Springs
of Living Water
Exodus 17.1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5.1-11; John 4.5-42
In October 2000, much of the state of Victoria found itself without hot
water. A key gas processing plant exploded, rendering most of the
state's hot water systems useless. For weeks, the Melbourne
papers showed pictures of scantily-clad people cuing at public
utilities and hostels, hanging out for that hot shower. I was in
Melbourne for a Minister's retreat during the crisis. We were
staying at a centre which happened to have electric showers. It
was very comical to see the Victorians heading for the showers the
moment they arrived, and to hear their shouts of glee filtering down to
the lounge from the upstairs bathrooms. The whole episode caused
me to reflect on how much we Australians take for granted. I
remember staying with Lil's Aunty Mary once. Mary works as a
doctor in Fiji. We got to talking about the contrast between life
in Australia and life in Fiji. Mary pointed out that the most
valuable facility an Australian house possesses is not the television,
or the microwave oven, or the electric lights and heaters, but the
capacity to provide pure, clean, running water by a simple turn of the
tap.
The readings from Scripture today remind us that water is most
certainly not to be taken for granted. In the ancient Near East,
where these stories were first told, water was a very scarce commodity
indeed. Much of the land in and around Palestine was extremely
dry and arid. Indeed, after several millennia of de-forestation, it is
even more so today. Some parts of the countryside are still
serviced by the wells dug in biblical times. It is still
customary for some folk, rural folk in particular, to walk great
distances to draw water in the manner of their ancestors. In dry
and dusty climes like these, water is valued more than gold. It
is properly regarded as both the bringer, and the sustainer, of life
itself.
No wonder, then, that the bible frequently uses the image of water to
describe the gift of God for the renewal of a parched and dry
life. In Exodus we read the story of the people's thirst.
They have been wandering in a wilderness called Sin for forty years,
and their thirst has become intolerable. They cry out against
Moses and his God, saying, 'Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill
us and our livestock and our children with thirst?' An
exasperated Moses goes to God and asks for a solution. The Lord
instructs him to strike the rock of Horeb, from whence water will flow
to quench the people. He does so, and the people drink.
Now, as with most bible stories, we ought not read this tale literally
or historically, else we shall miss the point. The thirst of the
Israelites represents their spiritual poverty before God.
By their own determination, they have been wandering in the desert of
Sin, a place of meaningless desolation where there is precious little
to live for. Even as they recognise their thirst, the people
remain unable to take responsibility for their plight. Even now,
they fail to see that it is they, themselves, who have chosen the
condition in which they find themselves. Instead, they blame God and
they blame Moses, God's servant. In his reflection on this story,
the Psalmist says that the people were stubborn and hard of heart. They
had no regard for the ways of God. They would not face the truth
of their error. They would not admit their fault. And yet .
. . the Exodus story finishes with God's surprising provision of
water. God sustains the people's lives, though they clearly don't
deserve it, and keeps them moving towards the land of promise.
There is an extraordinary word of grace here for us. How many of
us are like the Israelites—having made a radical choice for faith long
ago, now long for all that we foreswore at that time? How many of
us, having chosen to follow in the footprints of the Crucified, now
daydream about life in a God-free zone? Well, I do, for
one. Sometimes I lie awake at night and wonder if I'm
stark-raving mad; I lie there fantasizing about all those other lives I
might have lived. Like the one where I’m an ethics-free corporate
lawyer, retreating periodically to my wine-soaked retreat-house
in Tuscany. Or the one where I’m Paris Hilton, when the limit of
my responsibility-free zone is exceeded only by the size of my
credit-limit. But no, I became a follower of Christ, which
immediately excluded either of these possibilities. And, let’s
face it, in the eyes of our possession-obsessed society, that means I
am one to be either pitied or detested. Can you see how these
mid-night wondering are a hungering and a thirsting? Like many of
you, I hazard to guess, I wake up in the middle of the night feeling
that my life has become dry and barren. I long for something more.
Of course, as St. Augustine said, all of us remain restless until we
find our home in God. When Jesus met the woman at the well, he
promised that the water he would give was able to quench her thirst
entirely. We thirst without end until we are given the water of
God's spirit to drink. We hunger until we are satiated by Christ,
who is the bread of life. Only God can fill the hole
inside. Only God can make life meaningful, right? Yes, but
how constantly do we believe this? How vulnerable to the
views of others do we remain? Each of us, said Margaret Cooley,
are mirror-selves, people who see ourselves not as we are, but as
others see us. So that if others think Christians are naïve
fools, we eventually become vulnerable to thinking that way
ourselves. And the more we do, the more thirsty we become.
Instead of hungering and thirsting after God, we start to hunger and
thirst after THINGS. Things like approval from others.
Things like money and influence and fame. Things that can never,
in a million years, satiate our desire for meaningfulness. Things
that succeed only in making us more thirsty. So, all of us who thirst
are like those Israelites in the wilderness. Having chosen to
believe in God's promise of a land flowing with milk and honey, we
started on the journey to find it. But along the way our minds
and hearts began to yearn for lesser things. Deep down we began to have
our doubts. We turned from God, and ceased to believe in the
promise. We, like them, became prone to the worship of lesser
gods.
How wonderful, then, to hear the word of grace in this Exodus
story. Though the people grumbled and were hard of heart, God
still gave them water. Though they longed for the gods of Egypt,
God gave then water. And because of this extraordinary gift, they
were somehow sustained for a further stage in their journey towards the
promised land.
Like the woman of Samaria, we may lose our way in life. In this
woman's case, she began to believe what people said about her.
That her independence as an unmarried woman was tantamount to moral
weakness. She became thirsty for the water offered by
others. The waters of acceptance and honour on someone else's
terms. But into her life stepped a man who accepted her as she
was. Who offered her a word of grace, the promise of a spring of
living water from within. No longer need she look to the approval
of others to satiate her thirst. For God would come to dwell in
her heart. She would know the truth about herself. She
would know that she is beloved of God. And that knowledge would
be as water to the dying. It would fill her with new life, and
new hope.
God wants to fill you with new life today. God would come to
plant a spring in your heart which will quench your thirst
forever. No matter the promises broken, no matter the manner by
which you became lost, no matter the depth of your thirst. God is
here to offer grace, forgiveness, and the waters that are able break
the drought forever. All you need do is cry out to Christ in
prayer, and he will be near with the cup of your salvation. But
what is this salvation? What does it look and feel like “in the
flesh”, so to speak? Well, as always, there is more to be said
than can be said, but let me make just this one point for now.
Salvation is certainly not about the giving away or cessation of desire
altogether, as in Buddhism. It is not about denying ourselves to
the point where we are able to shut down our senses, thereby blocking
out the enticements of this world entirely. (Not that the
Buddhism of the West even pretends to such a thing! In Western
Buddhism, the denial of desire in meditation has a very different
purpose: only to give it a much-needed rest, so that the drive
for power and success can again go into overdrive when the meditation
is over!) By way of contrast, listen to what Jesus tells his
disciples in the passage we read from John:
My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.
Christians do not shut down there senses or their desire, they simply
have a desire-transplant. We learn, through a long process of
attending to the word of Christ in Scripture and liturgy, to desire in
a different way, to desire as Christ desires so that our own needs,
like his, are entirely met by doing the will of our Father. And
what is the will of the Father, according to John? That we should
not love our lives so much that we are unable to give them away for the
sake of another. For in giving, we receive. This is the
Christian paradox.
I would, of course, be thrilled to speak of these things more
adequately and personally if any are curious or thirsty for more.
Glory to God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—as in the beginning, so now
and forever. Amen.
Garry
J. Deverell
3rd Sunday of Lent, 2005
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