Clergy/Leaders' Mail-list No. 2-232 (Devotional)

WELLS OR FENCES? (John 4:14)

by Kim Thoday

Some years ago a person who had never been to Australia before was taken on a trip through the Australian outback. He travelled across some of the huge pastoral leases. At one point he came into contact with a farmer.

"Excuse me," he said to the farmer, "I have seen thousands of sheep around here, but there are no fences to keep them in. In my country we have fences everywhere so that the sheep will not stray or get lost and die."

The farmer considered this for a moment and said: "Well ... out here we don't need fences. In this climate we only need to sink wells ... and then these here sheep ... they don't go too far."

All too often the Church has been about erecting fences ... sometimes deliberately, other times unconsciously. In Jesus' ministry, he abolished once and for all, rules and regulations that prohibited people from being who God gave them the freedom to be. Of course we still need rules. We know, for instance, that without road rules there would be constant carnage. Codes of conduct and accountability are extremely important for relationships and societal cohesion. However, it is the spirit of a code that sustains; following the letter of a code can destroy its very intention. Time and again in the Gospel accounts of Jesus' ministry and teaching, he opposes those socio-cultural, political and religious conventions that were used to prevent people from finding salvation, liberation, community, healing, forgiveness, acceptance and grace.

Thus, it is not so much that Jesus is against boundaries and the need for laws, but rather he opposes the human tendency to perennially legislate and to use laws for our own self-interest at the expense of others. It could be argued that the centre of gravity of Jesus' mission and purpose is to free people from laws and interpretations of laws that dehumanise and oppress. Jesus, I would argue, was finally executed as a direct consequence of his pulling down the political, social and religious fences of his day.

The Apostle Paul says in Galatians: "For freedom Christ has set us free." We are free to be who we are, according to the spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit has endowed us with. Praise God, for this revelation through Jesus Christ. So rules are OK when they help us live in Christ. However, when they become obstructions to our full spiritual or physical potential, they are fences. I pray that as Christian communities we will learn to sink deep spiritual wells and learn to pull down the old fences. Fences keep people out; but wells draw people in.

John 4:14 " ... but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Grace and Peace,

Kim Thoday <>

Hewett Community Church of Christ, South Australia. http://www.hewett.org.au