Mind-Blowing

Do people who go to church ever make you feel guilty for not going to church? I go back and forth on this issue because sometimes people working in the church judge your value by your attendance. To their defense, that's the way in which the church itself is judged: by attendance. Therefore, church people create a culture of guilt if you miss a Sunday, and unchurched people don't want to feel like they have to go just for going...they want value in the experience.

And then there are those who feel they aren't accepted by the church -- for whatever reasons. Maybe new visitors feel judged, or like they are outsiders. What happens when those people who believe in God don't have a place to go and worship? Or how do they develop their ability to worship when they are not welcome in church? I know before I went to church regularly, I developed a relationship with God while running. And I remember my sister-in-law once said, "if there is a God, I talk to Him while I'm out on my bike." Seems to be somewhere out in nature is where a lot of people feel close to God. What about people who feel alienated from God because of church rules...might even use the church rules as their excuse for not getting to know God?

There's a rich scene in the Bible where Jesus not only meets such a person. He meets this woman - -kind of loose, maybe even slutty - -I don't know for sure, but she is a woman who seems to have slept around. Jesus doesn't judge her or avoid her. In fact, he seems to have a really fun and playful time teaching her about the salvation she can have with God through him. It's the only time in the Gospel, where, in my opinion, Jesus is actually playful in his teaching technique. It's like he is very conscious of the rich texture of this lesson and is smitten by the anticipation of seeing her light-bulb light up. (Like he's saying to himself, "oh I can't wait to see her face when she figures out who I am!")

In the parable about the Samaritan woman who Jesus meets at the well, two plots unfold. The first plot is the plainly seen event of what’s actually happening. The second plot is below the surface, and most important, the spiritual message of redemption and life—what’s possible with God.

On the surface, the story can be appreciated for the boundaries Jesus was willing to cross by communicating with this person: a woman and a Samaritan; and for the way in which he dismisses his disciples upon their discovery that he allowed a woman to draw his water; and for the playful way in which he teaches the woman, whose experience with Jesus ultimately converts a whole city. On it’s surface, this story shows how the cost of subverting the expectations of position and gender was far outweighed by the benefit of expanding God’s kingdom...regardless of church rules

At that time, I think Jews looked down on people from Samaria. Jesus and his disciples could be likened to a bunch of businessmen from Beverly Hills passing through the Tijuana slums and stopping for rest. The group traveling with Jesus was culturally considered to be better than the people of the town of Samaria. Jews didn't associate with Samaritans. In addition it was considered taboo for a man to talk to a woman alone in public and extra taboo for a respected man to talk to a harlot. Jesus was respected as a teacher/Rabbi at the very least, a prophet generally, and the Christ by his few faithful followers. But this woman didn't know him from Adam.

So when Jesus and his group got to the town and the disciples went ahead for food, it was mind-blowing that Jesus would ask this lady at the well if she could offer him a drink. And this is where the sub-plot begins to come alive: At face value the question from Jesus comes off as rhetorical, even playful. First, it is significant somehow…I don’t know how just yet, but it is symbolically significant that he is at the well that Jacob gave to Joseph. It’s Joseph’s ground and Jacob’s well. Isn't that mind-blowing? It's amazing because of the signicant roles both Jacom and Joseph have in the culture at that time. Pedagogically, it's like this location rich in tradition and history. If you want to gather knowledge from any location at that time, it would be from Jacob's well on Joseph's land...standing on the shoulders of giants of God's world.

What makes this metaphor even more full is that Jacob was known for his playfulness and joking personality - and a leader/father. So it is very in tune with the spiritual location for Jesus to ask a rhetorical question in a playful way: (John 4:7) “will you give me a drink?” I can almost hear his inflection to be: will you give me a drink? It’s funny like Jesus is amused and making a private joke by the whole situation as though to say, “Wouldn’t it be funny if you were to give me salvation? As if! When in fact he knows that God has invited this woman to come to him to hear whatever God would have him say. Jesus knows that he is meant to save this woman and she in turn will convert the town. But in that moment before it all unfolds, he is actually making a joke. A joke that only he understands.

She totally doesn't get it. She is sitting there wondering why on earth this respected teacher is even talking to her...let alone asking her to draw some water for him. It goes right over her head. The when he tells her if she only knew who was asking, she would have asked him for water because his water is living water. He is increasing her curiosity by teasing her…almost flirting with her. Not flirting with her like a man would flirt with a woman, but he is flirting with the difference in the actual roles and the spiritual roles that the two are playing in this scene by the well.

Then she kind of joins the banter as well - -but not knowing his meaning. She asks him if he can draw living water from Jacob’s well. Water that even Jacob didn’t draw. She basically still is focused on the surface - -of water coming out of the well - -and asks Jesus if he draws deeper than Jacob did. But she also seems to be in on the double entendre because she is saying something that today would be like: "are you man enough to get water from Jacob's well - - -can you fill Jacob's shoes?" She asks if he is greater than Jacob. As a sarcastic type of joke. THIS IS SO MIND-BLOWINGLY WILD. Of course we are sitting here screaming at the book, “Yes, he is greater than Jacob!” But at the time, she didn’t know. She was just going along with his contagious, flirty, fun mood. But Jesus did know. And I believe that he also knew that he was baiting her to come to a realization on her own about who she was talking to. Jesus is having fun but not at her expense…he is on fire with watching God's will at work.

Then Jesus turns the whole thing to a spiritual conversation. He shifts from dancing on the double-entendre and directly focuses on the salvation of this woman and his good news by saying, “Everyone who drinks this water” (the well water, Jacob’s legacy) “will be thirsty again, but those who drink the water I give them” (the news of God’s love for them) “will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

She still of course thinks he is talking about the water in the well that she drinks every day…she doesn’t yet get it, but he has hit a sensitive spot for her on a level more than just drinking water. She wants eternal life, but doesn't feel she has access to it because her perception was that her lifestyle and the church rules had prevented her from knowing the true and living God. But, she still thinks Jesus is talking about the actual water even though what he just said struck a chord in her.

Jesus is now ready for the plunge. He tells her to go get her husband, when he knows she has no husband…that she has had several husbands and is now with some guy; and he says so. And he knows that she identifies this as her weakness in life. He knows that this is her personal barrier…the one that her beliefs about which are preventing her from knowing she can have salvation with God’s love. He has brought her to her barrier of entry and is now poised to break it down with her. And he brought her there in a playful bantering way, but now has her rhetorically pinned on the mat.

And now she gets that he is much more than some witty conversationalist at the well. She knows that his message is about more than just water. She thinks he is a Jewish prophet and she immediately addresses the excuse about why she cannot break down her barrier of entry – why she cannot have salvation - -she states what is stopping her from seeking God: it’s because the established Jewish church had rules that one had to worship in Jerusalem in order to be saved by God. She throws it right up to Jesus and says she can't worship because she can't get to Jerusalem. Isn’t it interesting that she makes excuses for not worshipping rather than make excuses for having several partners? She understands that the way to salvation is not so much the tied to her behavior with men, as it is to do with her relationship with God. So she starts telling Jesus why she and other Samaritans have no access to God. It’s her perceived barrier. The old rule of "if you don't go to church, you won't be saved" is about to be blown out of the water (no pun intended).

And he breaks it right down for her by telling her that worship is not about location in a building or a city, but rather about the spiritual locations of Spirit and truth, “God is Spirit and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” These are the locations from which believers must worship in order to have a relationship with God and eternal life in his love. (BTW these are also the pedagogical locations from where the church needs to teach)

Truth is a location in the Spirit just as the well is a location in Sychar. Jesus’ well brings eternal life and so therefore must be the location of truth within the Spirit of God. WOW!!!!

She understands what he is saying, but doesn’t own it yet. You can tell because she says that she knows a Messiah is coming who will explain it all. Translation: "Yeah, I hear you but I don't understand you and someday someone will explain it." It’s a way of putting off trying to understand, of not dealing with it, of ending the conversation. But then, after all this, Jesus says, ‘I, the one speaking to you, I am he.”

I hear a big organ crescendo and zoom to close-up on the woman’s face - -frozen, jaw dropped. And cut! WHAT AN ENDING!!! We are totally left there imagining her face...her being completely blown away. And Jesus just sitting there with the biggest s--t eatin' grin on his face.

Of course it’s not the ending. We find out that her testimony turned the whole town around to be believers in the Spirit and from a place of truth. Major mind-blow, this one.