When Jesus Came to Hang Out for Two Days

Here's a story for you:

Back in Jesus' day, the Pharisees, Sadducee and religious leaders walked to Jerusalem because, you know, they didn't have cars. The shortest route to Jerusalem from a lot of places the leaders lived or met was straight through Samaria. 

Samaritans were ostracized by church leaders and Jews back then kind of like certain groups are ostracized by church goers today (nothing new under the sun, people). 

So, these church leaders would walk AROUND Samaria to get to Jerusalem. The first time I read that in a concordance and did the research I almost laughed. Ya'll, it added almost a week to their travel. 

A WEEK!!!!!!!

If something is gonna add 15 minutes to my travel time I get antsy. I would ride through pitch black forests with signs declaring Deliverance type antics with banjos playing in the background before adding A WEEK to my travel time.

But, these religiously pious leaders would walk around this city to avoid the Samaritans. What?!

Now listen, these two groups have a long history that we aren't going to cover here. A lot of it was that it's sometimes toughest to love your neighbor who is just next door, especially if their political, economic, social, religious rituals and customs don't match yours. With today's social media culture, fear is more common than love and hype is more common than grass growing outside. We're not good neighbors anymore, ya'll. We aren't. It's a little like the Samaritans and Jews out there.

So they avoided the people they didn't like and claimed God didn't like them, either.

Not Jesus. He walked right up in the middle of it. Smack dab through Samaria.

You may remember the woman at the well Jesus met and changed her life so much that she ran back into the town to tell everyone about this guy she'd met. He met her in Samaria.

This lady had been married 5 times and was currently living with number 6. She was at the well alone because she had to come at a time when the other women weren't getting water because she was such a "bad sinner" that she wasn't allowed to go with the other ladies.  I guess they thought her promiscuity would rub off or something. I don't know. 

Not Jesus. He cozied up and had a nice long conversation with her right there in public. 

And you know what? He didn't use her sinful life as a starting point in the conversation, nor did he point out how awesome He was for coming around and talking to her. He didn't act better than her or more enlightened than her or fearful of her. AND HE IS GOD. He just talked to her and swapped thoughts and conversed with her like she mattered. Know why? Because we all matter to God. Every single one of us.

In fact, it was her who said, "Hey. You're a Jew. In case you forgot, you guys don't talk to us" 

Jesus just says, "Yeah, that's how they do it here, but if you knew who I was you'd ask me for a drink and I'd give you some Living Water."  Basically, he's telling her he couldn't care less where she comes from or what the "rules" were, He'd still bless her if she'd let Him. Jesus is awesome like that.

She ends up telling Him all about herself and he said, "Yeah. That's true, you've done those things." He talks to her about a time that is coming when no one will have to come through Samaria to get to Jerusalem. He tells her that a time is coming when we can worship in our Spirit and in Truth. She's the first person he confirms fully that HE IS THE CHRIST. 

His disciples show up with some food about this time and they're like, "Ummm, Jesus? What in the world are you doing talking to this woman?"  They actually don't say that out loud; the Bible tells us they were just thinking it. Same thing, ya'll. Same thing.

After the woman leaves Jesus to go back into town and tell everyone she meets about this guy she met down at the well, the disciples try to get Jesus to eat. He says, I've got what I need. I'm eating bread from my Father. He tells them that his food, the thing that is sustaining Him, is to do the will of His father.

He tells them to open their eyes because the people needing Him, the Bread of Life and the Living Water, are all around them!! He tells them that God is showing them the harvest of souls! They are right in front of your face, He tells his closest pals. 

Boiling it down, Jesus tells them you are missing it because your eyes are closed with your preconceived notions and you need to get over yourselves. Samaritans NEED me, too, and you are letting your fear and your racism and your feelings and your ideas of what's right and wrong determine who YOU think is worthy!

Jesus pretty much made up the saying, "GET WOKE", ya'll. 

Look at all these people who need me so desperately and you are WALKING AROUND THEIR CITY TO AVOID HAVING TO SEE THEM.

About that time, lots of people from the town showed up at the well. Lots of Samaritans.They were coming because of all the woman had told them. You know people love to rubberneck. 

And you know what? He stayed in Samaria for TWO MORE DAYS because they asked Him to stay. He visited and hung out. He ate with them and loved on them. He taught them about God because He IS God so He kind of couldn't do anything else but be who He was and is and IS TO COME. (Jesus doesn't change. He'd still be hanging with the people others avoid.)

This Jew hung out in Samaria with people reviled by his people for two more days. And many were saved. 

And MANY were saved. 

Because Jesus showed up where religious people pretending to have it all figured out wouldn't go. Because Jesus just loved them. Because Jesus listened to them and loved them and ate with them and changed them.

They weren't saved because all those religious leaders of that day avoided them so they'd learn their lesson! Or because a Jew explained how wrong they were and the Samaritans suddenly understood how far off the track they were from being right. 

They weren't saved because they started being something other than a Samaritan. They weren't saved by anything other than the love Jesus poured on them and their willingness to accept it. 

So, I've been thinking. If Jesus showed up today -  just came back for a visit to hang out for two days - where would he show up?

California, maybe? (laugh...that was funny)  

Maybe a gay bar? This will smack with Evangelicals because homosexuality has become the mantra for sin and that mantra is becoming more important than the PEOPLE who are gay. This has nothing to do with Christ and he would NOT walk around a gay bar. He'd walk up in it and love those people made in HIS image. Period. And you know what? MANY WOULD BE SAVED. 

And then the restoration would start and it wouldn't look a thing like what we pretend it looks like today.

Maybe he'd show up in a Muslim mosque or smack dab in the middle of Mecca? Maybe close to that middle school with that kid who gets bullied, but they're weird and don't fit in so no one really pays it much attention? 

Maybe he'd show up in the middle of the ocean on a raft filled with Syrians refugees desperately trying to find safe harbor?

Maybe he'd show up with the young woman who just had an abortion? Maybe he'd show up at a riot in the middle of someone busting up someone's livelihood?  

AND MANY WOULD BE SAVED.

Here's what I know about Jesus, based on Scripture: 

He wouldn't spend much time at the places where people who claim to have Him all figured out were showing up, because the last time He showed up He didn't hang out with them much, either. 

He wouldn't show up anywhere that claimed to be sin free but Jesus filled because they'd stone Him...or hang Him. Those people loathe the real Jesus. He's radical and fearless and loving and doesn't much care what your rules are because HE makes the rules and He said to LOVE THY NEIGHBOR, even if your neighbor has opposing political beliefs and comes from a different country and is gay and drinks too much and smokes a lot or wears immodest clothes or marches in rallies that you don't agree with or busts out windows in a riot. 

He said love them if they were snotty and judgemental and racist and self-righteous and self-absorbed and rude, too.

We don't get to make the rules. (Thank God!)

He wouldn't show up anywhere the lost didn't hang out. He wouldn't show up at a place that tried to keep the hurting and lost away with rules and regulations and judgements. 

He wouldn't show up at a place where money was more important than people without saying, "Give up your possessions (that thing you love more then ME) and then we'll talk".

He wouldn't show up where pious, religiousness forced people outside.

He'd show up in the very places that most people, especially religion loving people, wouldn't expect Him to go. 

His ways are not our ways. His ways rarely align with ways that make us comfortable in our flesh.

The narrow gate is shaped just like Jesus. It is a Jesus shaped gate. The only way through it is to accept that He's the ONLY way to it. You have to. 

But, Jesus didn't shove that down people's throat or yell at them standing on the street corner. 

He came where they were. He walked THROUGH Samaria. Not around it. He didn't avoid the lost and the hurting or the vile and oppressed or those with sin filled lives (that's all of us, in case you're confused on that point) or people different from Him . HE LOVED THEM AND WENT WHERE THEY LIVED.

I'm so thankful for that truth. I can't live up to all those other rules. I can't even get the head covering part in Corinthians right!

I can try the best I can with all the strength that I have and God will graciously give me the grace and love for what I can't handle, but I can't reach the bar of perfection. (pisses me off, too)

And then, Grace shows up and says, "You don't have to be perfect right now. You are perfect in Me but only because I am perfect. I'm here and I'm working on you and you're going to be OK. I'm not going anywhere. I love you. Now go and Love others. I'll do the rest."

And I can breath again. Grace says the same thing to everyone. This is what He says because He SO LOVES THE WORLD.

I'm called to submit MYSELF fully to God and to love OTHERS. That's my job.

Because that's what Jesus did. When his sandals met the dusty road on this planet, Jesus hung out with sinners. He hung out with those "Most Likely To NOT Get In Synagogue".  Shoot, He loved a guy He knew would betray Him so well the other 11 disciples didn't even know which one it would be! Jesus didn't play around with loving others exactly as they were, right where they happened to be.

Either we're going to be like Jesus, or we're going to make a ton of excuses about why we're right and we just can't do that.  There is no gray area.

Love is the narrow gate and we miss it every single day. It's so much harder than the wide gate. Hating and judging and conforming are what the world already does. Being fearful and refusing to bend, that's what the world does every day, all day. Doing those things confirms in our flesh that we are right and we humans LOVE to be right. We tend to lean unto our own understanding so often God has to warn us against it in the book of Psalms.

Pretending like our way is the law and we have it figured out is a worldly trait. That is the wide gate.

Your flesh will always tend toward doing what feels good, what makes you feel (falsely) safe and what makes life easier for you. That's probably not going to be the road through Samaria.

But, you're also going to miss Jesus because He mostly shows up in the least likely places with the people no one else wants to sit with at lunch. He is found in the Samarias of the world, sitting by a well, talking to a woman most people called a whore and a loser and avoided because it was against the "rules" to just love her.

Think long and hard about where Jesus went in the Bible. Those are the places He's still going. He doesn't change; He's the same now as He was then.

As for me and my house, we're going to try our best to walk straight through and I think we'll find Jesus sitting right there, still at that well, offering Living Water that He then expects me to pour back out, still filled with the love it had when I received that endless supply, free of charge. 

He expects me to love them and when they ask why I'm loving them when others avoid them I'm supposed to say, "I met this guy at a well once when I was thirsty, lonely and alone. Wanna here about Him?"

The end.  

K

Because It's Suicide Prevention Week

On August 5th, 2015, I learned something that brought me to my knees. Then, it curled me into the fetal position and left me on the floor. Then, it kicked me in the back and knocked life down around me and sat on me until I couldn't breathe.

In September, 2015, at the age of 44, I sat in my home contemplating suicide.

Oh, it wasn't some instant moment of, "Hey. Why don't I check out?". It was more a slow realization that I could not deal with this kind of Pain. 

I was not equipped to deal with the kind of Pain that embodies you and refuses to leave for even one minute,one second, of the day. And for a long moment, checking out seemed like a really beautiful option. A relief. A respite. It looked like hope.

I am what Suicide Prevention looks like.

Here's the thing: My entire life, in some form, people around me have consistently spoken to me, and about me, as someone who is strong. Maybe I am, I don't know. Maybe not. I don't think I care anymore.

What I am is broken and human. But, I'm learning that the truest, brightest light only gets in through the cracks, though, so I'm embracing my broken. Usually.

What I also know is that we don't talk about depression and anxiety and brokenness in a way that people who aren't struggling can understand that the people who ARE struggling look completely normal and, usually, OK. I mean, truly OK. 

We don't look like our lives have crumbled. We look like everyone else on the outside, but we aren't like everyone else on the inside at that moment.Maybe for lots and lots of moments and we need to talk about it without shame or fear of judgement. 

There is no judgement here in this place with me. None.

Usually, even the people around us don't know. No one advertises their pain on a big pain banner because - let's be real - our world idolizes, "I'm fine. How about you?." "I'm fine, thanks for asking." We actually like to think we're "finer" than most people and will go to great lengths to prove we're fine. We're awesome. Everything is awesome. Even if we're light years away from awesome, the motto is, "We're still fine!"

Most people don't want to be real because it hurts. It's a little embarrassing. I mean, God forbid you not be fine! God forbid you not be happy and OK and doing pretty well. It's not acceptable. (Acceptable is my new least favorite word, by the way.)

Here's the other thing: Pain and shame and hurt are the things we humans run from like our butts are on fire and it's burning the skin from our body in bite size pieces. It catches up with us through drugs or sex or food or shopping or lying or perfectionism or isolation or all sorts of other ways but sometimes, it catches up to us as we view the EXIT door like it's the last real thing in a world filled with lies and hurt and pain.

Too often, we're taught to fear, or avoid, the pain and the shame and the brokenness. So, if you find yourself in a place that you can't run from it and you can't deal with it, what do you do?

You try to kill it.

You try to kill the pain and the brokenness and then it'll be dead. It'll be gone!! In that moment, you aren't thinking about you being dead along with it. You mostly don't give a damn as long as the excruciating pain will just stop.

So, we need to talk about it.

 I need to talk about it. And because it's Suicide Prevention Week/Day/Month, I'm going to talk about it.

And I'm not talking to the people who've never been there and think they understand. You don't. I used to be one of you and you don't understand and I hope and pray you never, ever do.  

BUT, if you HAVE been there, if you ARE there, if you know someone who IS there, this is for you:

 It's OK to feel too much. It's OK to feel pain so visceral that it rearranges you, changes you forever. It's OK. You're OK. There is Hope.

 It's OK because you are really a gift that the world needs for those of us who have found ourselves in a place that isn't "fine".

I need you.

I swear to you there is Hope.I have been with you as you lay curled on the floor crying so hard you are soundless and formless and bereft of anything but Pain.

I know what it feels like to be soundless and formless, sweet friend.

I have been with you as you looked at the world that has gone dark and cold and it just keeps on spinning and spinning and why the hell won't it stop spinning for JUST A SECOND?!

I know the soundless place. It is the loudest, most chaotic place on Earth, isn't it? It's so loud that no sound can escape, but no sound can get in, either. Not even thought can survive there, but Hope lives. The depression, the pain, is lying to you. It is a liar. Hope is living and breathing.

Stand up. Crawl out. Claw your way to the door. There is more good coming. I swear to you, there is more coming.

You and I know that once the Exit door makes itself truly known, it never really gets unknown, though, right?

But, please listen to me now: You get another try. YOU GET TO TRY AGAIN. You are NOT out of options.

Listen closer: Pain is not your master and it is not your enemy. It is your teacher. It's trying to tell you something. You don't have to listen to it RIGHT NOW, but you have to let it visit for a minute. You can listen to it once you get out of the soundless place that's so loud you can't hear anything but the pain. Feel it, stand up with it and RISE.

This is the hard part, but you can do it. You are loved. You are loved right now, right where you are.

If you have people in your life who are telling you to just "get over it", ignore them. They don't know and they don't understand and that's OK. They don't have to. Ignore them.

If you have people in your life who are telling you to just "pray harder and believe more", ignore them. God has not placed them on your path. They do not know and they don't understand and that's OK. They don't have to. Ignore them.  

This minute, simply choose the option to take one more step. 

Turn off the music that feeds the darkness pouring into you and out of you. Refuse to feed that. Turn off the TV shows that trigger things in you that you don't understand. Stop immediately. Turn on happy music and eat something you love. Do this until you can get somewhere to get help. And you MUST get help. You can't do this one alone and that is OK. You don't have to. 

Get help. I will tell you I went through therapy about 5 years ago that helped me see my EXIT door and walk away. I went back to therapy and have every intention of continuing. Ignore people who tell you not to get help. Get help. Find someone who HEARS YOU and you feel comfortable with them hearing you and then tell them.

If you and your therapist determine that for now you need medication, take the medication. No one tells someone with cancer not to take meds, or rather,  healthy people don't tell people with cancer not to take medication or get help, right?

If you cannot heal right now without the meds, take the medication. TAKE THE DAMN MEDICATION. Ignore anyone who tells you that you don't need it if you can not do this without it right now. That is your call. You are the boss of you.

You probably won't need them forever but if you do, take the medication because you deserve your time on this plane of existence. Hold up your medicated head and LIVE. 

The medication will help you hear the lies in the depression if you can't hear them without it.

The medication will help you see the Pain without becoming the Pain. (Only you who've been here understand that statement. We are a tribe. We understand.)

YOUR LIFE IS WORTH LIVING. You matter. You are worth doing whatever you need to do to get healthy. No matter who has hurt you or who you have hurt, life is worth living.

Pain is real, but so is Love. Wrestle the Pain and the Love will come. Embrace the Pain and Love will return your embrace. Learn from the pain and Love will be your final teacher. I get that that may not make complete sense right now, this minute. Will you trust me when I say that you will understand and relief will come because you feel SO MUCH, so strongly and so deeply that you will understand if you just rise and stay and fight?

Please, please stay with us. You have something to say and do and achieve and be. I know because those of us who face the monster called suicide and knock it on its ass find a place inside that other people don't have. I know because I didn't have it once. I know because I have it now.

It is a new place where Hope and Compassion and Truth and Honesty live in a way they did not live in me before.

Stay, sweet friend.

Stay.

I love you. I feel you. I am you.

Kristi   


PS...If you are alone or you don't have anyone you trust enough to talk to or you simply can't tell anyone but a stranger or if you just need this number, I am begging you to call them if you think today might be the day the EXIT door looks better than the LIFE door:  

1-800-273-8255

They are available to you 24/7. They will hear you.