drugs, pornography or all of the above.

He could have been strict, rigid and demanding, never-good-enough, impossible-to-please George Banks.

Or a Darth Vader!

He could have been detached or absent. Physically absent. Emotionally absent. Never there when you need him the most.

Or, most likely, some unique, unrepeatable mix, a combination of all those at some time or another.

Somehow, none of these scenerios - confusing or even harmful - seem to deter Jesus from bringing Father – His Father – back into the picture of worship.  Whether you had The Best Dad in the World or the Worst – whatever your filial imprinting is… Jesus in turn says,

Take all that and bring it with you – all of you – the good, the bad, and the ugly and offer it to My Father as you worship Him. Bring your honest, sincere, real you and give it to Him... and He'll transform it... He'll transform YOU... And My Father will become your Father…

Heart of Worship

We get so easily muddled up and confused.

We use religion as a flimsy cover-up instead of a solid-brick path to true freedom.

Majoring in minors.  Missing the melody for the notes, the forest for the trees, the baby... for the bath water!

In the woman’s mind, the primary question about worship is a debate! An argument about location, selectively chosen based on tradition, national identity or even personal style preference.

Which church do you go to?

Oh, I don't do THAT! I worship on a golf course every Sunday morning.

Jesus’ response to her in effect is this,

Woman, trust Me. The ‘where’ doesn’t matter. The time is coming when neither in church nor at a golf course shall you worship the Father.

This must have sounded as radical to her ears as it does to ours.

It’s like breaking open a bottle of perfume with a crack and pouring it out… out of the church and out of the golf course… spilling it over into the kitchen and the bathroom… into the bedroom and the study… across the soccer field and concert hall… school and restaurant... movie theater and art studio… conference room and courtroom….

But, Jesus does something even more radical than that… something perhaps even more drastic than unleashing God out of the church building and location debate.

He takes the foggy ambiguity out and brings a National-Geographic-quality resolution, the 20/20 vision into our act of worship.

He brings… the Father... back to our worship! Our Daddy. Our heavenly Tata! Abba! Papi…

He puts a father’s face on the face of God. 

The Invisible Omnipotent, Creator Almighty Unchanging – same yesterday, today, and forever, All-wise One and Only President of Presidents and King of Kings, Eternal Spirit – GOD – wears a father’s face. 

Your Daddy's and mine...

Caught Naked!

Like most of us when caught naked, even with our clothes on, the woman’s immediate response is to seek cover.  And there is no better place to hide than in the vast ambiguous realm of religion. It provides practically limitless array of diversions, the juicy bones to chew on which easily deflect our eye from the pain of excruciatingly personal exposure. She throws one at Jesus:

Oh, I see you are a prophet! Well, then explain this to me: Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that Jerusalem is the only place where men ought to worship. So, which is it?

If you are from God, why don't you solve your big-God problems. Take the perennial Us vs. the Them conundrum. The here and the There. God might be present in name only.  Kind of God-In-Absentia. Where worship is a performance but God is not the audience.

The best place to hide is in plain sight, using God – or whatever we mean under that three-letter-word - as a smoke-screen.

Take it a step further, zoom out a bit, and you find this us-them conflict escalating and leading to human blood splattered all over the pages of history and the cover pages of your daily newspaper.  The ubiquitous justification of unimaginable evil done by men… women… to men…women...

...End justifying the means. …Covering up ‘the lesser evil’.in the name of some higher good. In the name of God. Allah. In the name... of Christ?

While all along the Cross still stands – undisturbed at the center stage - with Christ – God-with-us, God-in-the-woundable-killable-body - just like yours and mine... still bleeding….

… still offering this bloody cover…

...still offering life…

...to the villain and the victim …

... if only they would come…

...naked and

...empty-handed...

... to Him!

Can You Bottle Living Water?

It’s so easy to prepackage God.  Or, at least, try to.  It’s so easy to assume that, because of our experience or knowledge or even our history with Him, we know what He would say or do in a particular situation, so we think there is really no need to ask Him.

Why bother? What’s there to ask?

Or we ask Him, without really waiting to hear what His answer is. For we already know it, right?

I’ve done it myself many times.  I still do.

My kids also do it to me all the time.  They think they know what I think and nine out of ten times, they are wrong! And even if they are right, what they don’t realize is that I want the dignity of the relationship rather than a vending-machine response.

I am not advocating that we re-invent the wheel every time, but Jesus’ response to the Samaritan woman is so outside-the-box unpredictable one has to pause and scratch his or her head. 

There is an incredible volume of truth imbedded in the woman’s lie, and Jesus’ reciting – restating – it back to her, probably shook the woman’s foundation of morality, relationships and view of right and wrong.

It’s that moment when you realize that you may be standing fully clothed, but still be stark naked in another’s eyes. 

You Can't Drink Living Water Out of the Old Bucket

The only way we know how to cover up our shame is to sew a see-through garment of fig-leaf lies.  

We are quick to shake our heads and wag our fingers at cowardly actions of others when they are caught – adulterers and thieves, politicians and murderers, especially when it becomes public domain, their dirty laundry aired on Twitter or national TV.

But Jesus is not about public humiliation…. airing our dirty laundry. He brings up the husband topic only because He knows that’s this woman’s particular mode of thirst-quenching. And, more importantly, it’s also the unquenchable source of her shame and need to hide.

We all have our own.  We all are deeply broken people digging for wells to satisfy our thirst… or deeply buried in denial.

He came to call us out of denial and hiding holes of shame into His light… but we must first see for ourselves… recognize that one can’t drink the living water while shackled to the old bucket. One can’t see the Light if his head is deeply buried in denial.

So, instead of condemning the woman for being not only an adulteress but also a big fat liar He actually agrees with her?!!! This is what He says to her in effect:

You are right, darling. You did have five guys who shacked up with you… who used to be your husbands… but if they really had been the husbands they were meant to be, you would not call them ‘used-to-be’s now… And the guy who is sleeping between your pure 1500 TC Egyptian cotton sheets right now…that guy? Nah, he isn’t a real husband either… So, you did speak the truth there, honey. You don’t have a husband. 

The Big Fat Virgin-Snow White Lie

The request,

Go call your husband and come back here,

must have felt to the woman like a big ice-cold bucket of water over her head. 

She’d rather forget. 

She’d rather avoid the topic.

She’d rather stuff her demons down and slam the lid over them. Cover up how filthy, and used, and dirty she felt… how scared and lonely and lost she woke up in the morning and fell asleep at night…some nights hoping she won’t wake up to see the light of the next day…

How could she even begin to explain to the Stranger the mess she is in… even if she wanted to… even if He wanted to hear…?

So, she looks Him in the eye, then looks away into the swirling desert sand, and whispers softly into the wind the biggest, the fattest, virgin-snow-white lie:

I don’t have a husband. 

The woman of course knows that it is impossible to lie to God. Humans may be fooled by appearances. In fact, we humans are fooled by appearances all the time. Ironically, attempting to fool the Man, it is the woman who's been fooled this time... taken in by the appearance of the skin and flesh, bones and muscles, the Galileean accent... She was fooled by the appearance and missed the God standing right next to her... skin-and-bones, cloak and sandals... T-shirt and jeans... 

Skin and bones, jeans and sneakers notwithstanding, God not only sees through our big fat, or what we call 'little white' lies, but He sees beyond them.

He sees our fear, and our brokenness, and desperate efforts to quench the soul-thirst… to satisfy the craving of the heart which morphs into the craving for food, or sex, or power, control, acceptance, diversion, …Until it takes a life of its own, violent and uncontrollable, devouring us… from the inside out.

He knows that the craving is too strong for us, turning us into desperate people. And desperate people tend to do desperate things.

Not So Fast

The woman is ready to close the deal. She is tired of trudging the long dusty road to the well and back, day after day after day.  If there is a way to quench her thirst without ever seeing the well and the bucket again, she is all for it.

One would think that Jesus would jump at this perfect opportunity.  That He would be just as ready (or more!) to close the deal, since He knows the vast implications on the woman’s eternal destiny.

The woman recognizes her need and is ready to receive His free gift. What more could one ask for?

It turns out the way of eternal life is full of sharp curves and unexpected twists.

Instead of closing the deal, He dumps a conversational ice-bucket over the woman’s head, bringing her back to reality she may not be quite as ready to face.

Go call your husband and come back here.

Huh? 

First go, get your husband and bring him here.

The sand is shifting under the woman’s feet.

Husband?? Why is He asking me about my husband?

This conversation is becoming a little too personal for her taste. Too personal for anyone’s taste, especially if one has a history.

And this woman has history worthy of Herodotus. Or Madame Bovary. Or Lady Gaga.

Got Thirst?

Our thirst is meant to take us to a place where we can’t get to on our own.   

I can’t manufacture the wholeness and satisfaction in and by myself.  You can’t manufacture it by yourself.  I can’t do it for you. You can’t do it for me. Much disappointment, anger and resentment in this world would be lessened if not eradicated if only we grasped this and released ourselves and each other from such impossible responsibility.

When we try to quench it on our own, it only intensifies the craving.

Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again and again… but…

Sometimes it takes an entire lifetime to get to this ‘but’.

…but

 anyone

who drinks of the water that

I will give him

shall never thirst;

but the water that

I will give him

will become

 in him

 a well of water

springing up to eternal life.  John 4:13-14

If there ever was a paradigm shift, it’s right here.

These kinds of statements got Jesus in trouble. And it’s these kinds of statements represent a door of hope for all the thirsty souls who have tried everything and feel like they are at the end of the rope, hanging by the last loose thread.

I can't imagine any person, living or dead, making such claim and being taken seriously.

Anyone?

Never thirsty?

Become IN him (or her!) a well…

Bursting forth

Into life…

And more life..?

Yeah, right!

But, something about Jesus, something about the person who spoke these words and the way He said them made Svetlana take Him seriously. And if taken seriously, only a fool would turn down such an offer.

Svetlana may be all kinds of things, but she certainly is not a fool.

Sir, give me this water so I won’t ever get thirsty, won’t ever have to come back to this well again!

Fear Of Missing Out

Recently I was on a plane sitting next to a woman who was describing the dizzying array of her globe trotting adventures. She had a long list of must-see places that she was in the process of checking off.  I caught her on her way from Machu Picchu to her home in Georgia, with the next day flight to a resort in Mexico. 

And she was already talking about the great pyramids of Giza and Sydney Opera House.

It was truly impressive. I marveled at her energy, because I was getting exhausted by simply listening to her. 

Then, without even knowing where it came from, I blurted before I could stop myself…

I think I might have been trying to find a connection in my own life to her quite un-relatable experiences…

Or, I might have just been bragging about the newly acquired addition to my urban dictionary.

Have you heard of FOMO? I said and immediately wanted to kick myself in the teeth.  But, I stuck my foot in my mouth and it was too late to take it out. What was I going to say, Never mind?, and switch the topic to weather?

No,  the young woman replied, not quite sure where this conversation is going.

Well...   I proceeded slowly, it’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet.  I always  feel like I have to try every dish set out, fearing I may miss an opportunity to experience an exquisite combination of flavors and textures… even after I am not even hungry anymore… even if  I am already quite full…I just have to try it…even if it makes me miserable later… It’s FOMO… Fear Of Missing Out.

At that point, I stomp on my own foot,

You idiot! Just shut up!

I look up, knowing for certain that I have offended the young woman and her quiet husband sitting across the isle from us, listening in on our conversation.

But her big brown eyes are wide open, ablaze with recognition.

I know EXACTLY what you are talking about!

I glance at her husband and he is nodding gratefully.

The woman adds sheepishly,

It’s kind of what I am doing with all this travelling… I am afraid I will miss out on something incredible, and important, and I feel like I have to see all, and nothing is ever quite enough…her voice trails off. Then she looks at me,

What about you? What's your FOMO? What are you afraid that you would miss out on?

Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again…

FOMO

Jesus knows something a lot of us have a really hard time grasping.

The kingdom of God is not about comparison and competition.  It’s not about who’s bigger and who’s greater, it’s not about polls and ratings, score-keeping and one-up-men-ship. As if the universe is the giant see-saw and the only way I can go up is if I put you down.

For it appears that God has a knack  for the so-called losers, for the overlooked and insignificant, a special soft spot towards all the trampled upon and useless.

Jesus doesn’t bite the woman’s bait. He ignores her question and answers the unspoken one, echoing from her heart.

Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again… John 4:13

Everyone…

That’s all of us,. We all alike, sooner or later, get thirsty… again… and again…

Every. One. Of us.

No exceptions.

Men and women. The strong and the weak.  The smart and the stupid.  The beautiful and the plain. The rich and the poor. The fat and the skinny. Jews and Palestinians. Christians and Muslims. Religious and atheists. Athletes and actors. Politicians and constituents. 

The pulpit and the pew. 

Stick any label you wish on any person who ever lived and you’ll discover a thirsty soul underneath.

Even the person whose life appears so amazingly wonderful on their Facebook page or on the cover of a magazine.

Temporarily we may quench our thirst. For a short while, we are looking good. We are managing just fine on our own, thank you very much.

But then it hits us.

GOD! I am thirsty… and nothing, nothing that this world has to offer quite satisfies…

Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again…

But, we feel like we have to try, to taste every well there is in order to make sure we didn’t miss out on something. 

There is actually an acronym describing this condition plaguing our race not just from the dawn of social media but from the dawn of humanity. 

Have you heard of...

FOMO?

Fear

Of

Missing

Out

Appointment with God-in-Disguise

In that very moment, the woman is entering the stage of human history, front and center, by engaging in a seemingly random conversation with the thirsty Stranger, and she doesn’t even know it!

She is dropping Jacob’s name in the face of the Eternal Son of God standing in front of her in the beat-up body of a tired Galileean... as a value-added to her thirst-ridden existence... as a one-up-menship trump card meant to put this preposterous Stranger in His place.

Who do You think You are, Mister? You don’t think You are greater than our highest and the best, flawed and imperfect as he may be, do you?

Good question. Just minutes before Jesus asked the same, with a slightly different inflection:

If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink’…

It’s this who that matters most of all.  

One can only imagine what goes on through Jesus’ mind as He humors the woman.

Aaaah, Jake! Love that guy! So passionate! So intense! Wouldn’t let go… so eager, but couldn’t wait… just couldn’t wait… he had to get it in his way… on his timetable…… Until… of course… I remember that night we wrestled and I had to do what I had to do… it hurt… both of us… I wish there was a different way…but he finally adjusted his pace after that… not rushing ahead of Me all the time…finally stopped scheming and manipulating, as if I need his help to bless him…

He looks at woman, His love reaching deeper than her thirst…

His love reaching deeper than her need for validation… valuable to Him as she is, no name dropping, no list of accomplishments, without any achievements and awards.  Beyond ruined reputation, beyond hurt, beyond disappointments, beyond the emptiness left behind after each futile attempt to quench her thirst with the leaky bucket…

 For, in His eternal divine planner...

... in the Son of God’s everlasting schedule...

...there was an entry in His own handwriting... 

...a high-importance appointment flagged in His Stephen Covey’s Day-Timer,

Samaria, Jake’s Well

Noon till (couple of extra days?)

Facetime with Svetlana

Render bucket useless…

Lame Claim to Fame

When we are at the end of our resources, when all our human buckets have been exhausted and the soul remains empty…

…it is hard to imagine that somebody, somewhere… anybody, anywhere could have access to a thirst-quenching well… that there even exists on a map a well of water that satisfies this soul-craving…

Where do you get that living water?

Where?

Paris? Chicago? Timbuktu? New York City?

Where?

Where?

Isn’t that the question we all ask when our self-sufficiency is neatly stripped down? When all our gifts and competencies turn out to be quite inadequate for the immense task of life?

When we feel we wasted our opportunities and failed miserably? When we become weak and powerless? When we are seen as just useless used-to-be-s?

Of course, some of us are too terrified to admit weakness and powerlessness.

Some of us can’t accept that we could be quite useless… so we feel compelled to engage in a little name-dropping.

To a little one-up-men-ship...

A little added value to my hopeless predicament… ... my lame claim to fame…

The woman rakes her brain looking for the greatest man she could think of in that moment… the man who knew the thirst and who dug this very well…

The patriarch Jacob... whom Angel of the Lord named Israel after they wrestled all night long, the match that left Jacob with a dislocated hip .

Jacob the father of the nation.

Jacob the liar and the cheater.

Jacob the supplanter.

Jacob the cripple.

Jacob the well-digger. 

This is the man she chooses as the highest and the best in her universe.

She drops his name like a trump card, looking square in the eyes of Jesus:

You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You?

The Well is Deep

The woman eyes the man.

Oh, you are one of THOSE… she thinks, scraping the garbage heap of her memories… Overpromise, underdeliver.  I know your type, the smooth-talkers good with cheap words that flow freely...

Words are cheap. The truth, however, has a price tag, she discovered. A price tag, that few… so very few seem willing to pay.

Sir, she looks at Jesus…. The tired, the thirsty, the empty-handed Jesus who just minutes ago asked her for a cup of cold water. There is something different about this man, but she can't quite put her finger on it. 

Sir, she wants to say, You are out of Your mind. You have no idea what You are talking about. For, this soul thirst… this unquenchable dehydration of the heart is… she scrambles for words to capture the impossible predicament of the human heart, and decides it’s hopeless. So, she addresses Him like she would a mentally disabled child. It may sound condescending, but clearly He needs to be reminded of the simple facts of the present grim reality.

Sir, You have nothing to draw with…

You are empty-handed. You don’t even have a beat-up, dinged bucket in Your hand.

… and the well is deep.

This well, sir, is deep. Deeper than…

… the loneliness of a foreigner far away from home…

…. the dejection of an unloved woman while her husband is in another's arms…

… the fear of a child lost in the dark of the splintered lives of adults…

… the powerlessness of a man to make good on his promise…

... the despair of the beloved comedian who couldn't find a drop of water anywhere to quench his thirst in all his success, in all his friends, and family, and fans, in all his accomplishments, in all his wealth... in all the gifts that this world can offer... including his own gift of bringing happiness... and laughter...to the world?
, 

Do You have a bucket for THAT well Sir?

Who do You think You are Sir? 

From Beggar to Giver

Jesus doesn’t bite the bait. He doesn’t go into politics.  He doesn’t go into the us-vs.-them debate that proves to nobody in particular who’s-right-and-who’s wrong.  He doesn’t get entangled in the centuries-old battles that feed the mucky pool of today’s fears and prejudices and hatred.

Because He knows - He understands - that there is deeper hunger, deeper thirst that no well of this earth can satisfy.

So, He answers that question, the real question. The unspoken cry-question of the unquenchable thirst of the woman’s heart made evident by her empty life-bucket:

If you knew the gift of God…

If you knew who it is who says to you,

‘Give Me a drink’,

You would have asked Him,

And He would have given you

…Living water. John 4:10

Suddenly, the One asking becomes the One offering. 

The beggar becomes the Giver.

If only we knew… the gift… of God…

If only we knew WHO it is who says to us…

‘Give me a drink…’

…

If only we knew that it’s O.K. to come…

That our thirst is meant to draw us to come…

Empty-handed and brokenhearted…

With our useless buckets upturned…

 

To come…

…To Him..

And ask…

I am thirsty.

I am hungry for love.

I am desperate to be known and loved…

I am at the end of the rope…

All my wells are dried up…

And my heart is parched and unquenchably thirsty…

I am at the end of this fraying rope of my fraying life…

It's Complicated

Clearly the man was real and not a figment of her imagination or the trick of the blistering sun.  As real as the well was real and as real as her thirst. And His thirst.

But, the moment she heard Him speak – Would you give Me a drink - she forgot all about the well, and the empty bucket in her hand and her thirst as well as His.

The man spoke with an unmistakable accent.  He was a Jew!

This instantly complicated the matter. As borders and nationalities tend to complicate matters in general.

The Israelis and the Palestinians.

Russians and Ukrainians.

Serbs and Albanians.

You can pick just about any border and suddenly things get complicated. And it’s much better to keep the safe distance because it can get really really messy and really really complicated really really fast.

And, in this case, it was as messy and complicated as it gets.

But the Man didn't stay away.

He didn't keep a safe distance. He intentionally, deliberately took this detour

How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” Jews in those days wouldn’t be caught dead talking to Samaritans. John 4:9

A Jew. A Samaritan.

A man. A woman.

This Man, however, didn’t seem to care. 

He didn’t appear to be concerned about the appearances.

He didn’t seem to be afraid to get close – as close as His lips on her bucket.  

This man is criss-crossing every line there is back and forth.  He is pushing the envelope beyond anything this woman ever experienced around any other man, Jew or Samaritan.

The woman shifts her weight from one leg to another.

What's his deal? She wonders, not realizing it's only going to get even more interesting. 

Unquenchable

How did it all get so complicated? She kicks the dirt under her feet, creating a trail of little puffs which quietly settle as she moves on. Where did that sense of winning the cosmic lottery disappear?

All she could see now is this vast desert… All she could feel was being held captive by this wretched no-man-land.

Neither here.

Nor there.

One foot here.

One foot there.

Both arms outstretched, grasping here and grasping there. Left empty-handed. 

Belonging nowhere. A stranger. An outcast. Her thirst growing stronger…moving her… pushing her deeper and deeper…

Despair has no bottom.

And to think that she used to believe that God cared.  That He cared for her… That the Almighty Creator of the Universe would bother Himself…with somebody…like… her…

So thirsty.

So lost.

So… insignificant and… worthless.

A garbage heap of useless.

The tears welling up from deep down and the scorching heat of the mid-day are playing with her vision.  She is almost there... and she sees... what looks like a man… sitting at the well.  

I am seeing things that don’t exist! I am going insane! There can be no man at the well at this hour!

The ground under her feet is shifting as she feels like she is losing the grip on her mind.

But then the chimera opens His mouth – His lips cracked and parched just like hers. He is talking! He is talking to her. A simple, obvious request using ordinary, commonplace words.

Give Me a drink. 

Just Another Ordinary Day?

She assumed it was going to be just another ordinary Wednesday… or was it Thursday?

Here we go again. Same old, same old, she thought as she rolled out of the creaky bed into the predictable drudgery which blurred one day into another. Swirling the same yesterday’s dirt with her broom like she did the day before and the day before that.

Waiting for hours to pass, until the scorching heat settles the dusty streets from all its swirly noises and all the juicy gossip eagerly exchanged at the hearsay market. Sheltered by the bristling sun from the bristling tongues, she would finally step outside and leave the rickety protection of her house to get the water she needs…

…to quench her thirst… ah so thirsty…

…to wash her dirt… feel so dirty…

It hadn't always been like this though.

She had dreams. She truly did. Now she calls them illusions.

She had hopes.  She honestly did. Now she calls them hallucinations.

 

She had… faith? Now all that was left was bitter cynicism.

She used to feel like she was actually the lucky one. 

The mixture in her blood made her… how shall I say? Different? Perhaps, uniquely equipped to enjoy the best of both worlds. Back then, she felt like she won some cosmic lottery and her jagged heritage lines have fallen to her in beautiful places. That she could appreciate, that she could savor like no other the goodness of the Almighty God poured out generously beyond limits and beyond borders.

The mixture in her blood carved her features that made her look elusive and exotic. No other woman quite like her. This gave her an irresistible appeal, a magnetic attraction among men but it also awakened deeply buried insecurities and thinly veiled jealousy among women.

Somehow, for quite a while, she managed to remain oblivious to both.

Energize Me

It doesn’t say that Jesus was grumpy but it does say that He was worn out. He got worn out by the journey just like the rest of us.

So, being tired that He was, He pushed Himself just a little more… a bit further…He spread out the remnants of His energy like I scrape the sides of the butter dish to use up the last bit and stretch it out over a piece of French bread, barely reaching the ends?

Or did He reached out for a quick-fix…?

…Grabbed an energy drink? Got a double-shot of espresso?  (Not that there is anything wrong with coffee, especially not squared!)

Actually, He did none of that.

He did something so old-fashioned and ordinary. Something borderline boring and old-people-ish.

He sat down. He… rested. He leaned back against the wall, stretched out His tired legs and closed His eyes for a moment.

I need to remember this.

Tired = take a break.

Sit down.

Relax. 

Take a nap. 

It may feel like such a terrible waste of time. With so much to do.  So much to accomplish.

Gifts to utilize.

Opportunities to cease.

But, you may find that you actually need it, ‘cause you never know what adventure could be waiting for you around the next corner. 

Are We There Yet?

Nobody knows when and how the bustling epicenter of busy religious activity turned into a breeding ground of score-keeping, comparison and competition.

Perhaps at some point the show became more important than the substance.  The PR more important than prayer.  The reputation more important than the relationship. 

But, Jesus wouldn't engage in the game.  He would have none of it. He let the religious professionals to their own little charts and score boards, He gathered up His crew and headed north, out of Judea and... straight for the Middle-of-Nowhere. The Wasteland of In-Between.

I find this so incredibly counter-cultural, so counter-intuitive - leaving behind thriving, successful ministry on the upswing and ...? - but I won’t go there. 

We see Him on the road for several hours already and by now He is worn out by the journey.

Worn out by the journey…

Journeys are tiring. We just returned from a long international trip and it was exhausting.

The act of leaving.  All the decisions: What do I take? What do I leave behind?  Who are my travelling companions? Counting the baggage we all carry on - theirs? Mine?

The upheaval of change. 

The loss of familiarity.

The hope waiting at the destination.

The art and the science of travelling light.

Then, we are in transit.

Neither here nor there. Firmly planted in mid-air for what feels like f-o-r-e-v-e-r. The destination not in sight.

ARE we THERE YET???

Everyone is exhausted and a little grumpy.