True Worshippers

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings 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.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” John 4:7-26

I am not the usual sort nor
are you and we had our hosts
of troubles and turn downs
had to make our living any old way.

Not the prize pupil nor the model
child of want and neglect fierce
with love and loyalty among the riffraff
we are trusted like saints.

The Pharisees look down their patrician noses
in daylight revered feared in the dark
making and breaking pawns, toying with confident
youth who become slaves to the fashion
and lose to their darkness.

We walk in broken down shoes
spent laces and tattered jeans
along dusty highways we hear singing
and we run to the well with joy.

We will not be afraid although darkness comes
too often to human leaders hearts
to people who mouth spirit and inhabit
the mildew of their own violent needs.

We will run in rain and sorrow
in tall grass and deep mud
the spirit calls our hearts and tugs us
beyond circumstances and maps
beyond race or class
to a sanctuary made of love
and fired with compassion and welcome.