Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
“Sir,” she said, “you have no bucket
and the well is deep. Where do you get
this living water?”
—John 4.11
He came to you tired and thirsty,
a stranger without a bucket.
Needing something. Asking.
He came from away, foreign,
plenty of reason not to fit in.
You met there at that well, great
hole in the skin of the earth, deep
wound, you without honor or friends,
he without a bucket. Through the scrim
of class and race, flesh and spirit,
you both reached, you with your bucket,
he his perfect thirst. You talked of God,
he named the great river flowing in you,
and you named his. There at the bottom
of the well of the world the two of you
tapped the holy spring, dripping.
Water from that rock.
And then: you left your jug,
ran into the town, your condemning,
your weakness, your unbelonging.
And there you met them, you without
a bucket, without your jug, with only
your perfect thirst for God.
And there you named theirs,
and they came running,
you our first evangelist.
As the Lord comes, gushing, so do you:
an undocumented immigrant, a stranger,
asking, in thirst and need, vulnerable,
without a bucket.
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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