So, long about halfway through the day I was asked to leave. Maybe my partner was thinking that I was kicking too much sales ass, but in reality I had another mission in Dallas; a black ops mission. Total underground. Which, when you think about it, if you have a choice between a regular job and a secret agent job… call me zipped lipped Mcgee! So my co-worker and I were chosen to meet the guy who wrote the code for the technology we were selling. Black ops part: obtain the code. Reasoning: because the investors don’t trust him and would like to take the burden off of his hands.
So… when we met this guy it wasn’t a pretty picture. He was sickly, and partially nuts. We met him in his home which at one point would have been a fairly cool loft, but now looked similar to a deleted set from the movie ‘12 monkeys.’ Half projects- whether technology, art, or home renovation- were strung about. When we got there, My co-worker and Sickly McSickerton opened up their laptops and began speaking “Geek.” (It’s always important to have a technology guy that can “bust into the mainframe” when you’re on a Black ops mission) A few hours later after our presence had warmed up to the clammy individual my co-worker asked point blank: “can I see the source code.”
The man quickly stood up, and in a writhe like contorted disposition had a fit muttering how the code is “His” and “it is his intellectual property” and “no one will see it unless they need to see it.” If I had blurred my eyes and ears I would have heard "my preciouss, yess" After de-escalating him, we never managed to get the code away. Black ops mission: Failure.
While we were driving back to the hotel, my friend told me that everything that Gollum did give him didn’t work. I asked “Did the technology work that we were selling this morning?” He said … “No. I don’t think anything that we were selling this morning exists on the servers” So there we were, the next day inside a grand looking booth, sales sheets in front of us, and music blaring… the sales staff to a non-existent product. Needless to say… we didn’t sell that much.
Have you ever sold something that didn’t work? I’m thinking back to a garage sale that I had once where I was silently praying to myself “don’t ask if it works, don’t ask if it works” Yet the very first person asks me “does it work?”
My answer: “for fifty cents does it matter?”
This guy was persistent, “does it work?”
My response: “I’ll give it to you for a quarter.”
I think sometimes our faith can act like a sales pitch. WWJD! We have the bracelets out there. The minister or pastor is up there doing the dog and pony show. And you hope to God that when you bring the new person to church “the service is not too weird.” There’s even stuff that is meant for marketing purposes that I don’t even understand. I once saw a T-shirt that was the name of Jesus inserted into the Reeses Pieces logo. I’m not sure what the Graphic Designer was thinking. I might be able to understand “Jes-its” the cheesy catholic wafer, but what are you selling when you’re wearing “Jesus Pieces.” What is that?
I also think that a lot of times we try to sell ourselves as well. You know you want to portray yourself as the shiny, I have it all put together, guy. I have nice Job, a great house, my life is hunki dori. And those who really push it sometimes really reveal their own insecurities. Possibly we want you to believe that we’ve got it put together, because the reality is that things aren’t that hunki dori.
At the Bridge we have a large number of people that live outdoors that come to church on Sunday. And lately it’s been extremely amazing because some of those people have been getting residences. Last week was a little disconcerting for me because of a cash-flow issue, I couldn’t pay my rent, so I was facing an eviction notice. So as I was meeting people at church, a couple people were telling me: “Geoff, I got an apartment, Geoff, I’m living indoors now.” And all I could do is smile and say congratulations. But inside I was thinking to myself. “Can you tell me of the bridge with the least amount of spiders?”
Finally I broke down and told someone who also had some trouble holding down an apartment, and his jaw dropped. “What?” “You?” “Geoff?” “the guy who has it all put together.”
Isn’t it interesting how we can so quickly make faith assessments when things are going bad… and for that matter when things are going good. Ohhh he just got kicked out of his house God must not be with him, wow that guy has all of his ducks in a row. God must be really blessing him. Ohh he lost his job…he must have done something to deserve it… Wow he has the greatest relationship, God loves him.
I tend to see that when the going gets tough… the friends start migrating away. Because when it comes down to it, no one likes drama. It’s the ruffles on the chip. Oh sure the company would tell you the ruffles give you more taste in your chip; but its not taste you get when you have friends that are full of drama. Its more like sour cream and onions. Everybody would like smooth sailing…It’s lonely having a life that is full of drama… but it’s also lonely having a life that is without drama.
I try to work the sales angle in my life. And it works me all the way to my therapist. I tell her how I don’t feel sometimes that I can share that drama. I tell her “You see… I’m in the limelight, I’m supposed to be this ‘something…’ this guy who has it all put together. So to share my drama with them would be to ‘burst their bubble’ of who they thought I was.” She had a comeback: “It must be awful lonely being someone you’re not.”
So what do we do? Those of us who sell, are lonely being someone who we are not. And those of us who don’t sell are lonely because we don’t fit in. I want us to read a story of a very lonely woman. She wasn’t into selling, or if she did, she lost her pitch. People found out that her technology didn’t work. And she was forced to be alone.
1Jesus realized that the Pharisees were keeping count of the baptisms that he and John performed 2(although his disciples, not Jesus, did the actual baptizing). They had posted the score that Jesus was ahead, turning him and John into rivals in the eyes of the people. 3So Jesus left the Judean
countryside and went back to Galilee. 4To get there, he had to pass through Samaria. 5He came into Sychar, a Samaritan village that bordered the field Jacob had given his son Joseph. 6Jacob's well was still there. Jesus, worn out by the trip, sat down at the well. It was noon. 7A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said, "Would you give me a drink of water?" 8(His disciples had gone to the village to buy food for lunch.) 9The Samaritan woman, taken aback, asked, "How come you, a
Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?" (Jews in those days wouldn't be caught dead talking to Samaritans.)10Jesus answered, "If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water." 11The woman said, "Sir, you don't even have a bucket to draw with, and this well is deep. So how are you going to get this "living water'? 12Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well and drank from it, he and his sons and livestock, and passed it down to us?" 13Jesus said, "Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. 14Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst--not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life." 15The woman said, "Sir, give me this water so I won't ever get thirsty, won't ever have to come back to this well again!"
16He said, "Go call your husband and then come back." 17"I have no husband," she said. "That's nicely put: "I have no husband.' 18You've had five husbands, and the man you're living with now isn't even your husband. You spoke the truth there, sure enough." 19"Oh, so you're a prophet! 20Well, tell me this: Our ancestors worshiped God at this mountain, but you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place for worship, right?" 21"Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you Samaritans will worship the Father neither here at this mountain nor there in Jerusalem. 22You worship guessing in the dark; we Jews worship in the clear light of day. God's way of salvation is made available through the Jews. 23But the time is coming--it has, in fact, come--when what you're called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter. "It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. 24God is
sheer being itself--Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration." 25The woman said, "I don't know about that. I do know that the Messiah is coming. When he arrives, we'll get the whole story." 26"I am he," said Jesus. "You don't have to wait any longer or look any further."27Just then his disciples came back. They were shocked. They couldn't believe he was talking with that kind of a woman. No one said what they were all thinking, but their faces showed it. 28The woman
took the hint and left. In her confusion she left her water pot. Back in the village she told the people, 29"Come see a man who knew all about the things I did, who knows me inside and out. Do you think this could be the Messiah?" 30And they went out to see for themselves.
Come see a man who knows all that I have done. I don’t know about you, but to me someone who knows all of my drama I’m not leading people to. Instead I’m paying him blackmail money. And maybe the initial response of these people was to figure out this puzzle. Woman with issues + guy who knows everything about her multiplied by the number of people she’s telling = I got to see this. In fact I’m sure at least 4 other ex husbands are asking if they need to be paying some blackmail money.
Incidentally, as I was talking to my counselor about my ‘drama.’ She said this. “Geoff, for the rest of this session can I ask you a favor? Instead of using the word ‘drama’ which is negative because it refers to ‘drama queen’ which is what you don’t want to be; let me suggest that you replace the word with ‘story.’ Because regardless of how you feel about it, it is your story. It is part of you. And you might as well accept that.”
We may feel isolated at the well. Our story may do that to us. It could be ‘not telling’ your story that makes you feel just as isolated. But there is a man that comes to you. Humbly asks you for a drink; and knows all that you have done. Yet he remains.
He knows all that you have done. Yet he remains. That is not isolation. That is someone you can trust. Someone that handle it. Someone with the Grace enough to be your God. The living water is yours to drink. Yet somehow we have believed the lie that it isn’t for us… It’s for some person down the road who has it all put together. Whose drama free life glimmers and shines… the Salesman.
God is not into sales. Because the god of sales is man’s idol. The idol of perfection, the worship of the ‘arrived’, the attraction of ‘correct’. For it is this abbreviating of your “story” or the editing of your drama that allows you to stand without grace in front of God. Jesus isn’t into half of you. Jesus in fact is not into just Half you. Jesus knows, loves, and is into all of you. Drama and all.
Jesus walks past the salesman, and talks to you. To your soul. He does not despise you, as others have. Although you’re alone, you’re alone with Him. He speaks to you of life… of the gift of God; He tells you that all you have to do is ask and have. You may have no understanding of His meaning; but it is not condemnation, it is grace… grace that stoops to you, that knows your sin and is not repelled by it, it asks you for water, it is above any prejudice with regard to you, it has high contempt of those with ‘no drama’… grace which does not conceal your sin from you, which makes you feel that God knows it nevertheless, He who knows it was there without alarming you. Your sin is before God, but not in judgment. He still remains. Knows you… all of you. And remains.
What does that do for you? Your sin is before God, and he loves you. He stuck around. He chose you (all of you) over your “sales-self”. The moral effect upon the woman is evident. She forgets her waterpot, her toil, her circumstance, her reason for being there. She is engrossed by this new object that is revealed to her soul, by Christ; so engrossed that, without thinking, she becomes a preacher; she proclaims the Lord in the fullness of her heart and with perfect simplicity. He had told her all that she had ever done. She does not think at that moment of what it was. Jesus had told it her; and the thought of Jesus takes away the bitterness of the sin. The sense of His goodness… of his love… removes the guile of heart that seeks to conceal its sin and sell the shiny exterior. In a word, her heart is entirely filled with Christ Himself.
So… we’re all here at the well. Isolated…because we don’t have it all put together. Some of us are not letting other people drink because they’re not matching up, and others refuse to drink because the guards don’t reflect the grace of the water. Today… be entirely filled with Christ. Know today that God loves you, right now, as is. And within that simplistic thought, within that revelation, get to know someone else’s story… and remain by them.
