March 23, 2014
Lent 3
Exodus 17:1-7
John 4:7-15
(prayer)
It is said
that about 60-70% of our human bodies are made up of water. When we are born,
fully 3/4th of our birth weight is water in
some form or another. On average, we lose about 2% of our body's water per day.
It will vary on your health and the climate you are in, but you cannot be
expected to survive more than a few days without replenishing your inner
water supply.
Both of our scripture readings touch on this
reality to some degree. Obviously, the
people of Israel, wandering through the wilderness have a near-deprivation
level of thirst. There is a similar
story told in the previous chapter of exodus that describes worries about
having enough food. The irony is
tragically obvious: the people of Israel are on a freedom journey, but that
journey might kill them. Poor Moses, he
gets to hear all of the complaints, but there's not much he can do. He's following God's lead.
And so, after Moses gets an earful, God usually
gets an earful. We heard that in Exodus
17 today: 4Moses cried out to Yahweh,
'What shall I do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me!'
As was the case with hunger in chapter 16, God instructs Moses for how to deal with the
concern. For food, Moses was told to
tell the people that they were entering a region where a delicate flaky
bread-like substance will appear on shrubs with the morning dew, and that
migrating birds should be available to hunt in the evenings. [Even today, certain excreted desert plant
resins can be edible and appear similar to the what the Bible calls manna.]
In chapter 17, Moses is guided to a rocky area
where water can be found. The story goes
that Moses smacked the rock and water sprung forth. This could be a supernatural miracle - but
not necessarily. The flow of a natural
spring may have been stopped by the calcification of minerals in the
water. God telling Moses to strike the
rock may simply been a means to break away the blockage and releasing the
water (THAT WAS ALREADY THERE, but unseen and unknown).
Regardless of the explanation, the people's
thirsts were quenched. It allowed them
to endure and continue on their journey and quest to return to the lands where
Abraham's family had once lived.
A quick
bit of biblical history: Abraham and Sarah are the parents of origin for the
Hebrew people. As I mentioned last week,
Abraham was called by God to make a permanent, but not specific move: leave your home and journey to a land that I
'will' show you - a land flowing with milk and honey (not really - that's a
metaphor meaning a place that you can
easily prosper).
Sarah and Abraham had a son. Isaac had two sons, one of whom was
Jacob. Jacob had at least 13 children
(that are named in the Bible: 1 daughter, 12 sons). One of those sons, Joseph, wound up in Egypt
(an interesting tale, to be sure).
Eventually, Jacob (who had garnered the nickname 'god-wrestler' or
Israel) and the rest of the family moved to Egypt as well. The family prospered for many, many generations,
all the while maintaining their identity and faith in the God of Abraham. They became a distinct segment of Egyptian
society - so much so, that (as it says right a the start of the book of
Exodus), a pharoah came to in Egypt who did not know about Joseph and enslaved
the people of Israel. Fast forward a few
hundred years more and you catch up to the story of Moses.
//
In today's reading from Exodus, we can say that
not only a physical thirst was alleviated, but a spiritual one as well.
//
//
The story from John's gospel is much more
obviously about spiritual thirsts.
There are a couple of contextual details in John
4 that are important for us to notice:
1.
Jesus is in the region of Samaria - at the location of Jacob's well, in
fact. John says that he had been in the
south (Judea) and was making his way back to Galilee - the road Jesus and his
disciples took was the route that went through the lands that were first
settled by the family of Abraham. Jews
and Samaritans are both descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. A divide between them dates back to the
development of Jerusalem as the capital of all Israel under King David and the
building of a permanent stone Temple in Jerusalem under King Solomon. The people of northern Israel disliked this
later move, in particular - because it discounted the value of the place where
Jacob envisioned a ladder leading up to heaven - that he declared to be Bethel - "The House of
God". The Samaritans were the first
century descendants of these anti-Jerusalem northerners. In Jesus' time, Jews and Samaritans did not
interact very much. So, important
context note #1 - Jesus is in Samaria, talking to a Samaritan woman. We see this dynamic in John 4, when the woman
was shocked that Jesus was willing to sharing her water jug.
2. The second contextual item was not part of what
was read this morning - we just heard verses 7 to 15. The story actually is found from verses 5 to
43. (I hope you aren't too disappointed
that I only picked part of the story to be read aloud in church today.) It turns out that there was a reason why this
woman was the only one at the well when Jesus was there. It was mid-day - a time when most people would
not choose to be drawing water. We can,
fairly, ask why was she doing that? We
get a possible answer in verses 16 to 18.
It turns out that the woman had an interesting relationship history: she
had been married five times. We aren't
told whether those marriages ended in divorce of by the death of a spouse; we are told that she is not married to her
current partner. We can presume that
there is some controversy surrounding her in the community that leads to her to
choosing to avoid others by gathering her water at noon. Important contextual issue #2: the woman is
not only a regional outcast to Jesus, as a Jew, she is also an outcast within
her community.
What does this context tell us?
That Jesus walked into a situation with many
layers of stained relationships, including the long standing situation that
existed between Samaritans and Jews as well as the more immediate situation of
this woman's awkward connection to her community.
//
In that context, we can understand that
the conversation about between Jesus and the woman at the well 'about water'
was not really about water - even if
(like Nicodemus last week) she took him too literally at first.
Given that we all have had experience with feeling
thirsty and we can imagine the dangers associated with extreme thirst, it should not be a surprise that our language has grabbed on
to the sensation of thirst as a powerful metaphor for something we deeply long
for - something for which we might be willing to risk our survival.
Jesus likened faith to seeking out 'living water' and in other places he spoke about having a 'thirst for righteousness'. These
images remind us that our faith sustains us and we should have a passion for
justice.
//
I believe that longing for Spirit is something
akin to being thirsty for water. Without
the sustenance we need we feel uncomfortable - a discomfort that can distract
us from the rest of life.
There may have been a time when most people came
to church because it was 'what you were supposed to do'. It was just part of what society
demanded. It was an obligation - not
necessarily in a bad way, but people willingly went along with the broader
expectation.
That time is no more.
In fact, the pendulum has swung the other way.
Church - certainly organized religion in general
- nowadays, is looked upon with suspicion.
The societal question is no longer 'why don't you go to church?' but
'why would you?'
Maybe part of it is a latent sense that 'we
should' - but... I suspect that there is a different reason why I am not
completely alone here today.
What I hear from people (in some shape or form)
is that it is not out of strong religious obligation, or out of deep denominational loyalty (I
mean, really, it is a relatively small percentage of us who have been active
United Church-ers all of our lives.
We are drawn by a thirst for spirit.
We long for a sense of being part of something
more than just ourselves. Against all
odds, we seek out a spiritual community because we feel some un-ease with the
selfish notions that it is everyone for
themselves, that it is the survival
of the fittest and that to the
victors go the spoils. We want to
believe that we can be more than that.
So, when we hear millennia-old accounts of Jesus
challenging those very notions, it peaks our attention.
We seek the mysterious living water that can
teach us that we are alone in this quest to be filled and quenched.
As some of heard a couple of Fridays ago during
the Lenten video study, we are living in a time of a significant reordering of
our society - including communities of faith.
Many of the assumptions of the last 500 years are beginning to crumble
and we are trying to figure out what our foundational authorities are.
Religion and spirituality (and Christianity) has
a place in all this, but we know that we are evolving in ways that keep us
relevant to our new realities.
A perfect example of this is how the United
Church of Canada is exploring the serious and radical question of how should we
best organize ourselves to be vibrant communities of faith in this new time.
With the exception of some tinkering over the
years, the UCC is still basically operating on a model from the late 19th
century. Now sure, in the grand history
of the church, 120ish years is not that much.
But, an increasing number of us are realizing that it has become
cumbersome and can actually serve to stifle the spirit rather than enliven it
in our midst.
This coming Friday, for the 11:30am video study,
we will be watching the Right Rev. Gary Paterson, Moderator of the United
Church of Canada speak about some of these near future possibilities.
In our congregation, you will soon hear about
opportunities to gather with others and look at the report called "Fishing on the Other Side", which encourages us to talk about these kind of
things. Like the experienced fishermen
among Jesus' disciple, we may be sceptical of the call to try things
differently than what we have know, but still we are called to cast our nets
out the other side of the boat. Who
knows... a miraculous catch might be waiting just below that unknown surface.
I don't know what that might look like. That is
why it is scary, but also why it is exciting.
The promise of living water is like that. We know we are thirsty for spirit, but we
aren't quite sure what being quenched will feel like.
Knowing we are thirsty is the important first
step.
Let us pray:
Holy God, we are thirsty. We are called to trust in your living
water. May we faithfully follow Jesus
Way as we drink. Amen.
#144MV "Like a Healing
Stream"
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