Times are changing, and it is rocking our country to the core. Cultural shifts are happening so fast that most of us cannot keep track of them. The country that our grandparents loved and grew up in no longer exists. It used to be that you graduated from high school and worked for one company all your life. A young person graduating from college today will work for a dozen companies or more before they retire. Values are changing. We used to value the “dignity of human life,” now our emphasis is on the “quality of life.” The family is being radically redefined, and will continue to be. The white majority is shrinking in the country. The Census Bureau is predicting that by the year 2010, whites will drop to only 68% of the population, and Hispanics will overtake African Americans as our country’s largest minority.
When I went to a preaching conference earlier this year in Washington, D.C., I walked along a street with several ethnic restaurants, most with sidewalk seating out front. One restaurant featured Italian cooking, another French, others featured foods from China, India, Korea, Viet Nam, Ethiopian cuisine, menus from Ghana, Pakistan, and many more. The racial mix of the area was astounding and fascinating, especially since I was used to homogenous little Mount Vernon. All of these people are coming to America, and many of them are Christians because of the faithful work of missionaries around the world. There are approximately 7,000 Latino and 3,000 Korean congregations in the U. S., with their unique worship styles. And this ethnic and cultural change is coming to Mount Vernon as well. Not only are the restaurants and orchards bringing ethnic groups to our area, but many of them are professionals: doctors, educators, and engineers. Get ready, for they are here, and more are coming. Hopefully, we will see many of them come to our church. The day has passed when you could live in a community or go to a church where you knew everyone and everyone was like you.
The Bible says that “God so loved the world . . . ,” and what that means is that God is crazy about people — all kinds and colors of people. The first point of this story that I want to bring out today is that when it comes to having people as a part of his kingdom: God breaks all the rules. When Jesus talked to this Samaritan woman, he certainly broke all the rules. First of all, Jews were not supposed to talk to Samaritans. Jews hated Samaritans. Jews would add a day’s journey on their way to Jerusalem rather than go through Samaria. Samaritans were a mixed breed, half Jew and half whatever, with a religion that was just as mixed as their racial characteristics (see 2 Kings 17:24). Jews saw them as an inferior group of people who lived away from the true God, and they could not imagine God being interested in them. Jesus also broke all the rules when he spoke to this Samaritan who was also a woman. She was astonished that he would speak to her. She probably thought he was soliciting her — especially when he asked about her husband and seemed to know that she did not have one.
But when it came to people, Jesus was always breaking the rules. He touched lepers. He showed mercy and concern for a woman who was caught in an immoral act. He allowed children to crawl on his lap, when the rules said they should stay in their place. He broke the rules when he ate in the home of Zacchaeus, a Jewish tax collector who committed fraud against his own people. Jesus broke the rules when he stopped on the way to heal a dying child to touch a woman with a flow of blood that would not stop. Women in her condition were considered unclean by that culture and it was against the rules to touch them. He talked to Greeks and went to the homes of Roman soldiers. He mingled with sinners. He broke all the rules of social custom in order to reach people and bring them into the kingdom.
The Bible says that Jesus’ disciples were surprised to find him talking to a woman when they returned. They were probably even offended by his easy way of speaking with her. The Bible says, “But no one asked, ‘What do you want?’ or ‘Why are you talking with her?’” They were not about to talk with her, that’s for sure. But Jesus wanted her as a part of his kingdom. He offered her living water — real life. But when he broke the rules and began to talk about some very personal areas of her life, she tried to change the subject and engage him in a religious debate. She said to him, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem” (John 4:19-20). And here is where Jesus really broke the rules. He said to her, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. . . . Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:21-24). We would expect him to say, “The real worshipers of God must worship at the temple mount in Jerusalem.” The disciples, and certainly the people of Israel, would have expected him to say that. But Jesus blew her mind when he said that a time was coming when the real worshipers of God would not worship on the temple mount in Jerusalem, or on the mountain of Samaria — because the kingdom of God was bigger than that. Real worship is bigger than Jerusalem and Samaria combined. Worshiping God is not a matter of where, but how. Worship is not about a physical place, but a spiritual condition. God was about to place his temple inside of people — all kinds of people. It was there, where people would worship in spirit and truth, that God was going to place his temple. Jesus said, “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). If you think that was not a new and shocking concept to the people of that day, then you need to understand that if he had said this in Jerusalem he would have been crucified much sooner.
Jesus was saying, “The true worshipers do not worship in the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian church, the Nazarene church, or the Lutheran church, because the kingdom of God is bigger than that. God’s church is universal. It is for everyone. God’s church is inside of God’s people — not the building in which the people are inside.” The true worshipers of God worship in their hearts wherever they are. And God is breaking all the rules to bring them to himself. For, as Jesus said, God is seeking worshipers who will worship in spirit and truth. You can be on a holy mountain and still not worship. You can be in a church and not truly worship. But you can be riding in a car, walking to school, or sitting on a chair and have a true experience of worship. You don’t have to follow the rules of tradition, you only have to desire to love God and worship him.
The second point of this story is that when it comes to having people as a part of his kingdom: God wants everyone to know him. It is interesting that one of the clearest statements that Jesus ever made to anyone about who he was, he made to this sinful woman who was an outcast in a culture of outcasts. She was a nobody in the world’s eyes. But she said to him, “I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” That’s when Jesus said, “I who speak to you am he” (John 4:25-26). He wanted this woman to know him, and he gave her a clear and strait answer about who he was. He told her that he was the Messiah. He asked her for a drink of water so that he might have the opportunity to offer her a drink from the well of life. When he said to her, “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,” the woman was stunned. She said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?” But Jesus was talking about life, so he said, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Then the woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water. . . .”
The Samaritan woman went running into town shouting to all who would listen, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (John 4:29). When they heard this, the people came out of the town to the place where Jesus was. After listening to what he had to say they urged him to stay with them, and he did. For two days he taught them the ways of God, and at the end of that time the Bible says, “And because of his words many more became believers. They said to the woman, ‘We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world’” (John 4:41-42). What is remarkable about this is that the Samaritans were not any more fond of the Jews than the Jews were of the Samaritans. They resented the Jews telling them that their religion was inferior. But here is a man who came and said, “Salvation is from the Jews, and I am that salvation” (John 4:22). And in spite of their prejudice and anger toward the Jews they not only heard Jesus out, but they invited him to stay with them and placed their faith in him as the Messiah. They loved this Jew, and were ready to believe that he was their Savior too. It would be the equivalent of the Palestinians in our day agreeing that the Israelis were right all along. It was an amazing leap of faith. And the added irony is that these Samaritans were more ready to receive him, and accept his claims, than his own people were.
Jesus’ disciples were shocked, and perhaps annoyed, that he showed so much interest in the Samaritans and stayed so long with them. Weren’t these people infidels? But Jesus always sees possibilities in people that we never see. Sometimes I wonder if there are groups in our own community that we are overlooking. Are there people whom we see as hopeless? Are there people that we think God has written off? Is it possible that there are people sitting in bars in our community that may be more open to God than some of the people sitting in churches? Are there people living in immorality in our town, only because they have never discovered real love and acceptance like Jesus is offering? Do we believe Jesus cares about these people? Do we care? The Bible says that God is “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
The third point of this story is that when it comes to having people as a part of his kingdom: God wants us to open our eyes. As the Samaritans were streaming out of the city and walking toward him, he said to his disciples, “Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest” (John 4:35). The disciples did not recognize that they were seeing a spiritual harvest. These people were ripe for the Gospel, and the disciples did not even see it. It would be comparable to a farmer standing in his field and not understanding that, first of all, the things growing around him were crops, and secondly, that the crops were ready to be harvested. How ludicrous would that be? What would we think of a farmer like that? But what does God think of us when we are around people every day and don’t recognize that we are working with people who are ripe for God. They are standing around us at ball games. They are at our family gatherings. The live next to us. We see them at school activities and have never lifted our eyes to see how many people there are out there who are hungry for God. The spiritual harvest is ripe and ready, and we are oblivious. Jan Johnson wrote in a Christian magazine saying, “Many believers are ‘rabbit hole’ Christians. In the morning they pop out of their safe Christian homes, hold their breath at work, scurry home to their families and then off to their Bible studies, and finally end the day praying for the unbelievers they safely avoided all day.”
What would happen if we started opening our eyes to the harvest that is all around us? How would our behavior as church members change? One thing you would never do is ask someone to move because they are sitting in “your seat” — you would come to church hoping that someone new would sit where you often do. If we were more concerned about the harvest, we would not see new people as strangers, but as guests deserving special treatment. Perhaps the members of the church would begin to park on the side streets because they wanted to make sure visitors would not have trouble finding a place to park — even though you helped to pay for the parking lot. You might start inviting new people to your home for dinner after church, or dessert during the week. You might look for people you could invite to church, and offer rides to people who don’t have transportation. If you followed the example of Jesus, you would make an effort to know people. You would be more concerned about greeting other people than being greeted. One winter we had valets who would take people’s car to the parking lot, and then get it for them after the service was over. Let’s do it again this winter. You see, once we stop seeing church as just something for us, and see it as a place where people can come to find Christ in their lives, it will change the way we think about church. We will begin to see fields which are ripe for harvest.
Some who appear to be the hardest people in the world are actually ready to place their trust in the Savior. Some of those who are the most immoral are looking for a way to escape the bondage they are in, and desperately want to know that there is hope for them. They need to know that God has not rejected them and is still interested in them. In fact, God is longing for them and wanting them to come home to him. The Bible says that God, “wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).
World evangelist Luis Palau, in a message entitled “Go to the Ends of the Earth,” tells about former Secretary of State James Baker and his journey of faith. He said, “At a presidential breakfast several years ago, [James Baker] testified of his faith in Jesus Christ to heads of state and all sorts of people. He said he never really paid much attention to the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Then his first wife came down with cancer, and he really began to think about death and eternity and God. Why was he being left alone with all these children? He still couldn’t find the key to eternal life. His second wife, Susan, came to know the Lord Jesus. She began to teach community Bible studies and pray for Jim. Soon some of the Senators who know Jesus Christ began to pray for him. And then one day he said he understood. All his life he had thought he had to earn the love of God. He said, ‘I realized I could never earn the love of God. God loved me before I was even formed in my mother’s womb. God loved me when Christ died on the cross.’ And James Baker bowed the knee to Jesus Christ and opened his heart to the Savior. The immediate result was this: As Secretary of State, he was dealing with the foreign secretary of the USSR, Eduard Sheverdnadze. Baker liked Shevardnadze. As soon as he became a believer, the first thing that crossed Jim Baker’s mind was ‘I’ve got to win Shevardnadze to Jesus Christ.’ Baker has a ranch in Wyoming, and after a diplomatic event in 1989, he invited Shevardnadze to his ranch. At dinner Baker presented his guest with a pair of Western cowboy boots. Then Shevardnaze presented Baker with a surprising gift: an enameled picture of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. Then Shevardnadze said to Baker, ‘You see, Mr. Secretary, even we Communists are changing our minds about spiritual things.’ Later when the two went fishing, Baker began to share his faith. It wasn’t long before Shevardnadze opened his heart to the Lord Jesus Christ. In diplomatic circles, you’re not supposed to meddle in personal religion, but when you’re filled with the love of Christ, you want other people to come to faith in him.”
That’s the way it is when you understand that Jesus wants all people everywhere to know him. You don’t care about the rules of tradition being broken. You care about people like Jesus cares about people. And you open your eyes and see that you are standing in the middle of a harvest field of people who are ready to come to Jesus Christ.
Rodney J. Buchanan
July 22, 2001
Mulberry St. UMC
Mt. Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
