“Come, Drink Living Water”
Lectionary Scripture: John 4:5–42 NRSV
5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, "Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." 11 The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" 13 Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." 15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water." 16 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." 17 The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, "I have no husband'; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" 19 The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." 21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." 25 The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." 26 Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you." 27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?" 28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" 30 They left the city and were on their way to him. 31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something." 32 But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." 33 So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?" 34 Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35 Do you not say, "Four months more, then comes the harvest'? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36 The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, "One sows and another reaps.' 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor." 39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done." 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world."
"AHCA, Fails Living Water Test"
What I love about this scripture passage is how Jesus engages with a person, a woman in this case, whom society and culture intensely scorn. From the first moment of meeting however, Jesus establishes for the woman that she is a child of God, worthy of love and respect. He withholds nothing from her and promises that she will never again experience the pain and suffering of thirst for he offers her living water that will sustain her and her community throughout life.
We have a current day example in the United States of living water that sustains life, that keeps pain and suffering at bay. It is the Affordable Care Act (ACT). Millions upon millions thirst for it. It is not a perfect resource. It can stand to be improved. It does accomplish much good and contributes greatly to the betterment of the Common Good.
Thanks however to a Republican Congress and Republican POTUS 45 and those who elected the individuals in these positions, the living water of the ACA is about to run out. Rights of access to the living water of the ACA are about to be repealed through the Republican sponsored American Health Care Act (AHCA). In actuality, the AHCA is little more than an act of democide that will leave 52 million people without healthcare insurance coverage in the USA by 2026 per the scorecard of the independent non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). People without coverage therefore means people not getting the healthcare they need, which means people dying, which means AHCA is an act of neglect and abuse by a government that knowingly results in the loss of citizens’ lives – which is therefore “democide”. What makes the culpability of the Republican Congress and Republican POTUS 45 even more horrific is the untold billions of dollars in tax cuts they are going to hand to the wealthy as part of taking away the living water of the ACA.
As a psychotherapist in a not-for-profit medical group practice, the terror of what is about to happen -- if the AHCA gets signed into law -- is so thick for my patients that it can be cut with a knife. People whose lives have been getting healthier the past several years from the living water of the ACA will very quickly return to pain and suffering because they won’t be able to afford what the Republican Congress and Republican POTUS 45 have trotted out in the AHCA. How it is that Republicans fail to see this is shocking! Even in the face of protests and opposition against the AHCA by the American Medical Association, the America Hospital Association, and even the AARP, the Republican Congress and Republican POTUS 45 remain driven to return people to pain and suffering.
Americans as a people, society and culture need to have a come to Jesus moment like the woman at the well and like her community who came to join her there as well to hear Jesus preach and teach of living water. America is the only developed country in the world that does not provide the living water of basic health care as a recognized basic right of its people. For some reason long ago, the rich and powerful among us decided that healthcare was a money making machine from which obscene profits and money-making schemes should happen. Today that way of being demonstrates on a per capita basis that we Americans have the costliest healthcare system on the face of the planet that still leaves millions upon millions without basic healthcare. Every other developed country in the world sees the living water of basic healthcare as an inalienable right and shockingly, they manage to do it quite efficiently and at far less a cost per capita than how our silly nonsensical system does things. It’s time fellow citizens to take the profit making schemes and processes out of the American healthcare system. Its time for single-payer universal healthcare.
Often, I bristle at phrases of “what would Jesus do” or “what would Jesus say”. They seem so trite and seem to fall on deaf ears of culturally right people of faith who believe healthcare is not a right. They seem to imagine that Jesus is going to one day drop out of the sky and magically wave his arm and make everything just and right. But as these individuals often like to say as well, “God helps those who help themselves.” Well it’s time Americans help themselves. Like an individual married multiple times, we have gone through several different times of being wedded to ideas of what healthcare should be and do. The answer to our healthcare dilemma is right before us, just like Jesus sitting right before the woman at the well and later Jesus sitting right before her community at the well and saying he has living water to freely give to all. The living water of providing basic healthcare as a right of all people needs to be what we say and what we do. It must become our perspective and the living water we demand of those who run our government. Healthcare for all, not just for some!! Come, drink living water.
I close this message/sermon (or whatever you want to call it) with the following: AHCA = Trumpcare = Ryancare = 52 million uninsured by 2026 per CBO = people dying = thinning of the American herd = Democide, A.K.A. a government's intentional, knowing, reckless disregard for life -- the neglects and abuses of which cause citizen deaths. This is "old order" thinking. Far from the scriptural message below:
Then I saw new heavens and a new earth. The former heavens and the former earth had passed away, and the sea existed no longer. I also saw a new Jerusalem, the holy city, coming down out of heaven from God, beautiful as a bride and groom on their wedding day. And I heard a loud voice calling from the throne, “Look! God’s Tabernacle is among humanity! God will live with them; they will be God’s people, and God will be fully present among them. The Most High will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And death, mourning, crying, and pain will be no more, for the old order has fallen.”
The One who sat on the throne said, “Look! I’m making everything new!” and added, “Write this, for what I am saying is trustworthy and true.” And the One continued, “It is finished. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To those who are thirsty I will give drink freely from the spring of the water of life. This is the rightful inheritance of the overcomers. I will be their God and they will be my daughters and sons.” ---- Revelations 12:1-7, The Inclusive New TestamentMay the Peace of all God’s prophets, mystics, teachers, and messengers be with you -- for all are called to provide living water, and that means you!!
Brad Shumate
Free of Encumbrance
Eugene, Oregon USA
©Copyright 2017 Brad Shumate
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