No Perfect People Allowed
Allan Gerh
Our series this month is called Sin City.
One of the things that sets Jesus apart, from other religious leaders was the
humility with which he associated with ordinary people. Most of us don’t have
broad and diverse groups of friends. In general, people choose friends of
similar age and race. We’re also friends with people we do things with, as much
as we are with the people we resemble. Jesus was in that sense very different
from most of us. He sought people out. He was the kind of person who welcomed
all sorts of people into his social circle and who refused to apply labels and
to exclude people.
ReadJohn 4: 4-24
The Samaritan woman had her guard up and with good reason. She was a woman. She
was from a despised minority community and she had a reputation as a loose
woman. Jews actually used to use a route twice the distance just to avoid
passing through Samaritan territory. Women in those days not unlike some places
today were second class citizens. And because of her past, she is defensive
because she expects him to suggest that he is better than her. In each instance
she tries to push Jesus away by saying, you and I have nothing in common. I am
not the kind of person you should be talking to.
Jesus refuses to apply labels and tells her she is a candidate to be a true
worshipper. In this passage we see Jesus talking to an unlikely person, about
an unlikely subject, the kind of worshipper God is looking for.What is
surprising about this passage is that Jesus does not give the woman a list of
preconditions to fulfill after which she can become a true worshipper of God.
In fact it is the woman who throws all sorts of roadblocks into the
conversation:
* We have nothing in common.
* Are you better than me?
* It works for you but not for me.
Jesus boils down the conversation to one thing: God is looking for worship from
the heart. In other words he is saying: You can seek God where you are no
questions asked. Jesus was basically saying to this woman, God is not located in
a particular place and you don’t need to be a particular way. You can seek him
in your heart right where you are.
Can you imagine God not looking down at you with a spotlight turned on all your
faults and failures? God is interested in us, not just in our performance. We
think of God as a prosecutor preparing charges against us, mostly because that
is what we encounter from others many times in the name of God. But Jesus’
dialogue with this woman throws all that out and exposes us to a different
perspective of God. Even though Jesus eventually discloses to her that he is
fully aware of her situation, his concern is not to tell her that she is in the
wrong, but to tell her that she is a candidate for true worship.
We never let our guard down. We live in a world where if you don’t have your
act together, sharks will feed on you. When we encounter stuff about people we
don’t know how to deal with we make the sin the most defining thing about the
person. One of the ones many of us don’t know how to deal with is
homosexuality. We have made homosexuality a shameful thing to talk about. The
gay movement is just waiting to tear the church apart on this issue. We are as
fearful as people used to be of AIDS twenty years ago.
As an individual where do you need to demonstrate acceptance? Is there some one
or some people that you need to redefine as bearers of God’s image who are
worthy of dignity? How do we accept people who have become comfortable with
sin? What can you do as a life group this week to demonstrate the acceptance of
Jesus? All of this life is theory until we start to put credible action to it.
Mavuno is a church for real people, with real issues and a real God. As the
leaders of Mavuno, we want you to know that this is the culture we want to
encourage. One of the ways we will know that Mavuno is doing well is when
people refuse to play church; when we refuse to pretend that our lives are nice
and tidy and when we continue to share our ‘ five husband’ predicament stories
and the ways in which God is changing our lives. What is your‘five husband’
predicament? Which situation have you categorized as incompatible with true
worship?
The word of God to you today is: You can seek God where you are no questions
asked.