Don’t Flinch – Part 1

There is a story I love about Jesus, maybe it is because I identify with the woman he is talking to, all too well. As I read his words to her, and listen to her responses I can hear my voice forming the words, the sense of desperation and the sheer lack of hope.

The story is found in John 4:1-42. Jesus is traveling with his disciples but he sends them away for awhile, maybe so he could spend a little time alone with a woman they just wouldn’t get. Maybe it was so they wouldn’t have the chance to scare her off, or make another one of their blunders in defense of their Lord. Whatever the reason, he found her there alone at the well in the middle of the afternoon, and what he requires of her is astounding. "Give me a drink." (John 4:7)

I can see the disdain in her face as she responds, hear the unspoken accusations in her words. What are you going to say to me? What could you possible say that a hundred others haven’t already accused me of? You have no right to say one word to a woman such as I. Instead, she merely points out the obvious, you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan, why are you even speaking to me?

Jesus doesn’t flinch. I can almost see him smile as he tells her that if she had a clue, she would ask him to give her living water. It’s a set up, she can see it but can’t resist the chance to put this great man in his place. She tells him, you don’t even have a bucket or a rope, and yet you have the audacity to offer me something greater than the water in this well. I can almost hear the snort.

Living water, a precious commodity in those days. Water that had not been allowed to set or stagnate. It was required that one wash in living water before entering into worship, and not always available in that arid land. Even the water in the well was not living water, the well was a seep. Water from the surrounding land filtered through the rock and slowly collected there, stagnating and stinking because it had no fresh source. Water unfit for use in purification or cleansing, but all that could be had at this place.

Jesus continues, redirecting her vision back to the well, showing her something she has not seen or considered before. With gentle authority, he affirms what she has said and then challenges her to hope, but her heart has been broken. She has been kicked around by society, judged by the harshest critics. Why else would she avoid the other women who came to the well in the cool of the morning? The part of her that knows how to dream, how to hope, has been broken and Jesus is doing something amazing – He is calling it back to life.

“Go and get your husband.” He commands, and she laughs, with bitterness I am sure. “I have no husband.” You can almost hear the thought, once more I am disqualified, not good enough to receive a blessing. Her anger and wounded pride, justified yet again.

But Jesus still doesn’t flinch. “I know,” he says. “And I know all about who you are, what you have done, but I have still made the offer. I still want to share this drink with you!”

I can almost hear the mental scurrying as she seeks a place to hide within herself. She has to deflect, avoid the intimacy of the moment, kindness is too much. So she asks an inane theological question, something safe, but Jesus refuses to be distracted. He answers but his answer is far more pointed than she could have anticipated, "God is seeking those who will worship in Spirit and in Truth." He is looking for people who can acknowledge that there is sin, some sins they have chosen and some to which they have been a victim. But, God still desire to know them.

Listen close, I can almost hear the hope creeping into her voice, “When the Messiah comes, he will explain everything.” I will know why my life has been what it has, the thought pierces through her words. I will understand why I have had to endure what I have endured. It will all be worth it when he comes.

And Jesus, once again smiles, "I am he!" What a revelation! What a reason to grasp the hope he has offered! It is not an abstract idea. It is not something locked in the great, unknown future. It is now, and she has witnessed it.

Tune in next time – when I tell the story of when I went to the well.

Go ahead, make my day.

You can only teach yourself. You can only learn the technique of learning. –Clint Eastwood

The memorization and regurgitation of facts has become our working definition of learning. As children we are placed in class rooms where our teacher writes a series of words or numbers upon a board, we copy them, and then we recite them when called upon. Seldom do the words connect with our real lives or have any bearing upon our reality. As children we know this. We question when will we ever need to know the value of pie, the dates of the French Revolution, or even the chemical composition of chewing gum (bubble gum is a whole other matter). The good adults in our lives assure us that we will need this information one day and we should be good students and learn what the teacher says.

As adults we then become the ones who perpetuate the myth when our children are the ones asking the question. We tell them that they will one day need to know this information, and we secretly wonder when exactly did we ever need to know what we were taught in school. Of course if we are good parents we never voice this thought out loud, because we don’t want our children to grow up to be idiots.

The thing is even in the midst of what may now seem to have been pointless exercises in obscure facts, we did learn something. We learned our idea of education, of what it means to be taught. We know that if someone is teaching us something they are to communicate certain facts on the topic which we in turn should be able to recite if called upon. We learned that education often has little to do with our real lives, that educators do not teach life lessons as much as they teach us abstractions and principles that we have a hard time integrating in our day to day activities.

Unfortunately, somewhere we adopted this model into our Biblical teaching as well. We turned Bible study into Bible trivia, and Church stopped being a place where went to experience God with other believers and became a place where we learned about God. We studied God, Jesus, and the Bible like we are going to have a test next Friday, so bring your notes. We got points for attendance, memorizing the right verses, and being able to give the proper answer when called upon.

The problem is we forgot that life is the test. You can’t cram for this one, and like it or not being able to quote the proper verse doesn’t get you a one hundred. Somewhere along the way Christianity stopped being relational and became something that happens after opening prayer but before the fried chicken. Being a good Christian became more about how many Sunday mornings you actually made it to a building and less about loving your neighbor. We turned it into an exercise and not a walk.

Maybe this is why we have a hard time with the transition from the class room of the church to real life. We don’t know how to make our faith a part of our life. Maybe when we started referring to the church as a place with class rooms and teachers, instead of as a body of believers and a family that we lost sight of the fact it is about more than knowing the right answer. Maybe when God became a school teacher and not a father, we forgot that he loves us and doesn’t just give us a grade.

Maybe this why so many people have become disillusioned with Christianity. We have presented it like a list of facts to memorize, and life is a problem to be solved. Maybe when we started teaching Christianity as an abstraction and principles instead of as a way of life, we forgot how to make the shift from information to understanding. Maybe when we stopped teaching people the technique of learning and told them the answers we bypassed an important step in our faith. We skipped the beauty and joy discovery through experience and learning.

We don’t grade relationships by the number of facts we know about another person. We don’t rank friendships by another’s ability to rattle off random thing we may have said. We don’t keep score with people we really love by totaling up their right answers to our questions. We gauge the depth by how well they understand us, by how much they affect our lives and vice versa. Everything else is a byproduct of the time we spend experiencing their presence. And we should all know that knowing about a person is not the same as knowing someone.

It is in the experience that we learn to know someone, that we learn how to learn about them. We discover how to ask a question, how to read their expression, or hear what they are saying beyond the words.

So study, read your Bible, gather with other believers, but do it so that you can experience the one who made you. Do it so that you can learn about this God who loves you more than you can imagine, but remember he isn’t an algebra problem. We don’t get to solve him, figure him out, or define him. That is not our job, our privilege is to know and experience him in this life, in this reality. The disciplines teach us how to draw near to God, being there teaches us how to learn from him.

Coffee, Mice, God, and other good things

Define the word “good.” Take some time and really think about what this word means to you.

Did you think of your favorite food? A person that you love? An enjoyable pastime? A place where you had moment of joy? How do you define “good”?

Maybe you immediately added “for you” to the word, and your image was vitamins, exercise, or going to church. Is this the right way to define “good”?

This question puzzles me. I like good things and I believe the things I like are good. So if I don’t like something it is “bad”, and I stay away from it. For me good is a cold Mountain Dew and Snickers bar first thing in the morning, followed by cup after cup of coffee so strong a mouse could trot across it without sinking. Good is sushi with a friend, a great road trip, and an intriguing book. Bad is the dentist, diet pop, and fast food burgers. Bad is aerobics, Will Farrell movies, and being alone on a Saturday night.

We all have our list of good and bad things. I just have to wonder how often our definitions are in conflict with the people around me. My ex-roomate hates Mountain Dew, the peanuts in a Snickers bar make Nathan break out, and the thought of drinking my coffee makes David shudder. So are these things good?

The Bible talks a lot about the things that are good. We talk about how all things work together for good, for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28). So what is this good that all things are working together for?

Is it stuff I like? Things you like?

Or are we depending on our definition a little too much? Are we being just a little narcissistic when we read this verse and treat it like our own personal guarantee that all things are going to be good? What if the definition goes farther than what we like? Or even what is good for us? What if good is something bigger than a single individual?

There was once a man who called Jesus “good Teacher.” Jesus responded with only God is good. (Matthew 19:17) Wait a minute. . . if we accept Jesus’ definition of good, then we have to totally reevaluate how we define the word. It stops being about the things I do or don’t like, and becomes about the things God likes.

And what does God like? The answer is easy really. Paul gives it away in the next verse of Romans – that we be conformed to the image of his Son, that he may be the first born of many. Good isn’t about whether not we like something, it isn’t even about eating our spinach, it’s about becoming more like our savior.

Good is about having a relationship with the only one who is truly good. Paul isn’t writing us a promise that we like all the things about the process of becoming conformed to Jesus’ image, he is reminding us that all the hard stuff is worth it. He encouraging us not to become embittered with the process and remember where we are heading – deeper into relationship with a God who loves us.

So the next time someone tells you to have a good day, watched a good movie, or that they just read a really good book, stop to ask yourself is it good? Really?