Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”

Do you have a “fish” sticker on your car?

Or, if not – surely you’ve seen ‘em!

And you know what they mean, right?

Probably don’t have one – not even those of you with cars. I don’t. On the back of my “Delta Sue” is a Blue Ridge Parkway sticker and an Apple logo. There are no political statements and, certainly, no religious ones!

Back in High School, I had a fascination with “Tracts” as we called ‘em. Still do, really, in certain parts of the church, but we’ll get back to that in a minute. In High School I had a huge crush on a Christian Artist. His name was Keith Green. Born in Brooklyn and raised in California, with a swirling ‘fro of dark hair and blue eyes, and a beautiful voice with lots of laid-backness and conviction all at once, Keith was – to my teenage eyes – the perfect man. (I also had a huge teen crush on Love Song, but their band had pretty much broken up by the time I got to be a teenager…)

Naturally, having that much of a crush on Keith, the fact that he wrote tracts made me a voracious reader of his stuff. He would write about all the things a Christian ministry to youth was supposed to write about in the late 70s and early 80s: Jesus, cults, the occult, the Bible and “coming to Jesus”. Unlike the more popular comic-style tracks by Jack Chick, Keith’s were usually heavy on the words (he was a writer, after all) and heavy on the thinking. They appealed to my own intellectual bent. They engaged me and I wanted others to read them. So I ordered a pile and brought ‘em to High School.

Yes, passing out religious tracts in a public high school will get you called to the office to have a talk and yes, passing out tracts on how the Roman ecclesial community is really a cult will cause quite a stir in a good Catholic neck of the woods.

And it’s that last awkward thing I want to focus on here. But it’s a lesson I want to get back to – one other story, first.

Back before 9/11, my then-partner, Alex, and I took a ride around Puget Sound and caught the ferry back from Bremerton. I note it was before 9/11 because I was spooked out that you could see so many Navy Ships so very close from the highway. I hope they’ve fixed that! But we caught the ferry to Seattle and, as we sailed across the sound, someone removed parts of Alex’s “Darwin Fish” from the rear of his car. All that was left was the mouth point. You’d think it was a broken Christian fish just as much as anything else. This – rightly – infuriated Alex. I think he thought just about any Christian was capable of vandalism at that point.

So again, do you have a Jesus fish on your car?

Or, if not – surely you’ve seen ‘em!

And you know what they mean, right?

When I was a scooter driver, they meant “get out of my way”: the person who just did an illegal passage halfway into the far lane to speed by me on my two wheels probably had a Jesus fish on him. The two idiots who shot my scooter – and me – with paint balls while driving past Ingle’s in Asheville had a Jesus fish on their pickup.

So, you know what they mean, right?

Nothing.

Likewise: those tracts, handed out on street corners or left on counter tops in ATM lobbies. In the 1980s someone scratched the word “pray” on every public telephone in NYC. WTF?

Meaningless.

Today’s Gospel story shows us why – you knew I’d get to the Gospel, right?

Absentee Evangelism: the idea that some left-behind printed text or some random plastic symbol can do for me what I am commanded to do which isn’t to “preach the Gospel” but rather to be the Gospel.

The woman went and called people to come to hear this man – yes. But that wasn’t the evangelical moment yet. And they turned to her and said “we’ve heard for our selves now” yes, but that’s not the evangelical moment either – although both are reactions to or maybe follow throughs to the evangelical moment.

Jesus says, “the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

Coming into relationship – into eating and drinking fellowship – with Jesus makes one also into a fountain, makes one into Christ, present to those around one. We’re not here trying to preach, bully or debate someone into a “coming to Jesus” – as Keith Green, himself, says. We need to be drawn in, to sit and feast, to hear him ourselves and know him.

The Psalm says not “God is good, you should try it…” but rather, “taste and see… the Lord is Good.”

We draw people into relationship with Christ by entering into relationship with them ourselves.

Absentee Evangelism is any method that tries to bully, coax, argue or preach someone into “getting saved” without bringing them into a personal relationship in the first person – with another Christian, with me. With you. With us, here in this room.

The first step in “saving someone” being friends with them, the first step in “bringing someone to Jesus”, is bringing them to your own house, to your own heart. The first in “getting to spend eternity” with someone is spending time with them, here, now.

St Photini – this woman, talking to Jesus in Samaria – runs and gets her neighbours. But there’s one other crucial issue here: Jesus comes and gets her. At all.

This woman is Samaritan. Jesus is Jewish.
This woman is rejected by her neighbours (we know because she’s at the well at noon, in the heat of the day, rather than with all the chatting women at dawn). Jesus speaks with her.
This woman is a woman. Jesus speaks to her without a chaperone.

Jesus crosses several cultural boundaries to have this conversation.

Most of us are content to chat with “normal” folks – however we define normal. Most of us are content with reaching out to people like us.

To be Jesus here, we need to reach out to people we wouldn’t be caught dead with.

Who are those people? People who might see you and wonder why you hate them? Who are the people whom you hate for whatever reason: they think you’re wrong religiously, they imagine you to be a heretic, they are certain you are a sinner, they know that God hates you.

Whatsoever is wrong with the world or whatsoever we imagine to be wrong with the world in our judgement or whatsoever God sees as wrong in the world because of our sin, the simple solution is that we fail to love enough. Neither pity nor preaching nor teaching nor liturgy nor praying nor certainly judging will bring one more soul into God’s kingdom as much as simply loving.

Simply being in relationship.

Let’s close out with two things, a story and a song: The story first, this one from the Desert Fathers, as recounted by Olivier Clement in his book, Roots of Christian Mysticism:

There was a saint in Egypt who dwelt in a desert place. Far away from him there was a Manichaean who was a priest — at least, what they call a priest. Once, when this Manichaean was going to visit one of his
confederates, night overtook him in the place where the orthodox saint was living. He was in great distress, fearing to go to him to sleep there, for he knew that he was well known as a Manichaean, and he was
afraid that he would not be received. However, finding himself compelled to do so, he knocked; and the old man opened the door to him, recognized him, received him joyfully, constrained him to pray with him,
and after having given him refreshment, he made a bed for him. Thinking this over during the night, the Manichaean said to himself, “How is it that he is without any suspicions about me? Truly, this man is of God.”
And he threw himself at his feet, saying, “Henceforth, I am orthodox,” and he stayed with the old man.

And one more reference to the Jesus people from the 70s in this song that says what Evangelism really looks like:

TWO HANDS

(Tom Coomes-Chuck Butler)

We’re all gathered here
Because we all believe
If there’s a doubter in the crowd
We ask you not to leave

Give a listen to His story
Hear the message that we bring
Feel the faith swell up inside you
Lift your voice with us and sing

Chorus
Accept Him with your whole heart
And use you own two hands
With one reach out to Jesus
And with the other, bring a friend

Many know Him well, others just by name
If you don’t know for what He stands,
You’ve really much to gain

With faith you can move mountains
These are common words but true
We aren’t quite a mountain
But He’s moved us here to you

Chorus
Accept Him with your whole heart
And use you own two hands
With one reach out to Jesus
And with the other, bring a friend

©1971 Dunamis Music

(You can hear it here, just scroll down to the picture of Tommy Coomes and click on the song title, Two Hands.)