August 24, 2003
Living Water
Linda A. Knieriemen

Bold. Audacious!  Even ridiculous!  What a thing to say! And she thought she had heard it all!  But then comes this request for a drink of water from this odd man, stranger to her village, breaking the rules, speaking to a woman, and a despised Samaritan one at that!  First the man claims he can give her spring water, living water that is, water just bubbled up from the earth, not this sometimes stale, often cloudy well water which she draws everyday. Then…then this laughable suggestion, “Drink MY water and you won’t ever be thirsty again!” Yeh right.  Good joke.  “Sure”, she mocks, “give me a drink…show me”.

How would YOU have replied to Jesus? What would YOU have said?

Not sure?  There’s confusion in the air by the well too.  The communication isn’t quite happening. You know what it’s like when you talk on different planes, you talk past each other?  The context seemed clear, if culturally shocking. Woman drawing water, is approached by thirsty man, man asks for a drink of water… Thirst she understood. Water security in the Middle East has always been a concern. In an area where yearly rainfall was only 5-6 inches, knowing where to find fresh water was essential, not just convenient, like knowing where the next Starbucks is. The thirst of dehydration was both known and feared in a way most of us have never experienced.

Some of our fellow Michiganders and others through the Northeast got a taste of what fear of thirst is all about last week.  When electric pumps failed and concerns rose about availability of safe water, bottled water disappeared from the shelves as quickly as a mirage disappearing in the desert. Even those who mock the trendiness of Evian and Aquafina joined the rush, but no company took advantage of the buying frenzy to advertise that their water would quench thirst forever!  And if they had, we would have smirked just as much as the woman by the well of Samaria.

So the beginning of the dialogue is surprising, but the communication is clear. It’s about being thirsty and asking for a drink. Then Jesus confuses matters by introducing “living water” into the conversation, (a phrase which in Hebrew which refers to water as from a spring), and she knew this highly prized source of water didn’t exist in that area. But Jesus has taken off into the skies of metaphor and leaves the dusty woman grounded in her literal reality. Of course she mocks Jesus.  Spring water, here?   Magical water to save me from the backbreaking work of filling water jars and carrying them the long walk home? No way! Snake oil salesmen did business in Palestine in those days too and she thought she’d spotted a phony.

What would YOU have thought?

Did you notice the way Jesus cleverly turns the conversation around making him the one with something to offer, and the Samaritan woman the one with the needs?  Her life has not been conventional.  We can only guess the circumstances leading to her having had five husbands.  Had they died? Had they divorced her? Had she divorced them?  Maybe she was a prostitute? Whatever the details, she has known upheaval and brokenness.  She shares a characteristic which lies in the bones of every man woman and child…she longs for something more.

Sound familiar?  Deep deep down inside, what do you desire?

Not the higher grades, better job, or the lake cottage.  Yes, they would be nice. But I mean more. More than a better relationship with your parents, or someone special to love or a happier marriage.  We all have a deep longing, some would say desperation, for something more in life.  Maybe for you it comes in the form of a longing for more peace of mind, or harmony between your beliefs and your actions or wisdom to make better choices.  Maybe it is in a greater reverence for life, or a renewed willingness to hear God.  Or maybe for you it is a fuzzy discontent or general malaise you can’t quite put your finger on.

Sometimes the longing is faint, sometimes it is unbearable. Maybe you feel it more acutely as the seasons change, as vacation ends and school begins, and summer turns to fall again. Maybe you feel it as relaxed time with your children yields once again to the hectic schedule of work and day care and sports and music lessons. Or maybe you feel that longing and emptiness because you have recently lost a loved one to death. This has been a difficult summer at Westminster in that regard. Where is your grounding at times like these?  Where is your life source?

Long before the birth of Jesus, long before this Samaritan well dialogue, the Hebrew poets were employing the language of thirst and water to express their dependence on God.  Several psalms may come to mind, among them Psalm 42, “as a deer longs for flowing streams so my soul longs for you”.  The poet-prophet Isaiah gives voice to God’s invitation, writing “everyone who is thirsty, come to the water”.  Less well known is Psalm 87 which I read earlier. You may want to open your Bible and take another look.  This is a psalm in celebration of Jerusalem or Mt. Zion, which Jews believe to be God’s City for God’s people.  We think the psalm was written during the exile in Babylon when the people of Israel were forming their identity as a displaced people, yet remembering their geographical roots…which included springs bubbling “living water” out of the Jerusalem’s rocks…AND their theological center; the satisfaction and delight of worship in the temple.  Verse three is the origin of our opening hymn this morning, “Glorious Things of Thee (meaning Jerusalem) are Spoken”. It continues to praise Jerusalem as mother to all people, according to the psalmist, even those who were not born there.  Now look at that last verse…verse 7. The psalmist ends with an affirmation of faith, “Singers and Dancers alike say, “All my springs are in you.”

Do you believe it?

I have been repeating and repeating and repeating that verse over the last week.  It jumped right up and grabbed me and won’t let me go.  I’ve started playing around with that word, “spring”.  All our “springtimes” are in God. Spring is the smell and sight and feel of new life budding and bursting out of the ground after hiding in hibernation. I thought about the energy generated in a springing trampoline, or a pogo stick and about how trust in God, spending time intentionally in God’s presence is what gives energy to get up and do what needs to be done.  And I recalled a cold spring deep in the woods of the Boundary Waters in Minnesota from which I have collected pure water in milk jugs before paddling back across the lake to the cottage. 

When Jesus says to the woman at the well, “I am he, you don’t have to look any further, he is claiming, “all the springs you need are in me.  I will meet that deep longing in your heart.”

This morning driving in to church I caught parts of the NPR program “Speaking of Faith”. The subject was a new documentary film about the life and faith of Deitrich Bonhoffer German theologian in the early part of the last century and critic of Nazism and its brand of Christianity.  The film director being interviewed made the point that central to Bonhoeffer’s beliefs and actions was the notion that God is at the Center, not us.  His faith was not a crisis faith, (that is, he didn’t just seek Living Water when he was thirsty, in a crisis) but one in which Christ was always part of the dialogue, and always part daily living.

Likewise, we make a mistake if we come to church expecting to get rapid or permanent relief from our longings.  Worship was never intended to function solely as gas station where you fill ‘er up and run down the tank over the week only to return next Sunday with your tank on empty.  Worship is where we come to acknowledge belonging to God and that the One Sovereign God is the sole source of life and well being all week whom we trust everyday.   Come to church because you know that it is only in God, not in anything in the worldly realm that your deepest needs can be filled. An African proverb says, “When I pray for bread and I get is, I think about bread and forget about God. When I pray for bread and don’t get it, I think about God a great deal”

Jesus said, “The Living Water I give is all that you need.”

That bold claim spoken to a woman in Samaria 2000 years ago is great news but it’s not always the news I want to hear.  I would guess I’m not alone.  We’ve all had times when we have been so refreshed and amazed by an encounter with God that we could do a jig and shake a tambourine and sing alleluias down the streets of Grand Rapids. I hope you have known that joy.  But there are other times when we resist even the places of nourishment we seek. At those times that tambourine is silent and our dancing shoes gather closet dust.  Even when the truth is standing right next to us, resistance and even ridicule (remember the woman at the well!) may be our first response. That’s normal, for when we get involved with God something maybe expected of us and it may not be what we’d like.

I spoke several weeks ago about the Appalachian forest in Eastern Tennessee where I spent a week of study leave. About 100 feet down a steep hillside from the cottage ran a brook which had tumbled from a waterfall just up the mountain.  It was gorgeous, a gift of God. It was the source of water for the cottages which lined it and the animals which lived by it. It encouraged the rich ecosystem of the forest to flourish. I loved it.  But I couldn’t turn it off.  The bubbling became babbling and soon chattering and then rose to an irritating cackle and then a persistent roar and while I wanted to enjoy it, I wished I could turn it off like one can turn off a clock chime at night!  It was of course, the kind of noise one grows accustomed to and finally embraces. “All the springs you need are in me” Jesus says to us. … The source of life for which you thirst will wait for you and will keep calling you, maybe even become noisy…whether you run toward him or back away… if you approach in fits and starts or go hesitantly with holy fear. 

“All my springs are in you” No need to shop around for another option.  

Is that bold statement of faith one you can make with today with joy?

It may not be.

You may only be able to pray a prayer of desire;

            “I want my springs to be in you. Lead me.  Open my heart.”

Or a prayer of confession;

“I have been drinking from other waters, help me turn toward you.”

Or a prayer for assistance;

            “All my springs are in you…fill me.”

 invite you to bow with me in silent prayer and respond to Christ’s invitation of Living Water in your own way.

Amen.