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May 23, 2004
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Karen Shimer
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"Recognizing Hidden Treasure"
John 4:1-42
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What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we've been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven-and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you'll have it all-life healed and whole.
Jesus met a solitary Samaritan woman at the well. Listen to how the conversation goes. It's a bit of a mystery.
He says, "Please give me a drink." A great conversation starter.
"Do you really want a drink from me?
Isn't this a little out of your comfort zone? After all, I am a woman and a Samaritan."
He opens it up further. "God has a gift for you. I could give it to you, if you just ask me. By the way I can give you living water."
She tuned right into the living water part. In that day the phrase "living water" referred to water bubbling up from a spring. She still was being very practical. "Sir, you don't have any way of getting the water out of this well. How are you going to do this?"
"People soon become thirsty again after drinking this water." She's with him so far. "But the water I have to give them takes away thirst altogether. It becomes a perpetual spring within them giving them eternal life." Maybe at this point she tilts her head a little, hoping that will help her understand. Kind of like a dog when it is trying to understand what you are talking about.
Then maybe she thinks she gets it. "Please, sir, give me some of that water! Then I'll never be thirsty again and I won't have to come here to haul water." She's obviously still thinking toward inside plumbing of some kind, maybe a faucet in her brick dwelling in the city nearby.
Jesus, the master of great surprises, changes the subject abruptly. "Go and get your husband." She's taken aback for a moment. I thought we were talking about water. Cautiously she replies.
"I don't have a husband."
"You're right! You don't have a husband-you have had five husbands and the one you are living with now is not your husband."
Jesus knows she is thirsty for something more than water. Relationship. Fulfillment. Meaning in life. Peace. Her next reply gives us the sense that she's wondering about some pretty deep spiritual things.
"Sir, you must be a prophet." He must have some connection. "I've had this question about worship. When all is said and done, where are we going to worship?" In His typical, somewhat understated style, Jesus presents a mind-boggling New Testament alternative. "Not where you think, but everywhere. The Father is looking for anyone who will worship him in spirit and in truth."
"Oh, I've heard that things will change when the Messiah gets here."
"You're looking at Him."
The time is now. Her future has cascaded into the present. He is the source of life. He knows her. He tells her everything she ever did. He has compassion on her.
He changes her life forever.
Has Jesus started a conversation like this with you lately?
Maybe His opening line has been a crisis like an accident or walking through the consequences of bad choices (your own or someone else's). Maybe it has been in the form of a line of Scripture that jumped off the page and into your heart.
"Are you speaking to me, God? You say you have a gift for me? But I don't understand how you can do that in my life."
He gently persists. "I have what you are looking for."
I am overjoyed! "Are you going to remove my difficult circumstances? Will you rescue me from the mess I have made in my life? Oh, yes, Jesus. I want what you have!" I am relieved and anxious to hear what the solution is.
To her He said, "Go and get your husband." What would He say to you? To me? What do I hide behind? What do I use to keep me so distracted I don't have to focus on Him? (I don't think I want to answer that in front of all of you.J)
"Uh, Jesus, could we talk about something else?"
"No, let's stay with this subject for a moment." He gently touches my chin and lifts my head so that I can see His eyes. He knows I am hurting, thirsty, looking for comfort and a solution, meaning, significance to my life. Dare I ask Him the questions that are burning in my heart?
I venture out with my thoughts. "Jesus, how will You bring good out of this hardship? What did you mean when you showed me that Scripture? What were you thinking when you gave me that friend or took away this loved one or changed my circumstances when I had just become comfortable?" Once I've started, the questions seem to come in a torrent.
Lots of people say everything will make sense later in life or when I get to Heaven. In part that's true. What do I do with the things that just don't make sense? When I look up at Jesus from the daily-ness of life, I must remember I am looking at the Messiah, God's Anointed One. "I who speak to you am He. You're looking at Him."
The Samaritan woman met a stranger when she went to get water in the heat of the day. At first she didn't know Him from Adam. (Actually he was the second Adam, not the first one. She didn't know that either.) In the course of their conversation she came to know Him and she came to a deeper understanding of herself. After that, she dropped the physical concerns of life (she left her water pot) and ran to tell others about the source of living water she had found at the well.
If you met Jesus at the well in the midst of a dry and dusty day, would you know him right away? How many questions would it take before you tuned in to fact that He was the Messiah?
We are all at different places in our process of spiritual growth. For some who don't know Him personally, a meeting with Jesus might be very similar to this woman's meeting. For others who have walked with Jesus many years, those might recognize Him right away. Part of recognizing Jesus right away is knowing Him.
I want my knowing of Jesus, my being in Christ, my dwelling in God's holiness to be so ingrained in me that I don't even have to think about it.
As you know I have the privilege to be called Mom by four very awesome girls. Some of you might not know that I also have the opportunity to nurture and parent in a way 12 other young people as I help them overcome learning challenges through tutoring and homework help.
While we were in Washington D.C. a couple of weeks ago I had an experience that made me realize how my living and responding are defined by the word Mom. We were standing outside the White House after our tour was finished waiting for the group to reassemble. Out of the corner of my right eye I saw a burgundy mini-van pull around a small car turn-around area. I shifted my body a bit to the left and caught the movement of a little boy about 18 months old running down the sidewalk, straight toward the car. Without thinking I began moving toward him with my arms reaching out to catch him. I heard a man say, "I'm coming," then he was there to get his little son. This all happened within seconds and it was only after it was over that I thought the father might be afraid I was trying to nab his son. The mom in me acted before I even thought it all through and was moving to keep the little boy safe.
I want my relationship to Jesus and my actions on His behalf to come as automatically as being a mom does. I want to catch His slightest movement out of the corner of my eye and move to the place He's directing me to go without taking time for a second thought.
"So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that's coming when Jesus arrives! As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God's life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, 'I am holy; you be holy.'"
Recently I came across a book written in the 14th century called The Cloud of Unknowing. A three paragraph chapter of this book has caused me to really think about recognizing God and dwelling in His holiness. Not only dwelling there, but seeing every action I do come from me knowing Him; as Peter puts it, "a way of life shaped by God's life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness."
I would like to share a portion of this chapter with you.
This is what you are to do: lift your heart up to the Lord, with a gentle stirring of love desiring him for his own sake... Center all your attention and desire on him and let this be the sole concern of your mind and heart. …
What I am describing here is the contemplative work of the spirit. It is this which gives God the greatest delight. For when you fix your love on Him, forgetting all else, the saints and angels rejoice and hasten to assist you in every way-though the devils will rage and ceaselessly conspire to thwart you. Your fellow men are marvelously enriched by this work of yours, even if you may not fully understand how;…and, of course, you own spirit is purified and strengthened by this contemplative work more than by all others put together. Yet for all this, when God's grace arouses you to enthusiasm [God inspired action], it becomes the lightest sort of work there is and one most willingly done. Without His grace, however, it is very difficult and almost, I should say, quite beyond you.
(William Johnston, ed. The Cloud of Unknowing, p 49-49.)
This, I believe, brings forth the concept of worshiping God in spirit and truth.
As Jesus said to the woman at the well,
"It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself-Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration."
We've come quite a ways from meeting a stranger who has turned out to be a Savior. We've exchanged questions and answers. He has astounded us and touched our hearts with His perception and compassion. In the same way the Samaritan woman left her water pot, and the mundane things, we move our sphere of living to a deeper place to a place of holiness, healing, completeness.
Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God…You have never seen him (in the flesh) yet you love him. You still don't see him, yet you trust him-with laughter and singing. Because you keep on believing, you'll get what you're looking forward to: total salvation.
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