Loading...Years ago, I served a little congregation in East Tennessee, in the Appalachian mountains. They were lovely people, in a good Lutheran heritage, part of a multi-generational congregation.
But, if you’ve ever been to the South, you know the heavy influence of the Baptists. Indeed, as our Presiding Bishop Curry said last week,
in the South, you’re Episcopal Baptist, or Methodist Baptist, or Presbyterian Baptist....
And, I would and, or Lutheran Baptist.
One of the strong and lasting influences of Baptist theology that was felt amongst folks in my congregation came clear to me on one Sunday as I went to visit ol’ Mr. Harr at the hospital. He was in the ICU, so I first went to the waiting room (as you couldn’t go straight into the room, even with a clerical collar on). I saw his daughter Lisa there, also waiting for an opportunity to go back to visit her dad. We started chatting – you know, small talk – for about 30 seconds before she interrupted me to ask:
Am I really saved, Pastor?
I mean, have I done enough to be saved?
And, do I need to be baptized again?
Whoa! Lisa!
First of all, yes, you really are saved!
Secondly, where did this come from? What prompted your questions and your concern?
It turns out that a Baptist pastor had been through the waiting room earlier in the day and had left tracts behind.
Ah.
Well, in that case, let’s deal with your questions!
It is true that baptism is not a “one and done” event,
but that’s true regardless if your baptism takes place when you’re an infant – as was true for Lisa and for many Lutherans and Episcopalians –
or, if it takes place later, after your conversion and assent of belief, as is true for most Baptists. But you aren’t baptized again.
And, it is also true that salvation – whatever that means for you – is a gift from God. It is not something you have to earn or work towards.
But, then what happens? What about the rest of life? What about the way of life?
Lisa’s question, prompted by the Baptist pastor’s tract, has something important for us to hear:
What else happens?
Is that it? Is the action of baptism all that’s needed?
What happens now? What do I do now?
How does this faith and belief thing change me?
What does trusting in Jesus mean for me – everyday?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One day, Jesus was walking through an area of the Samaritans.
(You need to know the back story that Jews and Samaritans didn’t get along because of years of animosity started more than 500 years before Jesus went on his walk. The Jews were taken off into exile and considered their worship and culture to be pure; the Samaritans stayed in place during the exile, but couldn’t worship in Jerusalem because of the political situation during all that time. They also intermarried with the people who took over the area. So when the Jews returned home from exile, they considered the Samaritans “less than”, and had nothing more to do with them.)
The day that Jesus was in the Samaritan town of Sychar,
he was there in the hot and dusty part of the day
(his disciples were elsewhere),
and he stopped at a well. Not just any well, but Jacob’s well –
Jacob (aka Israel) one of the Patriarchs put in this well more than a thousand years earlier.
A woman came by to get water from the well, probably for her household chores. Jesus asked her for water that prompts this whole conversation: the conversation about water and buckets and life,
culminating in Jesus’ announcement that he has the gift of living water,
and that any one who has this water will never be thirsty because it will be a “spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
Jesus has the gift of life, of faith, and of trust that is life-giving:
Shalom, peace, joy, compassion, love.
Because of this gift from Jesus,
you have a life of hope and of possibility, of growth and of change –
not because you have to do anything to earn it,
but because it is what is life.
For the unnamed woman at the well whom Jesus meets, listens to,
knows, and loves,
this gift of living water takes the form of a vibrant, trusting,
risk-taking faith.
She –
a woman likely on the fringe of society
(after all, there were five former husbands and
a man she lives with now who is not her husband,
and who is coming to get water for her household at noon) –
RUNS back to town as the first witness to Jesus as the Messiah
and tells people, “COME and SEE!”
We are told by St. John that many Samaritans from that city believed in Jesus because of this woman’s testimony!
~~~~~~~~~~~
How might this gift of living water –
the spring of water gushing up to eternal life –
have impact on your life?
Maybe the first thing is
that you drink deeply of the well of love for you.
Like Lisa who wondered and worried that she wasn’t good enough
and needed to do something to earn salvation,
maybe the first thing you do is
let the springs of water wash over you,
and wash over you, and wash over you.
The love of Jesus is not limited, and it does not run out.
The love of Jesus is a living spring,
and like water gushing from a rock for the people of God in the desert, the sweet love of God does not end.
Another way that the gift of living water might impact you
is that maybe you will be filled with the absolute and deep conviction
that Jesus loves you.
This will buoy you and hold you
even when you feel lost, alone, frustrated, overwhelmed, angry, confused, or grief-stricken.
The gift of living water from God
might open up for you experiences of the Holy Spirit
alive and at work empowering you:
in prayer, in daily life, in words, in relationships, in challenge, in joy, in possibility, in action.
Like the Samaritan woman that Jesus met at the well when she met the Messiah and source of springs of living water,
you might also be impacted by this gift
by sharing this life that you know.
Share this life in your actions,
by loving your neighbor,
by caring for creation,
by advocating for the vulnerable,
by hanging out with and building relationships with people whom you encounter,
by willing to be vulnerable.
You might also be empowered to talk about your life in Jesus.
You might share the goodness that you know:
the forgiveness and reconciliation that you have experienced,
the hope that you live in,
the springs of living water that gush through and out of you.
Like Lisa and this woman from Samaria,
you can both share the good news of life
– that Jesus knows and loves you –
and invite others to Come and See the One who gives this living water of life eternal!
Amen
