On the way to Galilee Jesus passed through Samaria. It was noon when He reached the beautiful Vale of Shechem. At the opening of the valley was Jacob’s well. Wearied with His journey, He sat down here to rest while His disciples went to buy food.
The Jews and the Samaritans were bitter enemies, and as far as possible avoided all dealings with each other. To trade with the Samaritans in case of necessity was indeed counted lawful by the rabbis; but all socializing with them was condemned. There were several things a Jew could not borrow from a Samaritan; he also couldn’t receive kindness, not even a piece of bread or a drink of water. The disciples, in buying food, were acting in harmony with the custom of their nation. But beyond this they did not go. To ask a favor of the Samaritans, or in any way seek to benefit them, did not even cross the minds of Christ’s disciples.
As Jesus sat by the well side, He was tired, hungry and thirsty. His journey this morning had been extremely long, and now the midday sun shone down upon Him. He was made even thirstier by the thought that the cool, fresh water was just there, right beside Him, but yet it was so far away, down the shaft of the well; for He had no rope nor water jar, and the well was deep. He was just as human as the next person in this regard, and He waited for someone to come to draw.
A woman of Samaria approached, and seeming unconscious of His presence, filled her pitcher with water. As she turned to go away, Jesus asked her for a drink. Such a favor no Samaritan would deny. In the East, water was called “the gift of God.” To offer a drink to the thirsty traveler was held to be a duty so sacred that the Arabs of the desert would go out of their way in order to perform it. The hatred between Jews and Samaritans prevented the woman from offering kindness to Jesus; but the Saviour was seeking to find the key to her heart, and with the tact that only God himself could have, he asked, not offered, a favor. The offer of a kindness might have been rejected; but trust awakens trust. The Creator came to this outcast soul, asking for service at her hands. ….
As Jesus spoke of the living water, the woman looked upon Him with wondering attention. He had caught her interest, and stirred a desire for this water.
As the woman talked with Jesus, she was impressed with His words. Never had she heard such sentiments from the priests of her own people or from the Jews. Jesus had convinced her that He read the secrets of her life; yet she felt that He was her friend, pitying and loving her. O.K., I’ve spent a little time looking at the devotional aspects of this story, but lets change tack totally and have a look at a model for fellowship, and then see how this applies to our story.
The process that leads to fellowship in its true sense can be broken down in a series of steps. I would like to take you through these steps, and as we go through them, relate them back to the story we just read and also to your own experience. Don’t worry if you struggle to apply the Biblical story, as we will come back to it at the end.
As this is an American model for fellowship, you can imagine, it is based around a baseball diamond.
In baseball, you have to go round all the bases before you achieve a home run, the same can be said of the steps to achieving true fellowship, there are definite stages, or bases you must touch before fellowship is reached. With this in mind let’s head off to the first base. This is called HISTORY GIVING.
HISTORY GIVING usually begins as small talk, i.e. the weather, politics, shopping or where to find the best bargains, cars, pets, computers, or basically any safe, non-threatening topic. It doesn’t need to be deep, you don’t have to tell your life story, or go through your family tree. It can just be things you have done in the past few weeks or months, or even yesterday. Did you realise that right now you are making history? O.K. so it might not be recorded in any major books of history in the late twentieth century, but it is still history. HISTORY GIVING can also project what you plan to do in the future, such as having children, buying a home, career aspirations, for some of us life partners, or business enterprises. In HISTORY GIVING you can be very shallow, or you can choose to share something more personal. This is where all relationships start.
AFFIRMATION
Most relationships that fail, make it to first base, HISTORY GIVING, but they never make it to second base. In fact, it can be basically guaranteed that we will have more friends than we can handle if we but make it to second base. Does anyone have an idea or what the secret of second base is? …..
It is something that all of us can do, and most of us tend to crave it, at least I know I do. Second base is AFFIRMATION.
AFFIRMATION is based on the history that has been given. Let me give you an example. I know some of you reasonably well, and others I still have not had the opportunity to get to know well at all. If we are going to build a relationship together, we will need to do some HISTORY GIVING with each other. Let me do some HISTORY GIVING with you now. This week has been really hectic. I got so busy during the week that I actually had to take some time out to write a to-do list so that I could clear my head and prioritise what I needed to do next.
How many of you find it easy to affirm the HISTORY GIVING I just shared with you? My guess is that the more your history is similar to mine the easier it is for you to affirm my HISTORY GIVING. Affirmation may sound something like this, “I know how it feels to be so busy that it is hard to know where to start.” It takes a mature person to affirm someone’s HISTORY GIVING that is markedly different from their own. Sometimes we side step a persons HISTORY GIVING and affirm them on something else, such as: “So what are you doing next Tuesday?” Such a comment might be considered to be affirmation, but not in relation to the HISTORY GIVING that has been provided. Consider another example: “Yesterday morning when I woke up I was feeling really lousy, and just wanted to stay in bed all day.”
How many of you find it easier to affirm the HISTORY GIVING I just shared with you? Once again the more similar your history is to mine the easier it is to give AFFIRMATION. Have you noticed that people who like similar things, or who have similar backgrounds naturally gravitate together. Perhaps the mothers in our church have formed a bond of friendship because of their common experiences. Maybe the same goes for the people who run their own businesses, or who have a common place of work or similar profession. It is also likely and desirable that the people who are here in this church today will form a bond of friendship because they share similar beliefs and experiences together. You can affirm such people because you share the same beliefs.
I know that you can think of exceptions of this general rule, but that’s not the purpose of telling you about second base. If you are unable to give affirmation on the HISTORY GIVING of a person, seek more HISTORY GIVING. You don’t have to give AFFIRMATION of all the HISTORY GIVING a person provides. That would sound false, and silly. The problem is that all too often we fail to give any AFFIRMATION.
A survey done of teenagers at an Adventist Academy in the States, asked if they had received any affirmation in the previous week. Of the 300 students, about 20 could recall receiving any affirmation. When asked how many had given affirmation the previous week about 25 of the 300 had. It is not surprising that most of these people did not receive affirmation when most of them did not give it. When we give affirmation, it opens the door for more HISTORY GIVING perhaps on a deeper level. An example is that after the service, you tell the person who provided the flowers how beautiful they are, and how much you appreciate them, and it is possible that they person will then share how they were worried about the colours blending, or if there would be enough, or maybe they will just share something about their treasured garden. Don’t everyone go up to the person who brought the flowers today and tell them how wonderful they are, or they may suspect your motives. But you get the concept of what’s happening here.
Unless you give AFFIRMATION on at least some of the HISTORY GIVING your relationship with the HISTORY GIVING person will not progress. You may be acquaintances but you will not have a significant relationship. I’m not suggesting that you must have a significant relationship with every person in this room, I’m simply pointing out that giving AFFIRMATION based on a persons HISTORY GIVING is essential for the development of relationships.
AFFIRMATION can be non-verbal, simply listening can be a form of AFFIRMATION. How many people do you know who are considered to be good friends, basically because they are good listeners? Here’s an example of poor AFFIRMATION: Have you ever been talking to somebody, and they keep looking at their watch, or looking over your shoulder, how does that make you feel? Not very special I am sure, so we need to be careful what sort of AFFIRMATION we give to people.
AFFIRMATION paves the way for deeper HISTORY GIVING. If AFFIRMATION continues to be given a person develops enough security to go to third base. It may take a long time before a person is willing to go to third base because it calls for vulnerability. A person can participate in HISTORY GIVING and AFFIRMATION without taking a personal risk. When adequate security has developed because of the AFFIRMATION giving, a person is willing to move to third base, which is INVESTMENT.
INVESTMENT requires a personal risk. It is saying I need you. It’s a natural progression for a relationship when AFFIRMATION has accumulated. A small investment might be asking a person what they thought of your Sabbath School lesson, or even your new suit. An enormous investment would be proposing marriage to somebody. When an individual makes an INVESTMENT there may be a gain or a loss depending on whether the other person rejects or accepts your INVESTMENT.
FELLOWSHIP
When INVESTMENTS are made the relationship moves home, and a run is scored. We can label this FELLOWSHIP or for the Greek scholars Koinonia. This is the open sharing with one another that can occur when relationships have progressed through the stages.
We sometimes speak of the needs for fellowship in the church, or for fellowship dinners or nights, but do we make plans or provide opportunities for people to proceed through the other stages to achieve fellowship? Some people consider HISTORY GIVING exercises to be a waste of time during Sabbath School, they may say we need fellowship or Bible study, not surface talk. But fellowship won’t happen right, until we have been around the bases. For some people it can take several months of HISTORY GIVING before they can even move to AFFIRMATION. Let’s encourage those people to keep sharing their history.
As a church we need to build into our program times when people can get together and share these experiences to build true fellowship. Social activities, fellowship lunches, working bees, informal gatherings; all these things and more are needed as we grow to know each other more, and build a greater sense of Community and Togetherness. All these things are examples or times when we can give history and give / receive affirmation. Sometimes I hear people say, “It took us 10 minutes to get into the lesson today” or “Our Bible study started at 5 to 8 instead of 7:30”. While it is important to achieve the tasks that we come together for, also treasure the informal times of chatting, both before and after these events, because these are the things that bring about true FELLOWSHIP in our church.
Let’s now come back to the Samaritan woman sitting beside the well with her Saviour.
John 4
V 9 - A question that leads to HISTORY GIVING in v10
v 13,14 - INVESTMENT
v 15 - AFFIRMATION by the woman
v 16 - INVESTMENT - Christ is asking for commitment and history
v 17 - HISTORY
v 17,18 - AFFIRMATION through acceptance
v 19 - AFFIRMATION
v 25 - projected HISTORY and AFFIRMATION
V 26 - INVESTMENT and FELLOWSHIP is achieved
Our challenge today is to be willing to form relationships with people no matter how they look, whether they be rich or poor, black or white etc.. And to accept them willingly, providing them with opportunities to fellowship with us. We don’t have the luxury of reading peoples hearts, as Christ did in this story, and therefore we cannot dive into investment with people as rapidly. Jesus practice was not always to go straight into investment either, he had the luxury to choose the most appropriate time, based on their hearts, as you read the stories in the Gospels you will find many incidents of history giving and affirmation long before the call for investment. We have to take it slower and read peoples reactions, and prayerfully, we can build stronger relationships with one another, and with those who are not yet members of our church body.
