God Is Always More!

If the gospel of Mark is a black and white photograph of Jesus, the gospel of John is a portrait. Mark is a rapid fire newspaper type account designed to "get the word out". John's gospel, written years after the resurrection, is an "in depth look" – an experience if you will, of the "word made flesh". (John 1:14) He uses poetry, metaphor and symbolic language to write his theological statement of the Christ, carefully arranged to bring the reader into a deeper faith and a fuller life. Look for Old Testament references that enlarge the story. Notice frequent play on words and the dialogue's progressive questions that reveal more and more about Jesus as the Messiah of God. The following story is an excellent illustration of the writer's style. It can also be an experience in exploring a familiar story and finding that God is always more!!

I. Listen: John 4:4-30 (The Samaritan Woman)

Read the story aloud from at least two translations. If you are in a group, assign parts including a narrator and read as a play.

• See Gen. 33:18 and Joshua 24:32 for background material.
• A commentary is helpful here to develop the water and Spirit theme (See Jeremiah 2:13,17:13.) Water can be seen as a sacramental symbol of God's mighty works (Zechariah 13:1).
• Remembering the stories of other women who were met at a well, Rebekah, Rachel, and Moses' wife, Zipporah, this story might symbolize the uniting of the Samaritans and Israel in the new Israel, the Christian community.
• The word for husband, ba'al, (vs. 16) is also the name of a pagan God. The Samaritans worshiped five different gods (II Kings 17:24--41). It is thought by some scholars, and I agree, that Jesus and the woman were having a theological conversation.
• Are you already beginning to see the many levels in this story? What has surprised you? What interests you about Jesus? The woman? What images are communicated to you by the phrase "living water"? What does it mean to worship God in Spirit and Truth?

Read the passage again, but this time use your imagination and senses to join Jesus and the woman at the well. Feel the heat in the noonday sun. Smell the freshness that comes from the deep well. Wonder why the woman came to this well, probably about a half a mile from Sychar where she lived. Wonder, also, about her coming at the wrong time of day. Water was gotten in early morning. Perhaps she came this far and at this time to be alone. To reflect at a place that connects her to her ancestor, Jacob, who also struggled alone with God. How does Jesus relate to this woman? (Jews don't speak to Samaritans and Rabbis don't speak to women.) What is it that invites the woman to openness? Can you begin to frame some of the questions that might have been in her heart as she came, probably work weary, to the well? What did she tell her friends? Why did she leave her jug?

III. Connect:

In rereading the conversation and imagining what her questions might be, we could claim that she had drifted far away from worship, fellowship and her spiritual center. As the conversation goes deeper and deeper and she feels honored and accepted she can voice her question. "Where do I find God?" "What is spirituality"?

Imagine your weary self in a quiet cool place. What are the things that make your soul weary? What are the questions that haunt you in the night? What is the water that Christ is offering you? A visit to the deep well of pain in your subconscious? A drink from his bubbling fountain of energy as you seek to discover your own spirituality? What makes your jar empty?

IV. Act:

This familiar story can lead us again to a new depth of discovering that God is always more. The woman invites us as she invites her friends to "come and see". Will you open your heart to the refreshment Christ offers?

Simply stated, spirituality is not a goal, nor is it to be found in another 'place' or dimension--it is a vital part of our humanity, decidedly incarnational. Living spiritually does not depend on the acquisition of some set of skills or secret action. It is as close as our own muscle tissue, as much a part of us as our breath. In fact, living spiritually is quite simple and always more near to us than we imagine..., it is life itself – in our work, in our homes, in our relationships. Spirituality is, in fact, the fabric which holds all these disparate parts of life together, the web of connection which gives shape and substance to human living. (There's A War Going on in my Backyard by Douglas Scott)

Come and see. God is always more!

Suggested Reading:

There's a War Going on in My Backyard by Douglas Scott, Ragged Edge Press, 1998

Don't Sweat The Small Stuff.., and its all small stuff, Simple ways to Keep the Little things from Taking Over you Life by Richard Carlson, Hyperion,1997

Friend of the Soul, A Benedictine Spirituality of Work by Novene Vest, Cowley Publications, 1997

In Ordinary Time, Healing the Wounds of the Heart, by Roberta Bondi, Abingdon Press, 1996

Bible Basics for the next generation, by Nancy Boyle, 1999 - a collection of Nancy Boyle's relational bible studies (1995-1999)