New Thoughts (9/14/05-9/21/05)
Before us we have a fine corrective for that spiritual abuse of trusting in the Providence of God. His Providence is so very important to know and understand. It is the source of great comfort in trying times. However, we must always bear in mind that His Providence is never an excuse for our sloth. I must look upon the disciples’ role in this current vignette. It consists of but one thing: They had gone to the city to buy food. Isn’t that something? Here they were traveling with the very Bread of Life, the Source of all Sustenance, the One Who feeds the sparrows, and they must go get food not only for themselves, but for Him as well!
How can that be? Well, we really need not look much further than those sparrows to which Jesus points. True, they do not sow or reap, and they have no barns to call their own that they might stock. Equally true, the Father feeds them, sees to their provision (Mt 6:26). Yet, the sparrow that just sits all day long in its nest, refusing to lift a feather in support of itself will not long remain alive. In this we are no different. It is true that God will provide. It is true that the cattle on a thousand hills are His. Indeed, it is true that everything around us, inclusive of us, is His. Yes, He will provide and we will not be found wanting for any good and needful thing as we serve Him. Yet, nowhere will you find Him instructing us to simply hang about with open mouths waiting to be fed.
What I take away is simply this: Though we serve Him with everything that is within us, this does not excuse us from those so-called mundane labors. We must eat. Except in the most exceptional of cases, that requires that we somehow procure that which we would eat, and that we find means to prepare it for our consumption. Whatever means we may employ towards that end, we will be required to employ some means. We may grow and harvest. We may purchase our ingredients, combining and cooking them after our desire. We may opt to exchange our monies for the convenience of a meal prepared beyond our own skills (or merely prepared in advance). Whatever method we choose, there remains effort involved on our own part. We are fools to expect that He will simply drop off our MREs on our doorstep. We are equally foolish to think He cannot, should there be a real need, to do exactly that. He is able to provide, whatever may come. However, inasmuch as we are able to provide for ourselves, it is incumbent upon us as children of God to do so. It is incumbent upon us as family to place no unnecessary burden upon our relatives by our own laziness.
Now, I would note this thing, as well. The disciples went to purchase this food. They did not, at least on this occasion, simply gather the remnants of the field, as was legal for the truly indigent. No, they had wherewithal by which to purchase this food they would eat. We are not told how it is that the disciples had cash at hand, yet it is clear that this was always the case. Recall that Judas was known to have been embezzling from their common account, of which that one had charge. We are not told, as I say, how it is that the disciples had cash at hand, yet they clearly did. It might, I suppose, have come from contributions, but somehow I think not. There would be those missions on which they were sent that would require them to subsist solely on what those they ministered to would provide. Yet, there is nothing to suggest that this was the norm for them. What does appear to be the norm is that they maintained a base of operations in Capernaum, where Peter, James, and John were from, and where their families maintained an established trade in fishing. It would seem not unreasonable that this trade continued, and provided a means to the ministry for such occasions as that before us.
This would also seem to make more sense of the fact that Jesus always seemed to have boats at hand when He wished to cross the Sea of Galilee. It also makes far more understandable Peter’s decision to go home and do some fishing when Jesus was dead. Indeed, it could serve to cast that decision in a wholly different light. It does not lessen the despair that Peter was feeling at that point, a despair clearly shared by all the disciples. It does, however, make his decision a far more natural reaction. It was not that he was giving up on the whole deal and going back to what he had been doing before, at least not necessarily so. It was simply that this was an established practice. It seems perfectly believable that throughout the three years that this ministry had been active, there had been times when fishing was the order of the day for the ministry. There had to have been times when they were back at home base, else why have a home base at all?
The lesson for me from this is that we ought not see our daily labors as being so disconnected from our spiritual activities. We ought, indeed, to look upon our daily labors as a part of that ministry to which we have been called. We ought to be looking upon it as the means that God has chosen for our provision in this time, as well as a possible field in which we are supposed to be standing as His emissaries. Now, it should be obvious that the work we do in the workplace will not suddenly change in nature because we have begun to view it as ministry work rather than something wholly detached from our faith.
Do you know, this is exactly what modern society has been trying to get us to think! Every effort of the antichrist spirit of this world is striving to get us to put our belief in God into a little cubicle where we can visit it only at specific hours, and ignore it the rest of the week. Somehow, there is this belief in their minds – a belief that has sadly leaked into our own thinking – that religion is something to occupy our spare moments. It is not supposed to inform our work habits, our political habits, our entertainment choices. No, no, says the world. You can have it all! You can have work habits that look no different than ours, you can have your say in politics – just keep God out of it. You can go ahead and participate in this culture to the full. We won’t mind if you excuse yourself for an hour or two to go to church and satisfy that religious quirk of yours. Just so long as you keep it to yourself! And we’ve bought into this! Though we like to think otherwise, though we struggle to behave otherwise, the reality is that we’ve heard it for so long that it really has become part of our thinking. The workplace is for working, and the church is for churching. The private and the public persona need not coincide overmuch.
What a disastrous and destructive belief that is! How we become splintered in our thinking, and thereby tortured in our emotions. The problem is that being informed by the Holy Spirit, we know that this is not right. We know our work attitude, our work ethic, and our work speech ought to be no different than our attitude, ethic, and speech in the house of worship, and we also know that the difference in us is vast. We are struggling daily to maintain a sense that this work we do is about more than profits, more than going to town to buy food. It’s still about God, even if nobody around us gets it. Even if it is difficult to impossible to see how our actions in that setting can have anything to do with the kingdom, yet we must know this. God has set us in that place. He has set us there, assuming that we are being earnest in pursuing His plans, that it may serve as the means of provision for us. Yet, He has assuredly set us there for far more. If it were only a question of provision, we would doubtless all be farmers, and perhaps the happier for it. No, but He has put is in the specific places of labor that we occupy for this reason above all others: that He might be glorified in what we do!
Now that changes everything, doesn’t it? Suddenly, it’s not about me. It’s not about my boss. It’s not about the profit and loss statements, or whatever investors may be involved. It’s about one thing, and one thing only: what does my work say about my God? What does my integrity, or lack of it, say about my God?
Do I witness to my coworkers? Many would look upon my day and answer in the negative. Indeed, there are days when I would rather think that I don’t as well, for if that day is my witness to God’s goodness, then I’m a really lousy witness. The truth, however, is that I do. For better or for worse, I do stand as witness to my God. Much as parents are reminded that we teach our children far more by our actions than we ever will by words, so it is with our service as God’s witnesses. We are not only witnesses when we strive to be so. We are not only testifying about God when we shout about Him. Our every action, our every word, our every choice offers a testimony about the God we serve. Now, full disclosure requires me to say that a great deal of our testimony, as applied to God, is lies and deception. What is really being testified to is our own fallen condition. However, the testimony heard and seen by those who observe our lives will not, in the end, be thought to be about us, but about that God who is our God. It is that lesson I took from John 4:1-2, the disciples baptized, but it was credited to Jesus. We do, but God gets the credit. The same is true of our mistakes. We do, but God gets the blame.
Oh! That I might walk worthy of Him who has called me, who has set me in this setting in this time. Oh! That the unintentional witness of my life might reflect well upon Him who has given me life. God, I know I have failed so greatly at this. I have seen the simmering anger, the muttered imprecations, the foulness that comes from my mouth. I have seen who I am at work, and in so many ways, Lord, it disgusts me. I know, too, that this garbage that has been my example reflects on You, though not truthfully, and I must beg Your forgiveness that I have thus stained Your perfection. God! I don’t want to misrepresent You. I want to be that which You are making me to be. I want to know consistency, Lord, in the man I am in Your house, and the man I am at work. I know it can be, I know it is possible because You, Holy Spirit, are with me and I am in You. Thank You, Holy Father, that You have not forsaken this poor worker. Thank You for not giving up on me. Sweet Potter, fashion me after Your purpose, and let me fill that purpose of Yours to the very best of my ability and more, as You will and work in me. Thank You.
As I was rereading the passage this morning, it struck me that there is yet another way in which this conversation might be understood. In verse 9, it is made clear that this woman knows full well how Jews view their Samaritan neighbors. It also gives us insight into what this woman is thinking about as Jesus gives reply. Her thoughts are doubtless working over this ancient prejudice and the superiority that the Jews beheld in themselves. Into those thoughts come the words of Jesus, “If you knew who you ware talking to! If you had real understanding of God!” Considering the immediate past of this conversation, isn’t it likely that she hears in this nothing more than a confirmation of that prejudice? After all, while we have very clear recognition of Whom she is talking to as we read the account, she had no such understanding. He was just a stranger at the well, and a Jew. What possible reason could she have to expect to find herself conversing with God here?
Surely, she interprets Jesus’ words based on her mundane expectations. He offers her living water. Can she really be expected to be flying back in memory to the words of long dead prophets? Not likely. It would be much more reasonable for her to connect that phrase ‘living water’ with the difference between a cistern and a spring. Perhaps this man does not know where he is sitting. He thinks that this is but a cistern, a storage container holding nothing better than the runoff from spring’s rainstorms. Therefore, she moves to correct him. After all, she is aware that this is a spring-fed well, and not only that, but it is a spring that has continued to provide for thousands of years, ever since Jacob had it dug. Why, she will put this arrogant Jew in his place! Let him see the value of his vaunted true religion! He doesn’t even know he sits at Jacob’s well, else he’d not be calling it a mere cistern!
It will remain for Jesus to make more clear what He is talking about. Only as He explains Himself in verse 14 can it begin to connect for this woman. Once He brings eternal life into the conversation, the whole conversation must be rethought. As I pursue the conversation further in subsequent studies, I must remember to keep her perspective in mind. Between that mention of eternal life, and her asking for the offered gift, has she paused to reassess the conversation so far? If she has, then she no doubt has suddenly shifted from whatever playfulness or suspicion carried her at the beginning over to a respectful acknowledgment that at very least a prophet sits at the well. If not, then her perspective of His words continues to be one that is very self-focused, very much filtered by her experience. But, as I say, this is another consideration for another time.
At present, I wish to return to verse 9, and consider a little bit what it meant to be a Samaritan from the Jewish perspective. We get the least hint of it here, as John explains the issue for the benefit of his Gentile readers. See, the Jews will have no dealings at all with the Samaritans, he writes. Indeed, some of the less literal translations expand on this point. They tell us that the Jew would not deign to so much as share a plate or a cup with a Samaritan, for they are deemed unclean.
Now, I know I have pursued this issue before in one study or another, but it still strikes me just how deeply established this division was in Israel. Indeed, it would be very easy to come away thinking that it really was God-ordained that the Jews held them in such contempt. We can go back to the rebellion of Israel against the rule of David’s heirs. Here lay the seeds of this place, at least in the view of the proper Jew. It began in rebellion and could not expect, under such circumstances, to dwell in the blessings of the God of Israel. It strikes me at this moment just how appropriately the northern kingdom came to be known as Israel, while the south remained Judea. Israel – the wrestler with God. It covered the whole history of that land. Inevitably, God won. Enemies would come and put an end to the rebel nation.
The record is equally clear that this people did not preserve itself as God’s set apart nation. They absorbed the ways of the Gentiles around them, of the Canaanites whom God had told His people to drive out of the region. They had disobeyed, left the Canaanites to ‘serve’ them, and in the end this disobedience left them enslaved to the ways of Canaan.
Is this not the inevitable path of sin? God tells us to drive it out of our lives, but we will not do so. Instead, we think to subjugate it, control it such that we can enjoy its purported benefits whilst still keeping up our devotion to the God we won’t obey. But, in the end, the sin we think to have conquered has conquered us. We have not subjugated our sin, we have subjugated our faith. The outcome can only be that we will be led away in captivity by our sins, or left barren in a barren land. Both of these outcomes were seen in the case of the northern kingdom. Those left barren in the land became known as the Samaritans.
Perforce, they had been required to intermarry with the Gentiles amidst whom they found themselves. There were not enough of Jewish blood to keep the lines alive, so they did what seemed expedient to preserve the nation. Whether those who remained or those who departed were the more pure in regards to their faith is an unresolvable question. This might, one supposes, explain why there was such a hard reaction to them when the exiles returned. They could not honestly make a claim to having held their religion pure. Indeed, they had served the enemy rather directly, whereas those who remained in the land had merely survived. Who had the ethical upper hand here? Who had kept faith in God? The answer was by no means clear. So, the exiles established a different standard by which they could ensure their sense of superiority. The issue, they decided was not who had kept faith and a pure religion, the question was who had kept within the tribes of Israel. Well, of course, when the bulk of the nation found itself exiled en masse to the cities of Persia, they had more than sufficient stock from which to continue in marriage only amongst their own. Those left to fend for themselves had no such luxury, had no such option. The new standard was rigged from the start to ensure that the returning exiles could feel their religious victory.
Clearly, the divisions that were established in that period did not heal with time. The comment of this woman upon hearing Jesus’ request is telling in that regard. She hears this request and wonders aloud what is wrong with Him that He would ask a Samaritan to share drink with Him. This response is so outlandish to one not caught up in that age-old feud that John feels it necessary to explain things to his readers. See, he explains, Jews will have absolutely nothing to do with their Samaritan kin. This is a thing known to every Jew and every Samaritan as well. Neither would expect anything different from the other. It is for this reason that the woman was so surprised by His request.
Now, if her reaction is not sufficient evidence of the rift, we can turn to that passage which is noted as paralleling this comment in some degree. Jesus has just been explaining the problem to those who were debating Him. Indeed, He has been quite harsh with them, declaring them sons of the devil, as shown by their subscribing to his nature as a habitual liar. The lying nature, Jesus tells them, has prohibited them from hearing Truth. He closes this convicting rebuke by telling them that those who belong to God hear God’s words. He then points out the clear corollary of this. Since they refuse to accept God’s words, it becomes clear that they are not God’s people (Jn 8:44-47).
How do they react to this? Do they pause for introspection, for self-examination? Not at all! Wounded pride will allow for no such course. Rather they lash out with accusations against this antagonist who speaks such hurtful truth to them. They accuse Him of the two most discrediting things they can think of: of being possessed by a demon, and therefore speaking the lies of the devil Himself, and of being a Samaritan (Jn 8:48). Do you see this? They held these two things to be equal in evil – possession by Satan’s hordes, or an affinity with the Samaritans. What did they mean by this? What connotations did being a Samaritan hold in their thinking? Quite simply, it was the same, long established bulwark of spiritual pride. They had mixed with the Gentiles, while these, who had so polluted the pure command of God by all their legal minutia, had at least remained aloof from the great unwashed that were the Gentiles. No mixed blood in them!
Now, it would have been clear to all that Jesus was from Galilee. His accent would be as telling as it proved to be for Peter. It would be no more difficult than picking out a son of the South in a room full of New Englanders. However, Galilee was not Samaria. Backwood country though it may have been, it remained a Jewish land, not a Samaritan land. As clearly as Jesus’ accent identified Him as being from Galilee, then, it likewise made clear that He most certainly was not a Samaritan. Their barb needs, then, a further explanation. That explanation, I suspect, lies in some knowledge of Jesus’ birth. Mary did not grow pregnant in a vacuum. At least within Nazareth, it would have been common knowledge that Joseph had married this girl, but her pregnancy must needs have had another source. Yes, and she had traveled to the regions of Jerusalem to be with Elizabeth during those months when she was first beginning to show. People would know of this. A young girl from the north, traveling alone in cosmopolitan Judea, no family there to guard her innocence, and here she is growing daily under their observing eyes.
No doubt, these traditionalists, in their efforts to keep the ministry of this Man from spreading had done some digging. They had sent out their men to find what they could about this Man. Politics has not, after all, changed much over the centuries. The ways of power are not overly different now than they were then. Since, then, it must be obvious to all involved that Jesus, whoever He was, was not a Samaritan, I find it quite likely that these who confronted Him knew of His roots, and sought to hurt Him with these false charges as He had hurt them with the truth.
As I have been writing about this other encounter, and considering the Samaritan issue in general, this one thing keeps coming through. The whole cause of that divide, it seems, was this matter of spiritual pride. Spiritual pride is so particularly damaging, you see. It is damaging to the one who is plagued by it, which at some level quite likely includes us all. For, spiritual pride behaves like blinders on our eyes, preventing us from seeing the whole truth. We become so pleased by our progress in one particular area that we no longer see how terribly we are performing in all the others. In this conflict, it was the matter of pure lineage. Whatever other sins the exiles had committed, they had this to say for themselves, they had married within the Jewish commonwealth, even in exile. That’s fine. But that hardly constituted grounds for declaring superiority. Again, we see it amongst the Pharisees. Why, they might have the most awful disregard for their fellow Jews, those that had not joined them in the ways of Pharisaism, but, by golly, they surely tithed every last thing! They might be having affairs off where nobody would see them, but they sure were careful to wash up before they ate.
Well, let’s be careful before we go decrying the foolish Pharisee. What of ourselves. What small success are we holding up to our own account as we happily point out the errors of their ways? Do you feel that sense of superiority coming in as you say, “At least I’m not like the Pharisees”? Spiritual pride! It’s the ‘but’ we are forever wanting to put after, “I’m not perfect.” It’s the excuse we are forever offering after ‘forgive me.’ “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. However, look at this thing I did right.” As if! The truth of the matter is that the best we have ever done in any ‘good’ work we have ever done is still as filthy rags. We remain so polluted by our sinful nature that even our greatest deeds are tainted beyond salvage. If we could only, once and for all, get it into our understanding that our need for Jesus is so thorough a need that nothing of our own doing is free of that need; then, maybe, we could put an end to that poison of spiritual pride in us. Of course, we’d likely just become proud of the fact that we had finally understood that, and then we’d have to start all over again.
There is a reason we are not given the perfect apostles, the perfect patriarchs, the perfect prophet, the perfect anybody to look at as our point of comparison. We are given Jesus. He alone can serve as the standard to which we are called to compare ourselves. Then, we are handed a mirror, that we might see not the faults of our fellow believers, but only our own faults. Here is Christ and here am I. My eyes cannot help but see that the resemblance is fleeting at best. Were I to look at you, I could no doubt find some least little aspect of my own reflection that looked more like Him than you do. I could find some excuse for pride. But, as I turn my eyes on Jesus, all excuses must be rejected, stripped away as the worthless things they are. As I look upon Him, my perfect Standard, I cannot help but be humbled, cannot help but set aside every prideful thought, fall upon my knees in sorrowful contrition, and pray that He would forgive the mess that is me.
Spiritual pride was even an affliction that found its way into the woman at the well. It might have been rising to the surface even as she considered the significance of this Jew asking for a drink. Why, He must be a greater outcast than herself. Long time since she could think such a thing of any person. It seems to have come to the surface as she wonders aloud at His audacity. Hah! Whoever You think Yourself to be (and You an outcast), I can at least claim Father Jacob. I can at least show off my knowledge of whose well this was. I can at least find some way to be better than you.
Father, forgive me those many occasions when I have fallen into this error. Forgive me for trying to look better or feel better at the expense of others. Lord, we have been dealing with this pride of mine for so long now, and it seems as though the problem continues unabated. God, You’ve called me to walk humbly before You, and given an honest view of who I am and Who You are, what choice do I really have? Yet, that pride remains in me. Oh! How I want to be impressive! I want to be impressive to those with whom I associate. I want to be some sort of spiritual giant in their eyes. I want them to understand that I’ve got it right in whatever matters I may wish to offer opinions on.
God help me! It seems I have lost sight of You again. I have forgotten Your magnificence and been satisfied with my own. I have forgotten Whom I serve. God! I dare not continue in this way. So many things have come about in this last year or so, Holy One, that ought to serve to remind me just how little I have to be truly proud of, yet I somehow make those things a reason for pride in themselves. What is it going to take, Father? I feel as though I have been at a standstill in this regard, whatever else may be showing progress. Oh, I long to be comforted by the progress I see elsewhere, but so long as this pride remains, I can find no comfort there.
Holy Spirit, I know You are with me. I know that Your promise is true, that You will never leave or forsake me. Though I do so much that must offend You, cannot do otherwise, yet You are here, and I thank You for that. What more faithful Companion, more wonderful Teacher could a man desire? Yes, and I ask that You, my Faithful One, would teach me how I am to conquer this fortress pride, how I am to mount up in victory that I may walk in humble obedience to Your will.
God, I’m looking at that next topic I had to consider, and I’m realizing that it applies not only to that woman of old, but to me today. So hungry for some conversation… Yes, though I spend this time in study each day, I have to confess that I’m hungry for conversation with You, for that intimate fellowship that we have shared in times past, and I recognize that it’s been missing. There has been so much that You have been showing me in this study time, yet there has not been the intimacy that I know I need with You. We have not talked that much. I look back, and I see that I have been keeping the things of this study at a distance. Oh! Let’s change that today, Lord! Let me set aside my sense of appropriateness, and pursue Your sense instead. Let me for once set aside any thoughts of superiority and recognize how inferior has been my worship of You. Let me enter into Your presence in a wholly new, wholly complete way today. Take me in, Lord. Draw me into Your presence. Let me sit at Your feet and worship.
This woman was so hungry for some conversation. So little remained of her self-esteem. As we shall see, there was much for which she could only blame herself in this, yet the fact of the fruits of her choices remained before her daily. So bitter had those fruits become that she would now go out of her way to avoid conversation with her neighbors. Oh! But it was not because she didn’t want the fellowship. It was only because she knew that whatever conversation she might have would have no fellowship in it. There would only be barbs and derision. She knew what she had become, what she had made of herself. One wonders if there was even fellowship to be had in the home for her. This fifth man of hers, had he any thoughts he would share with such as herself, or was he concerned that any intimate thoughts he might share would simply find their way to number six? Yes, she had shut down, by her choices, every possible place of intimacy. She had walled herself in, and now found those walls intolerable – intolerable, yet unbreachable.
I keep coming back to the question of what this woman was thinking as she interacted with her incognito King. As she first saw Him there at the well, it was immediately clear to her that He was a stranger, and also that He was a Jew. The first held promise to this isolated soul, but the latter promised only more of the usual barbs and abuse. How shocking to her, then, to hear Him not only speak to her, but to ask her for a drink. Granted, it may have come out more as a command. I see nothing there that suggests that Jesus was really asking. It was something said in full expectation that the hearer would comply. But, for this woman, these words would mean so much! If they were not words of camaraderie, at least they were not words of sarcasm and rejection. Who was this man? What new trick lay in store to humiliate her?
I can only imagine the confusion that this must have struck into her thoughts. I can only imagine what explanations she arrived at for His behavior, for His not rejecting her on sight. It comes through in that first question of hers. What’s Your problem? You can see that I’m a Samaritan woman, and we Samaritans have had years beyond counting to learn how you Jews feel about us. What have You done, to bring You to such need that You would be here, asking me for drink? Yes, her words show that confusion that is in her spirit in that moment, yet it is a confusion bearing in it seeds of hope. Whether that hope has any foundation, she dare not guess yet, but if this man is so reduced that he must stoop to not only talking to her, but even to accept drink from her hand though it be unclean in his judgment, perhaps she might have at least a few moments of social contact. If nothing else, He is a stranger, and her reputation must be a matter unknown to Him. Perhaps there can be a moment of humanity even for her.
Yet, the continued conversation would eventually make it clear that He did, in fact, know of her reputation. It would become clear that He was not a Jewish outcast, but the King of the Jews, as well as the King of the Samaritans, and all the earth besides. All this, she would discover, and how it must have struck her with an even greater wonder that such as He, knowing as He knew, was yet sitting here talking with such as her. Is it any wonder that she must tell everybody she meets Who she has come across? It will take longer than this present portion of the conversation we are studying before she recognizes the whole Truth of what is transpiring, but the recognition will come, and it will explode like fireworks over those barriers she has raised. The ramparts will be torn down with the force of that explosion, and the captive spirit within her shall be freed once for all. None of that, however, can take place until she has shaken off every delusion and come to know Him truly.
I suppose that we all, as we come to Jesus, have our preconceptions about just who He is. We are not so very different from this woman. She saw Him, to be sure. But, in her minds eye, this man she saw had to be an outcast of society. How else could He come to be in such a place as this? She allowed her own circumstances to shape her understanding of Him. This is the problem. We, too, allow our own circumstances, our own failures, our own predilections to shape the way we think of Jesus, the way we perceive Him. She saw at best a man as much in need of compassion as herself. At worst, she saw an arrogant fool. “You would give me a drink! Hah! And you without so much as a bucket to draw with.”
The problem is that our preconceptions not only shape our perception of Jesus, the utterly blind us to the Truth of Jesus. “If you knew the gift of God; if you understood who had just asked you for a drink, you would have asked Him. He would have given you living water.” Think about that. Now, one could imply from the capitalization that it is the Father she was told she would ask. Or, you could ignore that visual queue and hear it simply as did she. Perhaps He speaks of Himself in the third person. What she heard was little more than a man calling himself God’s gift to her. What she heard was Jewish superiority expressed by this man who was clearly (He was here talking to her, wasn’t He?) unfit for Jewish society. Still, He would make Himself out to be better than her. Her experience had shaped this as an expected treatment. It was all she ever got from anybody anyway.
It is not the particulars of her misperceptions that need to have our attention, though. It is the very fact of that misconception. The message Jesus delivered was veiled, but not so veiled as to prevent seeing. Is this not, in many ways, the way we hear from Him still? Many talk of that still, small voice that speaks to them. Many, I suspect, hear little other than their own vain imaginations, but attribute that vanity to Him. Others suspect that they are hearing only their own thoughts, and therefore discount them. Indeed, we are so tainted by the fall that we don’t even realize when our thoughts have climbed high above our ability to reason. We don’t even recognize when the voice is not our own, and we allow pride to attribute these lofty and wise ideas to our own achievement. How can we believe this of ourselves, that we would find ourselves thinking things that are at odds with our own beliefs? How can we think that the correcting thought that suddenly sets us aright comes from the same place as those foolish thoughts that had put us so far off track to begin with?
In all truth, God speaks constantly. His evidence is everywhere around us, yet we will not acknowledge His hand in that which we see. He is forever calling out to us, offering directions, pointing out the dangers, but we don’t want to hear Him, so we don’t. We are so wrapped up in our own agendas, so bound on pursuing our own sins, that we block Him out. Fortunately, He is so utterly committed to His own call that He will continue declaring Truth to us until we get it. The woman in this scene did not understand that first message: If you knew the gift of God, you would have living water. All she heard was arrogance, and perhaps the thought that this was merely a cistern, not a real well. She was hearing Truth, but she attributed it all to error. What patience is His! Rather than rebuke this woman, rather than punish her for her ways, He simply restates the message so that she can grasp the Truth of it. It’s not about the well, dear lady. The thing at issue is life itself, eternal life, not this prelude through which we walk at present.
How much of what we hear in Christianity today recognizes the Truth? How much has been distracted by the well? How can we think that true religion is about physical healings? How can we think that those who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit still need to have these demons cast out of them? What fellowship could the Holy Spirit of God have with such? It is an abomination of muddled thinking coupled with a need for sensationalism that sends us in such directions. What is the whole prosperity message but another distraction from the Truth? God wants you rich? What? Nothing of the sort! God wants you obedient. God wants you trusting in Him for your provision, not all that great wealth you have amassed. Can you really have read the Scriptures and not seen how often He has found it needful to strip away every visible, physical means of support so that His people can remember faith? If faith is the evidence of things unseen (Heb 11:1), why do we insist on visible reasons for our faith? We insist on cheapening our faith insomuch as we make it dependent on such things. Where is the faith that could cry out, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15). Looking at Job in the moment of that most powerful confession you will not find much support for the healing, deliverance and prosperity camps. Here was a man plagued by Satan himself, and with God’s permission (for there can be no other way). Here was a man who had seen everything he owned wiped out in a moment, who had seen his own health deteriorate before his eyes.
How did he react? Did he throw over God’s right to reign and rule? Did he insist that God must restore all these things or he would no longer believe and serve? No! He rightly understood that all of these mere things, even the life he lived on this earth, were nothing compared over against God’s promises. Now, if Job, Abraham and these other men of old all understood that there was more to life than this life alone, and that with so much less to go on in this regard than we, surely we who live in these later times ought to understand the same! Abraham was willing to sacrifice his own and only son though it ran counter to all he knew of his God, simply because he had heard God truly. He understood that God who asked for this great sacrifice from him was able to give so much more in return. If God took his son, then He would surely restore that son’s life, or provide for Abraham another heir for His word had already been given. Did Abraham, then, believe solely in order to establish an earthly heritage? Was his concern really no greater than to have descendants more numerous than the stars?
Indeed, can it really be that any man in all history has really labored and achieved such greatness as men measure for no greater reason than to get in the history books, as it were? What drives this need to be known to future ages? It is no more than an attempt at the immortality that we understand must exist. Every man who ever lived was aware that there had to be more to life than life itself, that the fleeting years of our earthly existence could not justify existence. Yet, unwilling to submit to the God of creation, they ever seek to create their own eternity. Since the day of Adam’s fall, there has been the continuing problem of men seeking to be like God rather than to be as God created them to be. There has been this need for self-determinism in man, the honor bestowed on the famous, upon the self-made, upon the achievers who give us the false hope that we, too, can be immortalized apart from God. Ah, but in that pseudo-immortality that man makes for himself nothing survives but the name alone. And, here at the well sits God Himself, offering the real immortality that we have longed for.
The comparison He sets forth is apt. By way of illustrating the primacy of His offer, He looks to the waters of the wells of Israel. So much of the water supply in that time and place came from cisterns, mere holding tanks with the inevitable admixture of dirt and water that must come from collecting runoff. So it is with the immortality that men seek for themselves. It is not a pure immortality, but impure. It has the name of immortality, but it is not immortality. “If you had asked, I would have given you living water,” says our Jesus. Rather than this muddy cistern water that you settle for, I would give you fresh water from springs that never run dry. Rather than this cheep pride and reputation that you have valued so highly, rather than an eternal name, I would give you eternal life, a life with no impurity of sin remaining, and therefore no longer under the dictates of death.
It occurs to me, thinking about this offer of eternity, that in truly accepting His offer on His terms, there comes an end to striving. Why, after all, do men strive and struggle and labor beyond all reasonable limits? They seek to make a name for themselves, to establish a posterity for themselves, to amass a fortune that they can leave to their progeny. Never mind that by that very act they may well spoil their own heirs beyond salvage. Never mind that they will return to dust just the same. Distinctions of class are largely gone in the grave. All that striving, then, results in little more than a stone marker, a reminder to later generations that once upon a time, this man passed his days in this place.
See, we think, eventually, on the shortness of our days, and we feel we must do something to make that short time count. So, we labor, and we travail, and we sweat and we toil, seeking to accomplish something, anything, that will cause us to be remembered. Whether we find fame in philanthropy or infamy in villainous deeds matters little. The motivation is the same; the need to leave our mark on the world.
Then comes God with an offer of eternal life. Do we really grasp that? We have an eternity in which to accomplish the work of our lives, an eternity in which to establish such name as we may have for ourselves. Entering into that eternity, though, we come to an understanding that however great a name we might have, there is One whose name is greater. Whatever we may achieve or become, He remains the Lord of us. Here, then, we come to understand our greatness. Our greatness is great only inasmuch as it reflects upon Him. If we become doers of great deeds, it is because of Him, and such fame as may come to us for the doing is rightly transferred to His account. Here is true greatness! Here is a reputation worthy of pursuing! That my success might be attributed to my Savior, that whatever good I may do shall be understood to be His own doing, this is something to be desired. And, once more I am returned to Jesus’ own statement of what that great good work is that so embellishes His glory: believe in Him. So simple. I need no longer compete with my fellows, trying to best them. I need no longer covet what those around me might possess that I do not. Indeed, what can there be that I could desire? What is there that is necessary for me to do, when all He asks is that I believe?
Of course, even in this we must know Him truly whom we truly know. We dare not fall into self-delusion, as some have done in times past, and think that we can simply idle away our days awaiting His call home. We dare not pursue such a course, because we know from His own revealed word that such a life is not pleasing in His sight. Idle laziness cannot reflect well upon Him who labored so hard and so long to not only create all that is, but to maintain and uphold it through the eons. If His people are sitting back and ignoring every need around them, what will the needy think of the God of His people? Why, He must also be sitting back and ignoring their need. But, nothing could be further from the Truth! He is a God alive! He is still intimately involved with the work of creation. He is still intimately connected to every man in that creation. Were He not there would be no man, no creation. The whole of it is upheld by His own will and effort. As His representatives, His visible testimony to those who have not yet beheld the Son, our will and effort ought likewise to be towards the sustenance and improvement of this life we live. We need not strive, but we shall never cease to labor in His behalf. Therein is the balance necessary for this walk of faith.
One other thing I should like to consider in regard to the water that Jesus offers. It was said in the ISBE article on water that each well has its own flavor, as it is fed by different springs. Beyond this, it was declared that a man will come to long for the taste of the waters of home, deeming them better than any other water. Well, allow me to consider this truism in connection to the waters of life that Jesus proffers to us. Where have those waters their source? The springs that feed that boundless river are found, we are told, in the very throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev 22:1). Yes, and these same waters, the waters which Jesus offers to us without cost, shall, as He declares here, spring up within us. They shall spring up to eternal life for us, and they shall also, like the springs a the source, cause a flow that must course out and into the world around us. “From our innermost being shall flow rivers of living water,” Jesus declares to us (Jn 7:38). It shall flow from us, because a spring fed pool cannot long remain a pool. It must overflow its banks and find a way for itself.
The river of life that Jesus gives us drink from, having entered into the soul of a man must spring up for eternity. It must, of necessity, overflow the bounds of his life. It cannot help but do so, for that spring never dries up, its flow never ceases. What has been poured into the man of God shall be poured out once more yet not leave him parched and thirsting. No, as Jesus has promised right here, he shall thirst no more. Though the gifts and blessings that God is pouring into his life flow also out from his life to touch the lives of others, yet it leaves no lack in his life. God has provided, and His provision is ever sufficient. Oh, and see where that water has flowed! Into each life that the overflow has touched, new springs arise! Those springs, too, must flood their banks, joining the river that yet finds its source in His throne.
We have witnessed the flooding of New Orleans in recent weeks, and it was a terrible thing, for the waters that rose in the city contained not life, but corruption and death. In contrast to this comes the flood-tide of God’s living waters which, though they were to rise above our heads, would never drown us, but only satisfy our thirst and flow the stronger for it. What river is this that, each man having drinking his fill, flows all the more? What other river can we conceive of that is added to by every drink that is taken away from it? Why, look at the world around you! In so many places, even here in New England, there is so much concern about using too much water, lest we deplete the available supply. Ah, but I have the River of Life flowing through me, and its waters never recede, but only rise and rise!
Yes, and that river, whose springs are within me, bubbles up with the sweetest waters I know, the waters of home. For, heaven is my home, the place where dwells my King; and He has prepared a place for me to dwell there, that I might, at the end of this sojourn in strange lands, return home once again to remain forever. As I journey through this life, though, He provides me with that spring, that each and every moment I might know the taste of home, lest I forget. Yes, I have that taste moment to moment, whenever I care to draw from the springs within me. How can it be that I would ever draw from another?
Yet, God charges His people with this very thing. “They have forsaken Me, the Fountain of Living Waters. Instead, they make their own cisterns, but those cisterns are broken. They cannot hold water” (Jer 2:13). What charge is this? How can it be that a people would reject spring-fed streams for the stale, silt-laden water of the cistern? Worse yet, they have rejected the certainty of the spring for the deadly risk of cisterns run dry. Here is the perpetual spring of life, found in God alone. Here is the foundation upon which Paul built his great statement that in Him we live, in Him we move, in Him is our existence sustained (Ac 17:28). He upholds the whole of creation by His mighty deeds, yet we His people are constantly looking for something else. We grow dissatisfied with the life He offers. It seems too austere to us as we look about at the world around us. It seems to weird to worship God amongst a people who don’t believe in Him. In a world given over to the scientific pursuit of mere knowledge, it is hard to cling to this God who insists we seek wisdom instead.
So, what happens? We begin pursuing the Samaritan path again. We begin to allow world opinion to shape our faith, rather than letting our faith shape the world. Twelve men clinging to the Fountain of Life overturned an empire. Twelve men! No more was needed in God’s hands to accomplish the spread of His fame to every nation then known to man. How was this done? Well, for one thing, those twelve men absolutely refused to be moved from God’s truth by any mere opinion of man. They would not depart from Truth in favor of tradition. They would not depart from the Truth to pursue the clever ideas of supposedly learned men. They would not depart from Truth for the mystical visions of dreamers. Nothing would budge them from the things that God had revealed, and so they prevailed.
What are we to say of the Church of the twenty-first century? So many have given their very pulpits into the hands of the enemy, allowing him not only toleration, but the place of authority! In so many cases, the Church has allowed itself to become an advocate of sin, rather than its denouncer, and why? Because it wishes to be comfortable in this foreign land. Leaking cisterns! How can they cling to Truth who insist that Truth adjust to their own opinions? How can they champion Justice who bend the rules to pardon their own abuses? How can they promote righteousness and purity who make of the Church a cloak to hide their own evil deeds? Leaking cisterns! The whole thing has become a stench in the nostrils of God. When did He ask His church to become a place of entertainments? When did He instruct His children to play at magic? When did He hire us as His PR team?
All of this is so far off base! He built His Church to train up disciples and thereby make His glory known. Was He just looking for numbers? Did He tell us to simply convince those folks to pray this little prayer and then move on to the next mark? Listen, you can’t deal with God for very long without recognizing that He simply doesn’t care about numbers. He’s not out to impress the world by the size of His contingent. Quite the opposite. How many times do we find Him thinning the ranks of His would be supporters, lest they come to think the glory is theirs rather than His?
He tells us to have no truck with seers and sorcerers, and yet we find some corners of the Church fairly swimming in rules and step by step instructions as to how one must pray under each and every sort of circumstance. We have entire libraries of instruction on how to counter demonic attacks, what words we must be ever so careful to say, which gestures we must be sure to avoid. What!? Can’t you see the problem in that? You can call it what you want, but the truth of it remains that you have begun practicing the very witchcraft you despise! What instruction does one really need to pray to the God of Truth? I think you could likely sum it up in two words: be honest!
Would you be careful to use all manner of formulae and highly practiced gesticulations to talk to your father? I rather think not. Yet, you would suggest that your Father who is in heaven insists on such, if He is to listen to you? Who are you fooling? Not Him!
As for this relatively new reality of Church as marketplace, how heinous is that? We have come to be a culture that would prefer to read just about anything other than the Bible, and I’m talking about our Christian culture. We would far rather read the wit and wisdom of our particular favorite author, to pursue the latest how-to, ‘Christianity for Dummies’ plan than actually dig into the Word of God and see what He says of Himself. We have become convinced, perhaps, that we really are too stupid to understand what He has written. We have become convinced that we once more need an intermediary, a go-between to fetch the wisdom of the Most High and make of it a pablum that we mere babes can chew.
We no longer trust ourselves to judge whether a particular piece of art is artistic and beautiful or merely propaganda for trashy living. So, we look to the label. Did it come from a ‘Christian’ company? Is there some identifiable icon attached by which we may know it to be holy and acceptable? Look! Those very ‘Christian’ companies in large part no longer exist, except as divisions of a larger corporation that could care less about your faith or the honesty of its product, just so they are turning a profit. This is true of the music industry and all the other venues of entertainment. Religion sells. It might not have the volume of sex, but it’s doing pretty good trade right now, and there’s a whole host of atheists out there earning a living in that trade! The world of books is no better. The great majority of material coming out in the Christian marketplace now consists of self-help, pop psychology or worse yet, mere opinionating packaged with a nice cross on the cover so we’ll know it’s OK for us to buy it. I don’t buy it! This stuff is about as useful for the “Christian living” and “Christian growth” for which it’s being marketed as is the daily newspaper.
The label is no guarantee of the content! Yet, so many will look at this stuff and assume that, since it comes from the Christian bookstore, since it bears the label of that good old Christian company, the material must be sacred, must be holy and acceptable. Who’s asking God anymore? Oh, how we have abandoned the Fountain! How wholly we have turned to the leaky cisterns of modern life. And God’s complaint continues to stand. They don’t hold water. We are slowly but surely depriving ourselves of sustenance by our insistence on turning from the Source. God cries out for us to come back. Come back to simple faith. Come back to humble abiding and obedience. Forget your formulas, forget your consumer goods, forget everything that man has encrusted the faith of God in. Return to the love of truth and justice. Return to the simple work of God: to believe in the Christ He sent. His grace remains, if we will but cling to Him. His wrath burns against us if we will prefer to cling to this materialistic humanist imposter that has occupied His place. It is an abomination, and we had best recognize it before we are destroyed by it.
Oh, but I know my God still gives us to drink from His own eternal springs, and we who drink thereof are assured of the truth of His word, that there is this well overflowing within us, pouring from the wealth of His springs through our own lives and into the lives of those around us. Yes, there is yet a remnant on the earth, preserved by His power, still clinging to His throne, still rejecting all others who would seek to claim their hand, for they know that they are His bride, and they are therefore pledged to remain purely and wholly His until the day He comes to consummate the wedding. Yes, and she shall be found ready, for He has made certain that she will be made pure and spotless for that day.
