The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection of Leawood, Kansas, United States Daily Guide grow. pray. study. for Saturday, 31 January 2015 “Jesus often let actions speak more loudly than words”
Daily Scripture: John 4:7 A Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.” 8 His disciples had gone into the city to buy him some food.
9 The Samaritan woman asked, “Why do you, a Jewish man, ask for something to drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (Jews and Samaritans didn’t associate with each other.)
10 Jesus responded, “If you recognized God’s gift and who is saying to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would be asking him and he would give you living water.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will never be thirsty and will never need to come here to draw water!”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, get your husband, and come back here.”
17 The woman replied, “I don’t have a husband.”
“You are right to say, ‘I don’t have a husband,’” Jesus answered. 18 “You’ve had five husbands, and the man you are with now isn’t your husband. You’ve spoken the truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one who is called the Christ. When he comes, he will teach everything to us.”
26 Jesus said to her, “I Am—the one who speaks with you.”[a][Footnotes:
John 4:26 Or It is I, the one who speaks with you.]
Reflection Questions:
At Jacob’s Well in Samaria, Jesus met a woman who’d had five husbands. That she came at midday, not in the cool of the evening when most women drew water, strongly suggests that even the Samaritans shunned her. But Jesus did not lecture her about all of the varying divorce rules found in different parts of the Bible. Instead, he caringly offered her living water.
• Pastor Frederick Buechner wrote, “Jesus said the one supreme law is that we are to love God with all our hearts, minds, souls, and our neighbor as ourselves … the lesser law is to be obeyed if it is consistent with the Law of Love and superseded if it isn’t … A legalistic religion like the Pharisees’ is in some ways very appealing. All you have to do in any kind of ethical dilemma is look it up in the book and act accordingly. Jesus … says all you have to do is love God and your neighbors. That may seem still more appealing until, in dilemma after dilemma, you try to figure out just how to go about doing it.” What does it say that, instead of a rigid rulebook, God worked through many different writers to bring about a Bible we need to interpret? How can the Holy Spirit help you discern from Scripture the best ways of loving God and your neighbors?
Prayer: O God, master and guide, I need your help today and every day as I dig more deeply into the Bible. Equip me more and more each day to love you and my neighbors. Amen.
Family Activity: The Bible is God’s great big love story for all people! This week, discover verses on love in Scripture and find Bible stories about God’s love. Share God’s love with your wider community using your words and actions. Remember growing love doesn’t have to be practiced in big, fancy ways. Find small, yet meaningful ways to share God’s love with others. Consider serving a meal to or enjoying fellowship with people unfamiliar to you.
Holding a door, smiling and waving can all express God’s love to someone. When we are open to God growing us through the Holy Spirit, everyday acts will help produce love for everyone. Pray daily, asking God to grow love in your heart and lives for all people.
Prayer Requests
See a list of those in our church family receiving long-term medical care at cor.org/prayer.
Prayers for Health and Healing: Patsy Bates, MacKenna Berg, Gwendolyn Guajardo, Ruby Kirby, Megan Lasch, Delores Rutan, Jo Ann Waters, Debbie Berg, Cynda Summers, Helen Fahler, Payton Thielmann, Greg Wilson
Praise for the Births of: Brooklyn Snow Bailey, 12/14; Chase Geoffrey Brun, 12/23; Hayes Scott Klocke, 10/6; Harrison Wesley Morris, 10/30; Dawson David Tanner, 12/12
Prayers for Peace & Comfort for:
• Barbara Gerhard and family following the death of her father, Dale Ellison, 1/14
• Mark and Elizabeth Mills and family following the death of their son, Noah Mills, 1/12
• Ed Schulteis, Jr. and family following the death of his father, Ed Schulteis, Sr., 1/16
Carol Cartmill serves as the Executive Director of Adult Discipleship at The Church of the Resurrection.
Words can be powerful. Our congregation learned how powerful this past year in a sermon series Adam Hamilton preached entitled The Power of Words. If you need a refresher, click here to watch these messages again. There are some situations, however, where words fail us – times when they seem completely inadequate. That is precisely where our actions can speak for us. Let me share two scenarios where I have found this to be true.
Have you ever felt your heart breaking for someone else who is experiencing a deep loss? That is one of the times words escape me. No matter how much my own heart hurts for the other person, I am not in his or her shoes. I cannot know the depth of what that person is feeling. So what do we do? We speak with our presence.
Last fall, a member of our small group became seriously ill and died unexpectedly. During his brief hospital stay, members of the group simply showed up. We prayed with the family, brought Stroud’s chicken for lunch, made phone calls, and sat in a waiting room down the hallway so we could be on hand to help, while giving the family space to spend sacred, intimate time with their loved one. It’s been my experience that questions like, “Can I do anything to help?” often fall flat. When someone is in pain, they don’t know how to answer. A hug, a meal, any practical assistance we bring speaks volumes.
Serving in mission in a foreign culture is another opportunity to allow our actions to speak for us. Language differences create a barrier to spoken communication. Holding a Malawian child, providing medical treatment to a Haitian, building a wall next to a Honduran, or planting crops with a Jamaican communicates the love of Christ in ways that transcend words. And locally, we can say we want to see Kansas City transformed, or we can do something to promote justice and mercy.
You can do something this weekend. Fill a bag for the Souper Bowl Food Drive and bring it with you to worship. Let’s all let our actions speak! ____________________________
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