LEMONADE EVANGELISM

For those of you who aren't aware, it is really hot in Northern California right now. Two weeks ago, spring straight sprung, and it's been shorts and hawaiian shirt weather ever since. Some people say that they like the cold weather more than the hot because they can control their own personal temperature with jackets and stuff, but I don't buy into that school of thinking. I love warm weather.

This afternoon, I saw a kid who was out selling lemonade. He had a little collapsible table, a plastic chair, and a handwritten cardboard sign to attract passing motorists. The sign said this: "Freshly squeezed, organic Lemonade." Organic. Only in Davis (and other radically environmentally conscious communities) would you see an 11-year old kid selling lemonade made with organic lemons as part of his sales pitch. How about cold? Refreshing? Satisfying? When it's 95 degrees out, whether or not the lemons were grown in the absence of pesticides doesn't conern me - what I care about is if it is going to quench my thirst. The kid didn't seem too business saavy, but I bet he did a decent business anyway.

Yesterday, two men were out in the center of my college campus holding up signs. (I've written about these types of men before here and here, and the encounter made it into the school paper.) Their signs said things like "I trust Jesus" and "Turn or Burn." But these men aren't out there to sell lemonade - they're out there to tell people about Jesus. But just like the kid with the lemonade stand, I don't agree with the stuff on their signs. And they're presenting a lot more than just their signs - what's most important is them, and from some of the cutting, unloving things that they said, I wonder if they're quenching people's thirst or shoving sand down their throats. Does telling people that they're going to hell bring people to repentance? Does it reveal the full nature of GOD - the only Lawgiver, Judge, and holy incarnation of perfect love?

I heard this on a retreat: "When you have salty conversations with people, they get thirsty." My hope is that we as followers of Jesus would build relationships in such a way that we leave people thirsting for the Gospel - the beauty of it all is that Jesus is living water, and those who drink of him will never thirst again. That's a Jesus that doesn't need any flashy advertising or explicating - he sells himself. See you soon.

So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?" Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:5-13)

"Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?" (James 4:10-12)