And The Beat Goes On

Listen closely. Can you hear it? It is the heart‑beat of every person near you. It is the beat of our jobs, and the school bell, and the beat of the farmer's tractors in the fields, and the cheerleaders and the bouncing football, the beat of the disk‑jockey, and the more tragic beat of hunger and the flack of sub‑machine guns.

Day after day, the beat goes on, with crime and heartache, and grief all around the world. Most of us live in a sheltered community, but if we are to give meaning to the aged, or the handicapped, or the minorities...or if we are to deal with persons like the Biblical Nicodemus who came to Jesus by night, or to a Samaritan woman of poor reputation, like the one Jesus met at the well...then we must be more sensitive to the "beat" that goes on.

What really is the job of the Church? Is it to have chicken suppers, or to keep the roof from leaking, or even to maintain a missionary society or have Bible classes? No...the job of the Church is to decide, for Christ's sake, who and what is alienated from God, and to bring the love of our Lord to bear upon it.

Jesus recognized that the woman at the well had gotten into trouble. She had had five husbands, and the one she was now with was not really her husband! But Jesus saw that she had gotten into trouble not because she was bad, but probably because she was desirable, and attractive, and perhaps very unhappy. A lot of people who "go bad" are really folks who are saying, "I am lonely, I am unhappy...please, somebody...anybody, please pay attention to me."

And most girls who go bad, are not really bad, and most boys who make them go bad, or who get into other kinds of trouble are not really bad. They are simply persons, who, for one reason or another, have been left out, or have gotten the idea that fate has driven them out, and each wrong involvement gets them deeper and deeper into trouble. Some of the most mixed‑up people I have counseled with are some of the nicest people I have known.

Years ago, a book was written called, "The Kingdom of Downtown." "Downtown" is the world of parading around the Square, it is the world of psychedelic sights and sounds, it is the world of picture "T" shirts and rock and roll, and in many respects, it is a world for those who may no longer be starry‑eyed idealists, but who are becoming disillusioned skeptics.

There is "living water" available. Jesus said so to the woman at the well, and people everywhere need to know about it. Dr. Bauman, noted Bible teacher and scholar said in one of his T.V. broadcasts, that "Man is sometimes depicted as a clown with a laughing face. But it is painted on, to hide the tragic lines beneath." There is a kind of rhythm to our world, an increasingly fast beat, that is flaunting old‑time traditions of society and Christian morals. Our task is not to stop the beat, not to berate it, criticize it, but to get in step, because that is what Christ did...so that if possible, the beat of God's love and the beat of man's need, can be synchronized and brought together.

If we as Christians get so busy with everything else that we fail to be sensitive to this kind of person and this kind of need, then the beat of life will go on, and we will be left hopelessly behind. In the midst of it, can often be heard the beat of someone crying, someone hurt, someone lonely, someone really thirsty for the water of life. For Christ's sake, will you listen, and care, and do what you can to help? Because if Christ would not reject the woman of Samaria, then neither should we.