0312 EATING SMARTIAN FOOD

EATING SMARTIAN FOOD

Well, now, let me say this right off: There ain’t no such thing as “fast food” in Sychar. 

Unless you mean that you have to FAST until they finally get you some food. After forty days and forty nights, you just want to repaint all the signs in this town: “SLOW FOOD HERE!” I ain’t bitter. Just hungry.

So, if you went against my better advice and you are still reading this book, I’ll tell you, we’re breaking every rule of Jewish protocol by walking through S’marya, Jesus seems to think it's on our way. I suppose it could save us a couple days of walking time, but even so . . . 

And we come to a village called Sychar. 

Okay, I’ll admit that some of the delay was our own fault. We all came into the town of Sychar in S’marya around noon. We’d been walking through mountainous country since leaving Jerusalem yesterday, and only had some bread and water with us, which we finished up early in the morning. So when we got to Jacob’s well, we were happy to find a source of water. But more than that, we were twelve hambre hombres (that’s a little Spainish lingo there). You’d figure thirteen of us would hungry, but Jesus had that look that said His Spider sense was tingling again, and He was fixing to focus on Kingdom business. We were getting used to that look, I’ll tell you.

So, we say, “We’ll go on into town and pick something up for You, Jesus.” And He says that will be fine. So we head off to find the fastest fast food place in town.

Now, any time you get twelve men trying to find something, it ain’t a simple process. In the first place, we can’t decide on what we’re looking for. Some want this, some want that, most say they don’t care. They don’t care, until they see something, of course, and then they say, well, not that. We function like a congressional committee. Which means we make the opposite of what you might call progress.

Pete wants fish, of course. It’s all he ever eats. And he’s all set, looking for a “Fresh Fish” sign. Can I give you a little insider information? In the year A.D. 27, in the mountains of S’marya, twenty miles away from the nearest body of water, there ain’t no such thing as “Fresh Fish.” But you can’t tell Pete nothing. Some folks have got to learn for themselves.

Meanwhile, Matt’s feeling especially kosher today. Nate’s got a hankering for lamb, and Little Jimmy and Sy agree. Andy’s done wandered off again. But we all have got to stay with Judas, who doesn’t want any of those things, because Judas has the money bag. And he won’t stop until we find a kebab and falafels.

At last, Andy comes back saying he’s found us a dream come true: What they call a “Food Court.” Which, as it turn out, is where they apparently put food on trial. Today, they seem to be suing turnips. “Try Our Turnips” says a big sign. I was looking around for lawyers when my stomach reminded me of why we were there in the first place: To get something in our gullets before our belly buttons glued themselves to our spines.

By the way, in the trial, I think the food lost. It all looked pretty beat up to me. But it did the trick to stop the gnawing in our bowels. At last we all ate and were satisfied. And we collected up twelve baskets full of leftovers to bring back to Jesus, in case He wanted a little something. (I know, I know. We should have brought Him our firstfruits. Our spirits were willing, but our flesh was weak, you might say.)

All right. So, now we’ve got our leftovers, and somehow we have to retrace our steps and get back to Jacob’s well. We manage to do it as a group of real men, using our superior orienteering skills (rather than asking for directions like girly men). Okay, actually, there are tourist signs all over town, pointing the way to the well, and after half an hour or so of walking around, we saw one. We make it back to find Jesus sitting at the well, just like He was when we left Him. We offer Him some good leftovers and He says He already ate. That He had some food we didn’t know about. That doing His Father’s will is His food and drink.

While we’re still scritching our heads about that, Jesus points yonder to the town. Folks are coming our way, and Jesus says something about how others have done the work and here comes the harvest.

Sure enough, here come all these S’martian folks, each one with a dozen questions. At the front of them all is this woman. Frankly, she looks like she’s had a hard life. Anyway, she’s saying to all the folk, “Hurry! Come and see the One who told me everythin I’ve ever done!” (He’d done told her about her past love lives, and that got her attention, sure enough. There it is again, that one well-placed prophetic word. How does He do that?)

Let's discreetly say she'd been indecisive in her search for a life partner (5 times over!)

They all start asking questions about living water, about worship in Jerusalem and S’marya, and about true worship. Jesus answers their questions one at a time, and keeps going—for two days. Yep. You heard me right: two days! Amongst S’martians!

So much for saving travel time.

Maybe you’re already ahead of me in thinking about this. But do you want to guess whose house Jesus and us stayed at that night? That’s right: Mrs Mrs Mrs Mrs Mrs Miss S’marya herself. 

I reckon He didn’t eat our leftovers, on account of He’d been holding out to eat food from an idol-worshiping, non-kosher, compromised S’martian sinner woman. Didn’t wash His hands to get the cooties off or nothing. Acted like they were regular people people. But the bravest thing Jesus ever did? He ate the food of a woman whose cooking had been through five-and-a-half husbands. 

The rest of us ate our leftovers, just to be on the safe side.