Driving northwest on Adams Avenue, down under the railroad trestle, over the Tacony Creek bridge (the popular people's swimming hole to the right), it was coming up to 12 o'clock noon that sweltering 25th day of July.  It was brutally hot and hazy and the air was heavy with humidity.  There in the valley at the intersection of Adams Avenue and Crescentville Road - below the the hill-top "villages" of Hillside Gardens and Adam's Run and a stone's throw from  - a young Black man silently held up bottled spring water in the middle of slow heavy traffic waiting on the traffic light.  Judging from his appearance, he is somewhere in his late teens or early 20s.  He had a strong street-orientation.  His hair appropriately a bit unkempt, dark-skinned son walked warily, shirtless in the sweltering sun.  White boxer shorts billowed a bit out of his sagging cut-off shorts, and he wore sneakers with no socks.  The sinewy brother had a hard-rock look on his face - angry, frustrated, defiant, desperate - and drivers seemed intimidated as they made their way around him.  He walked slowly through the middle of the left-turn lane, almost daring people to stop in heavy traffic and buy water from him.  Driver after driver passed by him, staring straight ahead - nervously and self-consciously trying to avoid contact with his hope-sapped eyes.  The spring water didn't look cold (the bottles weren't sweaty).  The busted-up, leaking box sitting on one of the traffic islands there made his entrepreneurial endeavor even more suspect.  Was the water "hot"?  Looked that way.  Everybody passed him by.  No one stopped to buy.  

Adams Avenue & Crescentville Road

I drove by as well.  Social conventions working prevention (traffic flow and a bevy of "correct" appearances) kept me from stopping as well.  Well.  Well.  Well.  As I finished the short drive back home, my spirit was troubled about what I had just seen and done.  Then the Lord Jesus began speaking to my heart, telling me about the opportunity I had just missed.  My thoughts were directed to John 4 and Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well and all the social taboos that Jesus "violated" in order to reach her - and ultimately her community.  This too was a potentially volatile social encounter, as this Jewish Rabbi (male), intentionally invaded another culture's territory, interacted with a Samaritan woman who'd been sleeping around in search of satisfaction.  It appears there were two diametrically opposed  agendas at work in their encounter, and Jesus patiently won her heart over to Himself.  Those who heard about Him from her came out of the city to meet Him and He wound up spending two days there.

I've been rebuked and and am still a bit unsettled in my spirit.  Who is going to reach that young brother hawking water?  Why, if in my heart I wanted to strike up a Living Water convo with him, did I cave in to the subtle social pressures (strongholds) surrounding the scenario and allow myself to pass him by along with everybody else?  I messed up and missed the opportunity to possibly participate in a contemporary re-telling of a John 4-like redemptive story here in Philadelphia on a hot July day in 2001.
________

Brother, whoever you are and wherever you are, forgive me for passing you by.  That's on me, not you.  May the Lord Jesus open the way for someone to bring you the Living Water I withheld from you that day.

Lord Jesus, help me follow You more closely and to always be on the alert and ready for the opportunities You orchestrate so you can go to work where others think You  won't.  

Enable me to ever ready to go with Your Flow and not succumb to way the world wants me to flow.
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Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.  Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."  John 7:37-38 NIV

When He finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all His angels with Him, the Son of Man will take His place on His glorious throne.  Then all the nations will be arranged before Him and He will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to His right and goats to His left.

Then the King will say to those on His right, "Enter, you who are blessed by My Father!  Take what's coming to you in this kingdom.  It's been ready for you since the world's foundation.  And here's why:

I was hungry and you fed Me,
I was thirsty and you gave Me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave Me a room,
I was shivering and you gave Me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to Me."

Then those 'sheep' are going to say, "Master, what are You talking about?  When did we ever see You hungry and feed You, thirsty and give You a drink?  And when did we ever see You sick or in prison and come to You?"  Then the King will say, "I'm telling the solemn truth:  Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was Me—you did it to Me." Matthew 25:31-40 from The Message

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