Trash?
Moody-Leon United Methodist Church
Moody First United Methodist Church
Rev. Eddie Smart
John 4:5-10 (NRSV)
So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 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.) 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.”
Diana and I have spent a marvelous time in Tennessee. It was our first time there. We were in the Great Smoky Mountains for 5 days. We spent 3 days with people from all around the world, as we celebrated together the 25th anniversary of the Walk to Emmaus program offered through the Upper Room. We spent time in a state park watching butterflies, deer, geese, fish, squirrels, thunderstorms, and golfers. We saw the Biltmore Mansion in Ashville, N.C., the Hermitage in Nashville (home of Andrew Jackson our 7th President), Cade’s Cove, Dollywood, the Grand Ole Opry, and the backs of our eyelids.
Early in our trip while in Pigeon Forge, TN., I had the idea for today’s meditation. It started with a Fred Craddock story. I was reading in a book of Fred Craddock stories. Then Diana shared a quote from Philip Yancy’s book, What’s So Amazing About Grace. That fit the meditation! Then we got to Nashville and the conference sponsored by the Upper Room. They gave us the book, The Upper Room Disciplines - 2003. In that book I found a devotional that also fit the meditation I planned for today. But that meditation grew into something more than I have time to share this morning, so next week we will explore the never-ending circle of sin and how to break the circle.
While in Nashville we visited the Upper Room Chapel. It is a beautiful worship center with a focus point at the front of a wood carving of deVinci’s Last Supper. At the other end of the chapel is a single stained glass window containing 5000 pieces and many scenes. In the prayer garden located outside, there was tucked in the corner a sculpture of Jesus sitting on a bench by a well and a woman standing on the other side of the well. The sculpture was sharing the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, the story we read this morning.
Jesus said to her, “You can have the water from this well, or you can have a drink of living water and never thirst again.” We like that woman that day have the choice to make. Will we share in the living water that comes with a living relationship with Jesus, or will Jesus rank somewhere in the top ten in our lives? What is number one in our lives?
Fred Craddock shares the story of a schoolmate from years ago, Glenn Adist, who ministered mostly in China.
He was under house arrest in China when the soldiers came one day and said, “You can return to America.”
They were celebrating, and the soldiers said, “You can take two hundred pounds with you.”
Well, they’d been there for years. Two hundred pounds. They got the scales and started the family arguments: two children, wife, husband. Must have this vase. Well, this is a new typewriter. What about my books? What about this? And they weighted everything and took it off and weighed this and took it off and weighed this and, finally, right on the dot, two hundred pounds.
The soldier asked, “ready to go?”
“Yes.”
“Did you weigh everything?”
“”Yes.”
“You weighed the kids?”
“No, we didn’t.”
“Weigh the kids.”
And in a moment, typewriter and vase and all became trash. Trash. It happens.
So as we share in this sacred ritual, this sacrament, this holy meal; as we share in this holy moment; as we celebrate what Jesus has done for us; as we examine our lives, we are faced with the question. “What’s trash?”