Just Ask

Jesus meets the woman while the disciples are off getting something to eat. She is there to get some water for the day and stumbles over him. You know the story from here most likely. They have a conversation, and we learn that she has had several husbands and was currently living with someone to whom she was not married. As his part of the conversation, Jesus tells her (and us) that if she would just ask, he would give her refreshment, springing perpetually in her. Then she goes to tell her community what has happened, and they come out to see who this man is. These are Samaritans which underscores a bit the significance that Jesus spends days with them.

 Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash

One thing we do not see in this story is Jesus telling this woman to clean up her act before he will talk with her. The woman caught in adultery he tells to go “and sin no more,” but this woman he does not. He simply offers her this spring of perpetual refreshment. We often want people to go clean up their act before they can come to God through us. We want them to repent and stop doing what they are doing and then come to God. God does not require that of her.

Jesus simply says, “ask.”

The job of the church is to as Peter says, proclaim the excellencies of God who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. We invite people to ask – before they clean up their lives, before they have fully grappled with their situations, even as they are aware that their situations may not be the most honorable – we urge with God, “just ask.”

Just come home; come to the God who desires to flood your being with refreshment that will both fill you and overflow to others.

Just ask.