The Preacher's Diary 
To His first set of discipleship recruits, Jesus said, directly or otherwise, “Follow me,” and “they followed him.” In that category were Peter, Matthew, James and John (Matthew 4:19; Luke 5:10-11; Mark 2:14). Sometime later, He met a young man in whom He saw the potentials of God, and extended to him the same invitation, saying the same words, “Follow me,” but that man had a ‘valid’ excuse to not respond. There was a father to bury (Luke 9:59). Thus, he missed his slot. At a different time, to another young rich ruler, Jesus gave the exact invitation. Unfortunately, that man also was too connected to his material means to disconnect into the discipleship call.
Strangely, we find the opposite case of a man newly delivered from unclean spirits, who earnestly volunteered to register membership with the Movement of Jesus, according to the apparently ‘standard’ pattern of ‘following.’ He didn’t wait to be called, like the others, he applied to follow. In fact, he begged to follow; he “prayed him that he might be with him.” It was apparently a commendable gesture of gratitude for his healing from demons. Surprisingly, to this one, Jesus said, “Go home…” (Mark 5:18-19). Wasn’t Jesus contradicting Himself? Was He discriminating against this Decapolis man, who was probably a non-Jew?
If Jesus should say to some, “Follow me,” and to another, “Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee,” what can we say is the more correct mode of discipleship? Which of the two categories represents ‘correct’ discipleship – the ‘following’ or the ‘non-following’ group?
One set was called to follow and be groomed, to be sent out later to preach (Mark 3:14); another was ordained, we might say, to proceed to preach on the same day of encounter with the Master. What is the more appropriate timeframe and process for ordination? Now or later?
Given his remarkable personal ‘encounters,’ how likely would a ‘following’ disciple have judged or received a non-following, non-membered disciple? On the other hand, how would a man ‘dismissed’ from ‘following,’ or commissioned right away to be a preacher, have judged those ‘wasting’ their time in the ‘seminary’ of Jesus, before they would start doing what they should have been doing all along? What are the dangers of judging another by one’s hallowed but private encounters?
Prophet Isaiah’s encounter with the Holy God reveals a mystery that connects to the present concern. In that atmosphere of glory, the prophet heard God asking, “Whom shall I SEND, and who will GO for us?” (Isaiah 6:8). To that heavenly voice, the prophet responded, saying, “Here am I; send me.” According to that verse, there are two possible kinds of respondents: the ‘sent’ and the ‘goers.’ The sent are those whose mission is the initiative of God. They are those specifically called or sent, as Peter was called, as Jeremiah was ordained from the womb (Jeremiah 1:5). Unfortunately, like the Jonah headed for Tarshish, some of these never respond to the call, or they later fall away, like Judas (Acts 1:17, 25). Above, we saw the similar cases in the ministry of Jesus.
Apart from the specifically called or sent, some of whom respond, like Isaiah, and others of whom flee to Tarshish, there is the second category, who merely overhear the voice or general ‘call,’ and decide to go, especially when those sent have failed to respond. Whereas the initiative in the first case is the Caller’s, the initiative in the second case is the hearer’s, who decides to go. Usually, these are commissioned no less than the others. There are people in ministry today in response to a spectacular encounter with God, like Saul on the road to Damascus. There are others in ministry today making no less impact, but who cannot boast of the same kind of spectacular encounter, but are persuaded no less that they are on assignment for the King. The sent and the goers.
The ‘sent’ could be charged for refusing a mandate if they should fail to respond, but the ‘goers’ could not be similarly charged if they failed to respond to an assignment directed at someone else. They might be commended for stepping in, but not as liable to be indicted if they had not. The call is one thing, the response is another. There is no ‘ministry’ without both aspects.
28 But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard.29 He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went.30 And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not.31 Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you (Matthew 21:28-31).
Let us return to our original case: why the apparent contradiction: one called, the other sent away? Furthermore, why would Jesus in Galilee forbid the healed from testifying to what He had done for them (Matthew 8:4; Mark 8:26), but here at Gadara commission another to do the same thing that He had forbidden others from doing at a different place and time? Why was Jesus being apparently inconsistent and self-contradictory? What is the best way of handling encounters with the Almighty? Restraining or broadcasting them? How appropriate is it to judge every encounter by one encounter, or others’ encounters by one’s encounter? What is the lesson from these?
Why did Jesus send the ex-demoniac away? Maybe, according to some Bible commentators, Jesus did not want to deny the family of the newly healed man the joy of meeting their new father, new brother, new manager, new uncle. And the man might have been clinging to Jesus, insisting on following Him, because he feared that the devils might return if Jesus left him.
Ultimately, that man’s widely told story greatly prepared that territory for Jesus’ other missions. “And he went his way, and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him (Luke 8:39). The Master was looking at the bigger picture.
If that man had been conscripted into the prestigious ‘membership’ club with the other disciples, it might have been a membership gain but a ministry loss. No church walls sufficiently define all followers of Jesus. The Master well said, “Other sheep I have, which is not of THIS FOLD” (John 10:16). Some ‘followers’ there are, who are strongly persuaded that anyone not in “this fold” is not in Christ at all, or not in Christ enough, so they would sometimes proudly protest if they saw someone else anointed to do what they presume is their spiritual prerogative or monopoly (Mark 9:38-39; Luke 9:49-50).
Strange as it might sound, church ‘membership’ has killed some calls. ‘Following’ a great name is not everyone’s path to ministry fulfilment. Had Jesus not been discerning, and had He ‘membered’ that man…. It doesn’t take plenty of theology to be effective for God. Being acclaimed a ‘great preacher’ doesn’t necessarily describe usefulness to God. Just telling your story is sometimes a greater sermon than the most methodical theological treatise.
Once upon a time, the Holy Spirit attended a great prayer meeting where He loudly announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, prophets and teachers in this great house, while you may continue with your holy routines, your worship, your fasting and prayers, kindly release from this place two men for whom I have a different assignment. Their dispensation in your midst has come to an end. Henceforth, this is a wrong place for them if they should linger longer, whatever the sentiments for attachment might be” (Acts 13:1-3). Graciously, those members had not become rigid with their walls. They called those men out, prayed for them, and let them go.
How would anyone have thought that such a place, with such mighty moves of God, where God’s voice was present and clear, with “prophets and teachers” in their plural numbers, could be or become a wrong membership location for anyone in the world? I wonder if the Holy Spirit would thus have dared to raise His voice in my congregation, about ‘my’ members, while I was ministering as powerfully as at the time He spoke to release those two? I might have forced those two to start ‘here’ whatever they or the Holy Spirit thought they would do elsewhere. I might have killed them slowly with membership at a place still right for everyone else but no longer for those. It comes to the same thing: God’s fold is larger than might be defined by any ‘membership.’ Other sheep I have… And one private encounter, no matter how spectacular, whereas it might offer principles to guide others, cannot constitute the standard for measuring every other disciple. Amen.
Sometime ago, I watched a woman on a Christian TV boldly tell her story, the sordid story of a past life of drugs, sex, abortions, and human trafficking. She had become a Christian, and, interestingly, a minister. Can you guess what her ministry was about? Amazingly, it was, reaching out to young women entrapped in her past woes; and God was using her immensely.
Once upon a time, in a thriving ancient city, there lived a most beautiful woman whom life treated very uglily. Her prettiness seized a thousand souls, but so often did they smash her tender heart. Her story became casual gossip on careless lips. She was like the ironical ugliness at a Beautiful Gate – you see it open, but are perpetually barred from access by congenital disadvantage; ever so close, yet ever so far; before your eyes, the endless crowd of abler legs surge through its splendid portals, but never you despite your longing (Acts 3:3) …
It got so embarrassing for that beauty queen that she began to avoid public places, sometimes to her great inconvenience. Mercifully, however, Providence was going to order a memorable encounter to change her story; the sad story of a Samaritan Curse by which getting favours was never a problem, but keeping any was an uphill task. I will return to her story. She was called the Samaritan woman.
When God was sending John the Baptist to the Messiah, there was a concern. John always had a great “multitude,” who came to him from Jerusalem and from “all the region round about Jordan” (Luke 3:7; Matthew 3:5). How was he going to tell the one Man from the multitude? John confessed: “And I knew him not,” hence the sign that God gave: “Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he” (John 1:33). The sign was clear: the One upon whom the Spirit descends and remains.
Not on everyone does the Spirit descend, and not still on everyone does He descend and remain. Upon many, He descends but as often is grieved away (Ephesians 4:30). That was the story of Samson the Strong, of whom it would be said in one chapter, “and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him” (Judges 15:14), and in the next, “And he wist not that the LORD was departed from him” (Judges 16:20). Earlier, on the highway to Timnath, it had been reported that “the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him” (Judges 14:6), but it will appear that the experience was not retained, hence later at Lehi when it was said again that the Spirit mercifully “came mightily upon him” yet again. That off-and-on lifestyle with the blessed Spirit was not going to be without tragic consequences, as it later turned out in the Valley of Sorek, in the house of Delilah the dainty one (Judges 16:4-21).
Unlike the sad case of Samson where the Spirit often descended “mightily” but hardly remained, the life and sign of the Messiah was going to be a life that attracted and retained the Spirit of God. “And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him” (John 1:32). For John, that was a significant sign, a Divine Sonship sign: “And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God” (John 1:34).
Back to our story of the unfortunate beauty queen. Alas, the many nightly pillows that she drowned in her oceans of tears. Only the confidant night knew her unspoken pains. Somehow, Heaven heard her silent sobs so often subsumed under her cushioning chattiness; her unspeakable pains fashionably hidden beneath her public elegance. At last, help was on the way, in a most uncommon way.
It was a hot afternoon. She knew that by that time the public well would have been deserted by her gossipy womenfolk. The women of the city usually went to the well in the cool of the morning and the cool of the evening. She had learned to minimise public contacts to the most essential. The pain was much … five consecutive broken promises, despite all that she always did…
That afternoon at the well, she met a stranger who said to her, “Please give me a drink.” Somehow, they struck a conversation, alone by themselves at that public place. As the conversation got intimate, the Stranger said to her, “Go and get your husband.” Her response was prompt and blunt: “I don’t have a husband.” Then the Stranger said to her, “You have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now” (John 4:5-41, New Living Translation). This is where our story gets interesting.
To find one husband is often a great feminine feat. Here was a woman who had had as many as five husbands and lost all … five marriages all gone! That is what I call the Samaritan Curse: always getting but never keeping; strongly attractive then suddenly repelling. At the moment, she was with Man No. 6, but who seemed still reluctant to decide, probably because of her scandalous history. Yet even that was a feat. How many women with her kind of story so easily found a man to be with? But that was not where the problem lay…
The Samaritan Curse: it doesn’t prevent you from getting, but it ensures that nothing stays, as if determined to give you a terrible name and a tragic heartbreak. Imagine how much effort she put into the second marriage so as to prevent the first mistakes, but even that broke; then she worked hard at the third to avoid the two past disasters, and that also broke; then the fourth, then the fifth… Now she had become a terrible name… Alas the Samaritan Curse, where nothing good ever lasted… like the woman of Nain, who managed to find a good husband, and fought hard for children but had an only son, then lost the husband, then lost the only son, crashing reproachfully back to Square One – widowed and childless … (Luke 7:11-16). Always getting, never keeping.… Maybe the snobbish Jews were right after all, that being a Samaritan meant being a cursed devil, for they would often curse even holy men in such terrible terms as, “thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil” (John 8:48).
Such ‘Samaritans,’ for instance, might easily get a job, but as easily lose it. Opportunities that others fight to find come cheaply to them, then die suddenly. They get business appointments that often end in terrible disappointment. They get admission into choice schools from which they often fail shamefully out; now they are in their third or fourth school. They make many millions every month, but it drains through their desperate fingers like the desert sand. Now they are beggarly squatters with an uncertain man reluctant to commit to a future with them.
The Samaritan Curse…
How does it feel to win a great election, but die a night before inauguration – or be truncated by a corrupt court after many mighty wins? How does it feel to be the easy mother of twelve children, envied by the barren, then lose all, one after the other! How does it feel to be engaged to a second guy who dies in a crash on their way to the wedding? What name do you call the person whose partners come very easy but always end in unforgettable disasters? What paradox to always get but never keep! The wicked Samaritan Curse…
Many Samaritan-Curse victims usually possess the charm and grace to attract prized attention, but not the luck to keep it. Something often happens to end every favour found. People think them lucky for so often finding love, but only they know the pains, and the names…
Our beauty queen always had open doors that never lasted. She was attractive. Every man wanted her for a wife. They didn’t mind that she had been an “ex-” many times, yet none could keep her. Something just wouldn’t let them stay, or let her stay. Now, her name has acquired many ex-‘s: ex- this, ex- that. It was a mysterious paradox of being at the same time attractive and repellent, getting and losing.
Matters were approaching bursting point … that was when she met Man No. 7, with His promised water to quench her perennial thirst. The encounter was so transforming that she ran into town, announcing, “Come, see a man…!” (v.29). All the men of her city followed her out of town to see her new Man, then nobody would let Him go anymore. Everybody wanted what He had just done for her. The Samaritan Curse had been broken, broken, broken!
Despite her mysterious shame, that Samaritan woman and her people had been so important in the agenda of God that the Master amended His schedules to spend extra days there. That Stranger now comes your way, by this private well where you expect to meet no man, after the many embarrassing encounters with wrong men. He can do for you what He did in Samaria, breaking the reproachful curse of getting and losing. Pray this prayer loud enough to yourself…
Dear Master, my Lord and my God, meet me this day at my Samarian well, where I lay my many failures and empty pitchers at Your merciful feet. Forgive my sins and mistakes. Give me to drink of Your living water, and may the Samaritan Curse be broken from my name, my life, my land, in Jesus name. Amen.
And I pray this for you: In the name of Jesus, may the Samaritan siege and curse be broken now from you. Henceforth, you shall get in abundance and lose nothing anymore. May the Balm of Gilead heal your heart, refresh your soul, restore your songs. For all the ‘men’ lost, may the Man from Heaven now appear, with refreshing waters from His well. Into the hands of Him who is able to keep all that is committed to Him, I commit you. The yoke is broken. Amen (2 Timothy 1:12; Jude 24-25; John 10:28). For a sign, you shall have a dream.
Samaria knew of your old story, now share your new story, of the transforming encounter at this well with Man No. 7: “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” (John 4:29). Amen.
You might find this short story intriguing, if you should find the time to hear it to the end. Once upon a time, Jesus faced a certain sect of meticulous fanatics that made a show of their piety, but with hearts out of proper place; fanatics who had mixed up the order of priority in their service to God and to humanity; Pharisees whose right acts were being soiled by a wrong heart. There were two general items on the discussion list with those fanatics: matters of righteousness and a matter of religious obligation; or personal acts of character and general acts of religious devotion; or inner integrity and outward show.
