Water of Life

Psalm 63    John 4:1-30

March 22, 2009    One Great Hour of Sharing/Fourth Sunday in Lent

When was the last time you appreciated water, I mean really appreciated it?  Yesterday evening I participated in a sweat lodge, and so all day Saturday I was conscientious about drinking plenty of water.  But even though I knew that it was important to be sure my body had plenty of water beforehand, it wasn’t until I was in the heat of the lodge that I really felt my need for water.  And by then it was too late to do anything about it.  In our culture, the lack of water is not something with which we live on a daily basis, but for many people around the world it is a very real, life-threatening issue.

Water, fresh, clean water, is the most important resource we have for our lives.  We can’t survive very long without it.  Food, we can last without for awhile, but without water we can only manage 10 days at the most.  According to the United Nations each person needs between 20 and 50 litres of clean water a day for drinking, cooking and cleaning, but a shocking 1.1 billion or one in six people miss out.  Two out of every five people do not have adequate sanitation.  The difference between those with safe water and adequate sanitation is a gulf that differentiates between rich and poor, healthy and sick, secure and vulnerable.  

Today is World Water Day, and the theme this year is boundary waters, the waters that are shared between neighboring countries.  You might imagine that water is often the source of conflict between nations, and we know that it can be a source of conflict here in the US when one group wants to create a reservoir in order to supply water to cities and more developed areas, while local communities want the water to flow freely so that it can irrigate the local land.    But according to the United Nations, on the international scene over the last 60 years there have been more than 200 water agreements and only 37 cases of reported violence between countries over water.  Pretty amazing when you consider how easily people move toward violence in so many other areas of life.  There almost seems to be an unspoken agreement that water is too important to fight over, especially among the people for whom its value is obvious and desperate in their day-to-day reality.

In Jesus’ day and in the places he frequented, water was not something folks took for granted.  Women had to walk, often several miles, to fill their jugs with water for household use.  It was not often readily accessible, and where it was available, whole villages sprouted up around it.  The story of the woman at the well is a familiar one to us.  We remember at least the basic storyline of how Jesus had the audacity to shun convention by talking with this Samaritan woman in the first place, and that after asking her for a drink of water he began telling her about the living water he was offering.  For this woman, going to the well was something she needed to do at least once a day in order to supply her family with the water they needed to survive.  She probably gave very little thought to it, except for the fact that we are told she went during the less crowded time of day in order to avoid the stares and ridicule of the other women who lived more conventional lives. 

When Jesus started talking with this woman about living water, she assumed he meant a water that satisfied the thirst much as conventional water did.  The possibility of avoiding the long, arduous trip to the well each day appealed to her, as it would anyone for whom this was a part of the daily routine.  As she began to understand Jesus’ words at a deeper level, however, she also began to feel that thirst inside of her grow; her thirst for a living water that would satisfy a deeper need that had gone unrecognized until now.

This woman’s history tells us that she had spent a good deal of her life searching for something, or even someone, who could fill in the gaps for her.  She had been married several times, and even now was in a relationship with a man to whom she was not married.  We can do this in our lives so easily - search in all the wrong places for something or someone who will meet all of our needs, for someone who “completes us.”  When Jesus spoke with this woman about the living water he was offering, he spoke to the emptiness inside of her that she had spent a lifetime struggling to fill.  Once she understood this, it sobered her up right away.  She forgot her pursuit of water that would eliminate the need for her daily visits to the well, and immediately latched on to the idea that there was actually a way to meet those deeper needs with which her soul had been struggling.

If Jesus were standing in front of you, as he stood with the woman at the well, inviting you to consider what it is you most thirst for, would you be able to answer the question?  And if you can’t quite answer it now, are you comfortable looking deeper within in order to find this truth?  

The reality is that we need both living water and water to live.  We need to be attentive to the needs of our bodies as well as those of our souls.  On the world stage, we need to be active in ensuring that people have adequate supplies of fresh, clean water.  Water is a large contributing factor to the disparity between people of power and wealth and those who have neither, and as Christians we are expected to eradicate injustice wherever we find it.  Water defines the difference between rich and poor in many places in the world.  Knowing all of this, it is tempting for us to live only in the realm of “body needs,” focusing on those things that ensure our survival as human beings and as a human race.  Certainly there is much to be done in this arena, of which taking notice of World Water Day is only a small part.  

However, we also need to be aware of the deeper essence of the conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well, in addition to the countless mentions of water throughout scripture - many of them more metaphorical than literal in meaning.  Psalm 63 which we read this morning begins with these powerful lines:  O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Eugene Peterson captures the metaphor behind the psalm in his translation.  Hear these words: 

1 God—you're my God! I can't get enough of you! 

   I've worked up such hunger and thirst for God, 

      traveling across dry and weary deserts. 

 2-4 So here I am in the place of worship, eyes open, 

      drinking in your strength and glory. 

   In your generous love I am really living at last! 

      My lips brim praises like fountains. 

   I bless you every time I take a breath; 

      My arms wave like banners of praise to you. 

 5-8 I eat my fill of prime rib and gravy; 

      I smack my lips. It's time to shout praises! 

   If I'm sleepless at midnight, 

      I spend the hours in grateful reflection. 

   Because you've always stood up for me, 

      I'm free to run and play. 

   I hold on to you for dear life, 

      and you hold me steady as a post.  

Steady as a post, satisfying us with all we hunger and thirst for - no matter how far-fetched our hunger, no matter how insatiable our thirst.  God is the One we need to turn to when we experience that empty space within us, when we have a hunger for which no food satisfies, when we thirst for something beyond our experience or understanding.  God is the only one who can fill these gaps within us and between us as well.

Loving One, you bring us the refreshment our souls long for.  You fill us with good things and never leave us alone in our hunger nor our thirst.  Fill us again, Lord.  May your well of goodness overflow and fill us and all people with all we need to live as your children, holy and beloved.  Amen.