I got scammed this week. I went online to find out about a summer camp at one of our local universities and the University asked me to complete a survey and I would get a reward. So I filled out the survey about how I was visiting the website and why I logged on, etc. And then my reward popped up. A free trial of Cellogica Skin care products, a new revolutionary brand of skin care designed to make wrinkles disappear! Cellogica will send me the product for free. I just have to pay shipping and handling.
Well, I am in my forties. It is a great age for the most part. I am not as naive as I was in my twenties and yet I am still able to do almost anything physically. The only problem with your forties is that's when the wrinkles start coming. They seem to appear from out of nowhere and there they are, signs of age. And I have always wondered if these really expensive creams work or if its just a hoax. So here it was, my chance to try Cellogica for free! I ordered the stuff.
Luckily, I married a man who is much wiser than I. When I told him about my "reward," he groaned, and looked up my order. JD discovered that they planned to charge me $130 a month for the rest of my life! "Call them tomorrow to cancel the order" was his advice. So I did. And I found out that if I did not return the skin care product within forteen days, that they would charge me $150. The "free"trial really meant that I didnt have to pay for fourteen days.
So I found myself driving to the post office, where the man behind the counter laughed at me and told me about goats milk cream.
The internet is full of scams. Companies don't tell the whole truth or they don't tell the truth at all. When I tried to argue, the man at Cellogica said that it was all there in the fine print, at about 5 point font. I would need a microscope to read it.
Today, we encounter the longest recorded conversation that Jesus had with any one human being. The person to whom he spoke was as surprising as the conversation itself. She was not Jewish. She was not married. She was a SHE.
Men were not supposed to talk to women except their wives and relatives in Jesus' day. Women were called "GeNay" which meant, literally, Womb. They were seen not as human beings but as walking wombs, sources of potential sons, an investment, a piece of property. So it was extraordinary that Jesus, sitting at Jacob's well, asked this woman for a drink of water. And even more astonishing is her bold question in reply, "Why do you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" In other words, "Why in the world are you talking to me? Are you trying to get something from me? What is it that you want?"
This woman wants the truth. And it is only the truth that can enable you to see God, for God does not lie and God does not scam.
Jesus answers her, "If you knew who I really was, you would be asking me for another kind of product, something much better than normal water, you would be asking me for living water, water so incredible that you will never be thirsty again..."
The woman likes the idea of never being thirsty, but she does not comprehend the fullness of what Jesus is saying. She thinks about how hot she gets every day going to the well at noon, during the worst heat of the day. She had to go at noon because no one else was there at that time, when the sun beat down so severely as to kill a man. She had to come at that time because this woman was an outcast. Not only was she a woman and a Samartian and not married, but she had been married five times before. Whether her husbands had died or kicked her out for asking too many questions, we will never know. But a woman who had had five husbands was scandalous. She was a social praia, a monster.
All this woman wants is to be heard, to not have to be alone. But what Jesus is offering her is so much more than that, it is a love that extends far beyond her understanding and life that lasts forever.
When Jesus tells her that he knows of her husbands, she is so impressed that she cant shut up. She runs into the village and tells everyone that he is the Messiah. And, for the first time perhaps, they listen to her. She is heard.
What was the woman looking for? She wanted a chance to become part of the community again, to not have to walk to the well alone. She wanted to be seen as a person and not a monster. But Jesus wanted so much more for her. Jesus wanted her to go down in history as the one who spoke to him the longest, the brave woman who heard him at the well. Jesus wanted her to learn to love God so that her life would extend far beyond the first and physical world into eternal life. Jesus was offering her the Universe and all she wanted was a little respect and a glass of water.
Often our greatest failure in our relationship with God is that we don't ask for enough. We want to not be alone and God reveals the Messiah to us. We want some extra money and God offers us the treasures of heaven. We want someone to hold and God wants us to have love eternal. We want to get rid of wrinkles and God wants to give us heaven itself.
Sometimes our greatest sin is our incapacity to dream big enough for God's great goodness.
In a few weeks, on Palm Sunday, something is happening downtown in Jacksonville. For five years, I have been praying that this downtown core would ignite, that this city would begin to focus our efforts on caring for and nurturing the city's heart. And, after almost five years, something is finally happening. We are on the brink of something new.
A fire is being ignited downtown. It began as an event last year called OneSpark. This year, OneSpark has grown. Last year, over one hundred thousand people attended OneSpark. This year, more are predicted to come and walk the streets of downtown, where small businesses, entrepreneurs and artists will present new ideas and projects. And this all falls on Palm Sunday Weekend, the one holy day when churches traditionally walk out of their sanctuaries and into the streets.
Could it be that God may be answering our prayers about this Urban core in ways that surpass our very asking? There is no other church downtown that has claimed a voice, no spiritual presence at OneSpark.
When the Samaritan woman realized who Jesus was, she dropped her water jar (an expensive thing by the way) and ran to the city. She ran into the city to tell everybody about the man she met, the man who surpassed her every expectation.
Walk with me into the heart of the city. Pray with me about Palm Sunday and OneSpark. And lets not make the age old mistake of praying for too little. Instead, lets dream boldly and open our hearts to the One who never scams us but instead always gives us more than we could ever even begin to imagine.
