Day Ten - Jesus and the Woman at the Well - John 4:1-42

The word 'missional' is in vogue among church thinkers and leaders today. It is giving the contemporary church a new vision for ministry - getting the people who are the church outside the walls in ministry and service. Rather than inventing new ways to get people into our buildings, it is getting the church out of the building and into the streets. In his scandalous encounter with a Samaritan woman, Jesus becomes the model of what it means to be 'missional.'

The 'hot core' of Jesus' passion was seeking out people who were lost to God - the sick who needed the doctor. That's why he spent as little time as possible with the self-satisfied religious people of his day - it always turned into an argument over trivialities! Instead, we find him going places that no self-respecting rabbi would go - like Samaria.

Jesus engaged people at the most basic human level - thirst. The physical need became a metaphor for the deepest longings of the soul. He knows the ways that we try and assuage our soul thirst, numb our pain. Augustine had it right - our souls are restless until we find our rest in God. This woman's restlessness had led her from man to man and bed to bed. What was it about Jesus that made it so easy to open up and be honest about her life, tell him her story?

Jesus leads her to see that her deepest longing is for God - to become a worshipper of God, in spirit and in truth. And he wants her to know that God's deepest longing is for people like her. Jesus told her that God is seeking out people just like her who will engage in worship - the soul-satisfying act of engaging, connecting with the living God. Why is it that we don't connect the relationship between worship and missional living, between worship and soul-satisfaction?

The disciples who had been in town looking for a good deli returned. They were shocked to find Jesus with this woman. They were apparently not quite ready to begin advertising their seminars in missional living. Why is it that we struggle with getting out of the building, getting out of our comfort zones?

"Open your eyes and look at the fields," Jesus tells us. "They are ripe for harvest." Isn't this the missional mandate? It means being alive to the opportunities that come our way every day to engage people who are living with a soul-thirst. It means listening and accepting unconditionally. At some point, it means connecting their story to their deepest longings that only the living God is the answer to. It means having God's heart for those he is seeking whom we encounter each day.

It seems that the church is in a 'recovery' of its own these days. We are recovering the most basic sense of why God has created us, called us to be the body of Christ. The greatest impact in the lives of other seekers is an authentic story of being found by God - this woman got the attention of the whole town. When is the last time there was a story like this in one of our churches? If we are not missional, then what on earth are we?