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| John 4. Jesus stops in the town of Samaria on his way to Galilee. Jesus asks a Samaritan woman for a drink of water. They then have a conversation about spirituality. In an apparent show of subtle disapproval, the disciples ask him why he talked to her... It is a simple story of a converstion between two people yet not unlike much of the bible, there are so many intricate details in this story that speak volumes to Jesus' character and in turn our faith. In my mind, the story underlies an attitude of intentionality. It is about being intentional with our choices and not just sitting back and waiting for God to work. It is about having an intentionality that allows God to create encounters and opportunities to live out our faith. It is about choosing to go out of our way in spite of inconvenience and in spite of disapproval in order to show authentic love to those who don't expect to receive it. It is ultimately about putting ourselves out there. Here in John 4, it seems to boil down to this: Had Jesus not decided to travel through Samaria on his way, he would not have been present and available to meet anyone out of Samaria. According to my understanding, by going through Samaria, Jesus was going out of his way to get to Galilee. This was not exactly a first choice destination if you will. It could probably be somewhat likened to spending time in small town mid-USA, which at least in my mind, conjures up scenes from the 70's, with a main street, a post office, and gas station all within a 2-minute drive through the town and a total of 100 people in town none of whom are visible minorities and none of whom have personally known many visible minorities... And in spite of this, Jesus travels here and stops here and in so doing, opens up the possibility of encountering people from Samaria. This is a call to go out of our way and make ourselves available to encounter those whom the church might not normally go to. At least in the modern Asian church context, which is where most of my personal experiences are drawn from, I can see potential 'Samaria's' in night clubs, bars, friendship circles that involve more 'alternative' types and 'blue collar' types, single mothers, the homeless, and others who might not normally befriend, and co-workers in some cases depending on the context of your job. Essentially, anyone outside our comfortable church circles. If we never step outside of the church, we will never meet people outside of the church. Had Jesus not asked the Samaritan woman for water, they would likely not have continued on to have an actual conversation. I should point out that Samaria was a region that most religious Jews of that time would probably have avoided and naturally, most Rabbis would probably not normally have talked to people in this region. Yet there he was not only talking to the Samaritan woman but actually asking her for something and in so doing, humbling himself in a sense. Given her identity as a Samaritan woman and his as a Jewish man, she would not have been the one initiating any type of conversation. It seems she might barely dare to glance his way. Yet Jesus chose to not only talk to her but to ask her for something and allow the tables to be turned so that he was the one who needed something from her. This is a call out to humble ourselves when we talk to those who don't know Christ yet. We often approach anyone and everyone outside the church with an attitude of superiority, thinking that we are doing them a favour and that we know so much that they can't possibly understand. The reality is we are all sinners. That is why we all need Jesus. And the even greater reality is we are all saved by God's grace and not by our own doing so there really shouldn't be a whole lot of pride and self righteousness standing between us and the next person. If anything, we should simply be grateful that we know Jesus and humbled in that knowledge. If we don't have conversations in humility, they will never lead to anything more. Had Jesus not moved the conversation into the spiritual realm, the Samaritan woman would not have been changed. After Jesus asks the woman for water, she says to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" What Jesus says next changes the course of this conversation: "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water." Jesus intentionally draws the parallel between drinking actual water and the metaphor of tasting living water. He takes the normal course of a conversation into the spiritual realm. In so doing, He changes her knowledge of Him forever. Essentially, if we never take the conversation to the next level, it will never go to the next level. This, I find, is the toughest call. The first two, making ourselves available and chaing our attitudes, are seeminly easy and straightforward since they involve our own hearts and minds. In a sense, there is no tangible measure of one's intentionality and availability in the context of your own mind and your own heart. However, this third call seems to be one of action. It is one of seizing the opportunity and putting ourselves out there. It is about acting on the opportunity that being intentional and showing humility in attitude can bring. So we hang out with old friends and develop new friends in unchurched circles. We open our lives up to them and talk about our daily woes at work, at home and on the news. But then what? I've come to realize that this is often where it stops. This is the point at which many of us stay for a long while as we don't want to break the comfort. We don't want to be the Christian, the evangelical, the Jesus freak if you will, the killjoy in peoples' minds. We fear being misunderstood and know that our entire faith is sadly largely misunderstood. The voice somewhere in the back of our minds tells us we are the ones who need to break the misconceptions one by one. The voice never quite gets too loud before it is snuffed out by the laughter that comes from mimicking characters from the latest Judd Apatow movie..... In reality though, isn't this the point everything has been building up to? Don't we make ourselves available and go to places commonly known as untread church waters in order to be open to these forms of dialogues? Don't we humble ourselves in attitude and open up ourselves to our friends who don't know Jesus in order to bridge that gap between us and those outside of church in order to be able to dialogue about the one man that signifies the only essential difference between us - Jesus? The call is a simple one but it is a difficult one and one that I wrestle with everyday and will continue to as long as I am human and live with pride and desire for acceptance and approval as we all do. Still, the simple fact remains: If we never take the conversation to the next level, it will never go to the next level. | | |
| "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirt." Maybe if we spent a little more time on loving those around us who need compassion, understanding, and grace rather than exerting some perceived form of moral superiority through our politics, speech and attitudes, we might actually begin to reflect a little bit of Jesus. Evangelical Christians are known so much more for their judgmentalism than for their grace yet Jesus was all about grace when He dined with the tax collectors, healed on the Sabbath and ultimately died under the orders of the Pharisees. He was never really about the rules but all about the people whom He loved. Moralism and legalism seem to provide some measure of comfort and control for many Christians when it comes to perceiving and relating to the world. But Jesus clearly battled the two and showed that He cared more about loving a person and showing them grace than their position in society or their past. It seems we're so intent on doing the 'right' thing and guarding against the seeming 'evils' of the world that we lose sight of two essential markings of the Christian faith - love and grace. Albeit there are inherent dangers in narrowly focusing on love and grace to the exclusion of living out one's faith, but maybe, just maybe, it is more importnt for us to show love and dispense grace to the world than it is to impose judgment and condemnation where we really have no right to do so. "Be careful, lest in fighting the dragon you become the dragon" Nietzsche "If the world despises a notorious sinner, the church will love her. If the world cuts off aid to the poor and the suffering, the church will offer food and healing. If the world oppresses, the church will raise up the oppressed. If the world shames a social outcast, the church will proclaim God's reconciling love. If the world seeks profit and self-fulfillment, the church seeks sacrifice and service. If the world demands retribution, the church dispenses grace. If the world splinters into factions, the church joins together in unity. If the world destroys its enemies, the church loves them." Yancey That is such a poignant vision of the church. In essence, it points to the whole person of Jesus and its reflection as seen through His disciples. "By this all men will know that you are my disciples," he said: "if you love one another." | | |
| We often seem to complicate decisions for ourselves in light of our desire and need to follow God and His will. Setting aside a lengthy discussion regarding our misunderstanding of God's will and how it relates to our lives for now, perhaps one of the first steps we can take to decision making can be a mere simplification of the question. Sometimes asking the question "Why Not" can unreveal more than hours of weighing pros and cons and tormenting ourselves over endless questions about the future that are essentially unknowable and culminate in pure speculation at the end of the day regardless. More often than not, the question "Why Not" results in an unconvering of our own selfishness, judgemental attitudes, or complacency and variations of these that are really just a reflection of our lack of love and our priorities. So I'm going to test this question out. Scrap the lists, the discussions and the restless waiting for some type of audible answer. Less thinking. More openness. More opportunities for God to surprise me? Hoping so.
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| In light of showing possible early signs of psychosis, I think I will take up photography again. Inspired by Vicky Cristina Barcelona and the freedom and confidence that comes with mastering a form of artistic impression (minus the encouragement experienced as a result of being party to bi-sexual threesomes).
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| It has been well over a year since my words have touched the pages of this weblog. Much has happened to say the least and I find myself going through something not dissimilar to what I in hindsight experienced during the year 2007. Once you've experienced a 'quarter-life crisis', what do you call the next one that hasn't quite reached the status of a 'mid-life crisis'? I have no appropriate title for what I seem to be experiencing but it definitely shows promising signs of a fresh crisis with just as much impact and cause for reflection as the 2007 manifestation.
Where did I expect to be at 28 in my life? Not once have I given this thought serious consideration but I can confidently say I did not expect to have gone through an undergrad in communications, an undergrad in law, a couple years of practice in law, a year of work in property management, a little over a year in interior design school, and then be completely thrown for a loop by circumstances well beyond my control, now suffering feelings of being weakened, on the brink of defeat and rather lost. I am fearful of the prospect that I might never be able to continuously 'work', have a 'career', build a 'life' as all my peers can again for reasons that I do not regret or question but are simply beyond my control. What some would regard as varied and valuable experience, I once regarded in a similar light. Now, however, it appears more like a lackluster and flimsy floatation device that provides me just enough support to stay afloat but never really quite gets me anywhere with any sort of speed or purpose. How dreadul and self pitying this must sound but it is precisely the type of thought that I have been recently entertaining and for the first time in my life, I am seriously scared shitless.
What I hope is a momentary lapse in judgment and rational thought is at this very moment an all consuming deadweight on my mind and no less on my heart. My usual dependable optimism and idealistic outlook on life, which has gotten me through many trying times, not the worst of which included a near brush with death, is failing to coming to my aid as I would expect. Each passing thought of my usual assurance - "It will be fine in the end"; "Things will work out"; "Life is too short to worry" - is quickly doused by a harsh splash of something that I cannot quite identify as either negativism, neuroticism, my disease, or a plain dose of reality - "What you do in life does count"; "Money does matter"; "You need to have something to show by age 30"; "Failure is not an option."
So "which is it?" I ask myself. Is it a lifelong process of surrendering everything of myself and trusting against all my instincts and every single teaching of the world that life is not about achieving, not about acumulating, having, saving and spending, not about proving yourself against all odds, and all about loving as closely as possible in an unconditional manner those around you above yourself? Or is it about 'maximizing' my time on earth in a tangible way, experiencing as much as possible all the delights the world has to offer, and accumulating more than enough to be 'successful', 'respectable', 'comfortable' and not whatever the opposite of that is? Or is it somewhat of a balance between the two? Learning to discern when enough is enough but still working to actually have enough?? What? Which one? Why? Again..what???
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