The Weekend Comes

Come Sunday morning, there were over four hundred people assembled in the Methodist church. Danny had heard that Davy had been spreading the word about the service and encouraging people to bring their friends. As Danny and Billy-Bob were preparing for the service, someone came into the small room behind the altar. It was Davy.
“You ready?” inquired Davy with a broad smile.
“What are you doing here?” asked Danny with an equally broad smile.
“Seems Dominick and Gorge wanted to do Camp Eden this morning. So I found myself looking for a place to go.”
“Hmm, sounds mighty convenient to me,” smiled Danny.
“It does, doesn’t it?”
“You going to join us up front?”
“Not a chance. I’ll be in the pews with the rest of the people listening to you two.” Davy patted Billy-Bob on the shoulder and shook his hand.
Davy looked up at the clock. “Show time, guys. Give me a minute to get to my seat.”
Through the wall, Danny and Billy-Bob heard the organist begin. Danny looked at Billy-Bob. “You okay?”
“Both you and Pastor Davy will hear me today. I’ll be nervous.”
“You’ll be nervous? What about me? You’re the expert at the sermon, not me.”
Billy-Bob grinned at Danny. “We’ll both be fine.”
As the two headed through the door out onto the altar Danny thought to himself that Billy-Bob was right, they would be fine.
In a few minutes, Billy-Bob and Danny were seated by the altar and the organ fell silent. Danny stood. “Please stand and join me in the Lord’s Prayer.”
As the people were praying, Danny thought back to that morning so many months before when he and Davy did their first, what people were calling, “new” style service. He thought about two ministers trying something new and different, not just for the people, but for the ministers also. He looked at Davy seated in the second pew. Tears flowed down his cheeks. Danny knew that Davy was thinking of the same exact time. Davy looked up at Danny. The two smiled.
Danny announced the hymn and when it was finished, he walked to the center of the altar. “There was a time when Jesus’ travels required he pass through Samaria. Being weary, he sat at a well and when a Samarian woman came to the well to draw water. Jesus told the woman ‘Give me to drink’. The woman was shocked because Jesus was a Jew and as the woman said, ‘Jews have no dealings with the Samarians’. At that, Jesus replied that had the woman asked of God to drink the living waters, God would have given her to drink.
“The woman was confused by Jesus’s statement and noticed Jesus had nothing in which to draw water for his drink. When she mentioned this to Jesus he told her that if one drinks from the well, in time they would again be thirsty, but if one drinks from the well of God, they would never again thirst. When the woman confided in him that she believed the Messiah would someday come and reveal all, Jesus told her that he was the Messiah. After which she went into town and invited all to come meet the man and pray, which they did. When the disciples returned, they were shocked to see Jesus associating with Samarians, because the Jews learned from birth to despise the Samarians.”
Danny looked around the church and asked, “Are there any questions or thoughts?”
Over the past several months this time in the service had become extremely popular. Seldom was the time for questions shorter than a half-hour and often it went well beyond an hour. Today was no exception.  About two months before, three new questions began to be asked. The first was did the verse appear in all the four gospels. The second was since none of the ones who had written the gospels were present, how did they know? And the last question was ‘was there any proof that it actually happened’?
When the questions first appeared, Danny and Davy gave them little notice and answered them truthfully. The second time, they became concerned. But as the same questions were asked each week, surprisingly by different people, Danny and Davy decided to accept them and answer them as honestly as possible. Again, today was no exception. A young Hispanic man stood and asked if the story appeared in all four gospels. Danny answered, “No, this story only appears in the Gospel of John.”
Almost on cue, a blonde lady toward the back asked, “If no one was there except Jesus and the woman, how did John know what happened?”
Danny smiled and said, “I don’t know.”
Then, again seemingly on cue, an older gentleman on the front row asked, “Was there any proof that it actually happened?”
Once more Danny smiled and answered simply, “No”.
Then, an older woman seated near the center of the church stood and asked, “If there is no proof that something actually happened, why should we believe it?”
Just as Danny was about to field the question, he noticed Billy-Bob motion toward him and stand. “May I answer this, Father West?” he asked.
Danny nodded.
“The word that is proven here is faith. We talk about faith all the time, but what does it actually mean? The dictionary gives several definitions, but one definition is a belief in something for which there is no proof. At this point, we have to ask ourselves if we have faith. Do you have faith, Ma’am?”
The lady smiled and returned to her seat.