A Split Verdict About Drinking

Ed, my old neighbor from Saskatchewan, and I had another of our differences of opinion. It sure doesn’t take much to get us on opposite sides of the fence. People are good at disagreeing with each other and Ed, and I are living proof that it is a fact, not fiction.

This split began when I told Ed that my energy was still lagging and that I might drink a can or two of Red Bull every day to get myself moving like I was alive. I was kidding. 

My old neighbor scoffed at an energy drink for more energy. He said that I needed a few shots of whiskey during my day, and then I would be more energetic or so happy I would not care. He wasn’t kidding. He claimed in the ten years that I was his neighbor I was active enough but dull and predictable and that I needed whiskey even then.

My effort to convince Ed that I do not need whiskey to improve my energy and personality went on deaf ears. When the discussion turned to Donald Trump, I knew I had to answer the door and end our telephone talk.

Even, Jesus had plenty of folks who challenged whatever he said. In one case, Jesus had been traveling and sat to rest beside the well at Sychar. He asked a woman who came to the well to give him a drink of water. It was a Samaritan city, and the woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me a woman of Samaria?”

Jesus did not care that Jews and Samaritans had no dealings with each other. He was willing to interact with whoever he met. He was concerned with giving the gift of God to anyone who would receive it. Jesus came to give living water to souls dying of thirst for forgiveness and peace.  The woman at the well was concerned with how Jesus as a Jew was different from herself. Her focus was on where they each worshiped? Which place of worship was right, the temple at Jerusalem or on Mt. Gerizim?

Like the woman at the well, we tend to think regarding who is right and who is wrong. We try to appear to be on the side of right. Jesus knew that the woman at the well could speak well about the beliefs of the Jews and Samaritans but that her life had not gone well. Her life had been a series of broken relationships. She had five husbands and was living with a man that was not her husband.

When Jesus confronted her about this, she did not deny her life and perceived Jesus was a prophet who could see the truth of her own life. She also began to think he was the promised Messiah or Savior who was to come from God. She invited people of her city to meet Jesus themselves, and they asked Jesus to stay for two days with them. They believed that Jesus, a Jew, was indeed the Savior of the world. Jesus is the well of salvation unto eternal life for anyone thirsting for spiritual water to refresh their souls withered and parched by sin.

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