A time is coming, and is now here

 This week's verses are the Gospel of John 4:19-26:

The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you people say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews. But a time is coming—and now is here—when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers. God is spirit, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (the one called Christ); “whenever he comes, he will tell us everything.” Jesus said to her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”

 Those of you who are connected to the global church, and to our shared history as Christians, know that we are now on the cusp of Lent. With all of the focus on the differences between denominations, it is one area where we can publicly assert our oneness together. I would strongly recommend that you consider observing it on some level, not just in order to have solidarity with Christians all around the world, but to deepen your connection with Jesus, who himself fasted forty days in the desert.

In these verses, Jesus is talking with a Samaritan woman at the well. Samaritans were basically a different "denomination" or sect of Judaism, but much more divided over their differences. There was a lot of hatred and mistrust between the two, and you can see it in the woman's dismissive language. The Jews believed, for instance, that the only place to worship was in temple in Jerusalem, whereas the Samaritans worshiped on a mountain in their homeland. It isn't the first difference the woman brings up to remind Jesus of their seemingly irreconcilable divide.

She doesn't know who she's talking to. Jesus is used to that. He gives her a glimpse of what is changing in the time to come, and was even changing right then. Judaism was in the process of being transformed into Christianity, and the differences between Judaism and its sects would soon no longer matter. People would worship God directly, whenever and wherever they are, and not just in designated "churches" at designated times.

It's a pretty radical statement. He's basically telling her that organized religion as she knows it will go away, and is going away even as they speak. While believers may still gather at specific times and places, the connection that matters is not to places and seasons but to God and community. It's a lot to handle, and she reacts the way many of us react when people start talking about religious ideas. She gets a little hand-wavey.

That reminds me of advice I heard a long time ago about entrepreneurship. The advice basically is this: if you are thinking of making something and ask your friends if they would buy it, most of the time they will say yes, because they are your friends. It isn't a good way to gauge whether the product has appeal or not. What you should really do, if they say yes, is say "Great! I have one in my car; let me go get it." How your friend reacts next is what you use to gauge the product. If your friend is still excited, it's a good product. But if they start making excuses, you know they were just being polite.

In having this conversation with her, Jesus is inviting the woman to join the church. But she deflects him with platitudes about the end times. “I know that Messiah is coming” (the one called Christ); “whenever he comes, he will tell us everything.” We like to lull ourselves to sleep with the talk of a hypothetical future, a time when we have unlimited time and resources, a time we can defer difficult decisions to. We mouth the words, but there is no action in the present. Jesus is telling her what will happen and she's like "yeah sure, whatever, sounds good."

Jesus drops his car line next. "The time is now. God is right in front of you." Thank God it works! She drops everything and tells her family and friends about who he is and what he's done. But how many excuses and deflections did Jesus have to navigate in order to make himself known to her enough for her to answer his call? How many remain for us?

We live a kind of "future Christianity" sometimes. We imagine what heaven will be like, and we try to do good things that we imagine are necessary in order to make sure our reservations don't get canceled. But we don't necessarily taste the reality of being united with Jesus now. We don't want forty days of temptation and privation now. We don't want the cross now. We don't want to live differently now. We imagine that the future will bring union with Jesus and we keep that promise safely in our back pocket like the coupon we never think to redeem until it has expired.

Lent is a good time to cash in that coupon. It's a way to affirm that we are here now with Jesus, not just at some future time. It's a way of expressing, in our own clumsy way, that we are willing to go out to the car with him and take possession of the amazing thing he has purchased for us. 

It's also a way for us to be united with the church now that we will be united with in heaven. We can set aside "well you guys do X and we do Y" and "you guys believe X but we believe Y." We may differ on some things, but we can and should agree on this one undeniable thing, that Jesus died for our sins, and that it is the most important thing ever to have happened.

Let's not live a Christianity that is made up only of empty platitudes and thoughts of an always-distant future. Let's not maintain artificial walls between us and other sects of believers, walls that cannot pass the test of eternity any more than the Jew vs Samaritan divide ultimately did. Let's consider instead that Jesus is ready to be with us, not just in the time to come, but right now. And then we can see what he has for us during this Lent season and in the seasons to follow.