If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Galatians 5:25 NRSV.

Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:19-20.

This morning in our Friday Zoom Retreat we talked about simplicity. And the Shaker song…”Tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be free” embodies what our group leader said helped him years ago, the question, what is “Really Real”. In the simplicity of trusting Creator God – Father, Son, Spirit, we find what is really real, our relationship with God. And in our chapter, John 4, Jesus, the Son, tells us what is really real. Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were), He left Judea and went away again into Galilee. And He had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son, Joseph; and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans). Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to Him, “I know that the Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” At this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What do You seek? or, “Why do You speak with her?” So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city and said to the men, “Come see a man who told me all the things that I have done, this is not the Christ, is it?” They went out of the city, and were coming to Him. Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.” v. 1-38. And the men of that city who heard what the woman said went to Jesus and asked Him to stay with them and He did for two days…and they said to her, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.” v. 39-43. There comes a time when we need to each of us hear and know for ourselves – and our relationship with Creator God begins. And leaving there, Jesus and the disciples travel to Cana where Jesus turned water into wine. And a royal official heard Jesus was coming and met him to implore Him to come and heal his son. The royal official said to Him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your son lives.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started off. As he was now going down, his slaves met him, saying, that his son was living. So he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. Then they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives”; and he himself believed and his whole household. This is again a second sign that Jesus performed when He had come out of Judea into Galilee. v. 46-54.

Have we discovered what is really real in our own lives? That we are the children of Creator God. Can we look around and see that the harvest is His children – His – dearly loved. Jesus didn’t exclude the Samaritans though the Jews of His time with us did exclude them and any who were not Jews. And sadly, in excluding them, they also excluded Jesus who did not act in the way they expected “their” Messiah to act. Who are we excluding? He is their Messiah, too! Will we recognize Jesus, the Son, when He returns – if He does not act the way we expect? What is really real but Creator God and His Will and living in trust with Him? The simplicity of knowing what is really real changes our perspective. It allows us to walk with Him in faith and hope always for His will in every heart because His love untangles our complicated lives here. And we can breathe and be with Him.