There are people all over this land who, earlier today, were faced with what they considered to be a
hard choice: "Should I go or should I not go to Church today?" There are husbands all over this land
who are in Church today just to please their wives. There are parents all over this land who are in
Church just to keep the "respectable" image alive for their kids. There are young people all over this
land who are in Church today just to keep from offending their parents, or just because they are forced
to go. And they are all going about it in the wrong way. The Lord Jesus Christ is not interested in
fostering and preserving that kind of religious experience.
As it is with many Institutions, these are times of crisis for the Church. If we're not worrying about the
clergy crisis, then it's the financial crisis or the crisis of belief. Books have been written on "The
Trouble With the Church" and "What's Wrong With the Church" and "The Enemy In the Pew" and
"God's Frozen People" and so on. But the more you think about it, the more apparent it becomes that
many of us who love the Church deeply and who want it to flourish in society, aren't really listening to
Jesus' invitation to come to the Father in "spirit and truth." Many of us seem to be living under the old
religion of "Law" and "oughtness" and "Thou shalt not." Think about it! Think about your own
religious experience! What's really at the heart of it? Is it still the business of "oughts" and "shalt nots"?
Where is the spontaneity? Where is the freedom? Where is the joy?
There is a story about a golfer who set up his ball on the tee, swung mightily and missed. His club hit
an ant hill and he killed hundreds of ants. He became more and more frustrated as he repeatedly swung
and missed. And each time he missed, he slaughtered more ants. Finally, there were just two little ants
left. One of them raised his head and hollered over to the other, "It looks like if you want to save your
life around here, you've got to get on the ball." I fear that is what religion has become for some of us: if
you want to be on the safe side of life, you've got to get on the ball and do what any decent, respectable
person ought to do. If you want to be on the safe side of life, you ought to go to Church. And that is not
what Jesus means when he talks about worshipping the Father in "spirit and truth." Jesus is talking
about breaking loose from the burden of "oughtness." "Come to Me all you who labor under heavy
burdens and I will give you rest," Jesus said. Come out from under the heavy burden of guilt over not
being able to dot every "I" and cross every "T" every time.
That is what Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman in today's Gospel was all about.
Jesus said to her, "An hour is coming, and is already here, when authentic worshippers will worship the
Father in spirit and truth" (Jn. 4:23). Jesus invited her and He invites us to come out from under
religion of law and to enter into a whole new life: a religion of the spirit; a free, life-giving,
spontaneous relationship with God. That's what authentic worship is all about. That is why so many
people say that the one great moment of their lives was when they heard Jesus' invitation for what it
really is. When that flash of light came to them, they understood. They made the move out of the old
life with its heavy burden of enslavement to laws and rules, and into Jesus' new life of freedom and
spontaneity and joy -- a relationship with God in a new way.
Praising God and giving thanks to God and being right with God never should feel like a burden.
Moreover, it seems to follow that when we make our worship experience a burden, we do the same in
our relationships with other people. We talk here in Church about loving our neighbor, loving our
brother, loving one another, being the Good Samaritan. But the problem is that most of us go out
carrying this mandate as a heavy burden. We try to minister to others because we know we ought to,
and they know immediately that is why we're there. Jesus asks us to minister to others, not in an
attitude of "oughtness" but in an atmosphere of spontaneity. Jesus wants us to be free for others, to be
there when we're needed because of who God is and who we are. In other words, to be there when
we're needed because God is Love and we are destined to be fulfilled in Love.
The most serious, the most profound choice to be made in the life of each one of us is the decision to
say "Yes" or "No" to God on this level of spontaneity and freedom and joy. At a certain level we do
say "Yes," most of us. But then the question is, what difference does it make? You've got to get up
tomorrow morning and it may be another rainy day. How will you face the day? How will you relate to
people? What kind of life are you going to live in the midst of tomorrow?
Many of us are living very busy lives. We hear young parents complain that the responsibilities of
parenthood and the pressures of children's activities are so burdensome these days that there is no time
for anything else. Serious quiet-time or prayer life or Bible study are far down on the list of priorities.
It was summed up beautifully by an eight-year-old in a TV interview. The child came from a large
family in which mother always got up first. She got the children off to school, got the father off to
work, and then got down to the business of daily household chores. At one point in the interview, the
youngster was asked, "What do you think your mother wants most?" Unhesitatingly, he replied, "To go
back to bed." There are times when the pressures and the demands get so heavy that most of us come
up with that same feeling: we want to go back to bed and pull the covers up over our heads ("Stop the
world, I want to get off!"). But the question remains: what kind of life style do we aim for in the midst
of all of this?
What good does it do to talk about a gracious God who loves us and wants us for His own if it doesn't
make a difference when we come to Church? What good does it do to talk about being created for
eternal life with God if it doesn't make a difference at breakfast tomorrow morning? What good does it
do to talk about being created in God's image on Sunday morning if it doesn't make a difference at
work on Monday morning? What good does it do to talk about Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior if it
doesn't make a difference in our daily lives? How do we develop the style of life which Jesus says will
make a difference? How do we position ourselves to live as Christians, to live for others, as Jesus did?
We take these questions seriously only when we open ourselves up to the limitless possibilities of
whatever it is that God is doing in our midst. And being open implies the need for serious reflection,
serious meditation, serious prayer. If you do this in imitation of Christ you will discover that it will
lead you to greater involvement in the Community of Faith, not less. You will discover that the Church
is the context through which you move toward God Himself. It is in this life of sharing and praying and
studying and listening and worshipping that your sense of mission and purpose grows and develops.
A young high school teacher, very popular with the students because he knows their language and
loves teaching, tells about a conversation he had with a senior girl. She told him she was in rebellion
against many things, including her parents. They had given her everything but love, she said. She was
in rebellion against the Church because she felt it was a meaningless Institution with nothing to say to
real life, nothing to reach her at "gut level," as she put it. She was in rebellion against Christians
because she felt that they were hypocrites. After about an hour of this, the conversation began to take a
more positive turn. The girl began to talk about where her life was going, about what she was looking
for. Finally, it came down to her saying the following: "Down deep inside I know that Jesus Christ has
the answer to my life." Then, half-defiantly, half-wistfully, she ended the conversation with these
words: "But I just don't want that answer."
In the end, that is really what it comes down to for all of us. We have the answer deep down inside us.
The question is, "Do we want it?" In spirit and in truth, do we really want to accept Christ's invitation:
"Come to me all you who labor under heavy burdens and I will give you rest." The choice is ours!
