Dec 17 2019 John 4: 3-36

Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.
Jesus has just left Judea and is returning to Galilee. He’s thirsty and stops at a well. Not just any well, but Joseph’s well. This is the well poor Joseph was thrown into to die, by his jealous brothers. That story turns out well, with an odd turn of events, Joseph ends up being made ruler over his own people, after having been saved by Herod’s minions, Potiphar. Very convoluted story, musically dramatized by Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, but the up shot is that God wrote a wonderful ending to a human nightmarish story.

At this well, there is a Samaritan woman. In the story we hear that she’s got at least three strikes against her, making her one of the lowest of the lows, in social and cultural settings. 1) She’s a woman, and in general that made her not count for much. 2) She’s living with a man, not her husband, which could possibly be a death sentence in some settings and 3) she’s a Samaritan, who were seen as archenemies of the people of Israel. For this situation 2000 years ago, she was absolutely considered “the Other”. Jesus asks this persona non grata for water, and they have an interesting exchange, where he reveals that he’s the very messiah her people have been waiting for. His disciples return, aghast that he’s been talking to that woman.

And wrapping things up poetically, Jesus is able to tell them that they are not to wait for the figurative harvest at some future date, but NOW is the time for the harvest. So from this well, where Joseph’s brothers showed the worst behavior of humanity, with this woman who personified the worst attitudes of humanity, to the disciples who expressed the worst exclusionary sentiments of humanity, Jesus says, now is the time. God can overcome the bad behavior and turn it in to a fantastic blessing. God can see past all of the labels of “Other” put on. God includes all. In the midst of all of that parochial human nightmarishness, God’s dream can happen.

The reflection for the pre-mission trip reminds us that we aren’t necessarily going somewhere to do God’s work, although that’s part of the story. We are already doing God’s work. At our paying day-jobs, with our families, travelling to Guatemala, while there, returning, and returning to our lives. All of it provides opportunity to do God’s work.

This reflection reminds me of how hard it is to engage God loving Christians beyond Sunday morning. They go to church, and then put their God duties away for another week. It’s as if they are taking a weekly dose of God, that will carry them through to the next week, when they get another dose.

There is something romantic about going far afield to do God’s work. The novelty of the event makes us prepare for it differently, and makes us think we are doing something different than what we are asked to do every day. 

When I was in the process to get ordained in Seattle, I had to write the bishop quarterly, reflecting on my faith and journey. At one point, I wrote that I anticipated that I would end up in some far flung corner of the world, doing God’s work; I’ve always felt I’d end up somewhere overseas. In the midst of my formation I moved to Oregon, but completed my process and was ordained in Seattle. At my ordination, the Bishop told the crowd of 400, “Carter said she thought she’d end up in a far flung corner of the world. I never expected that to be Oregon”. Neither did I. But the truth is, I’m unlikely to end up long term overseas, given significant changes in my home world. But the mission field is ripe, right where I am. 

 

This morning, I’m thinking about how easy it is to assume I’m called to do something romantic, grand, and somewhere else. I will have opportunities to do that, but I’m also called to do God’s work that’s mundane, little, and right here.