St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church
Third Sunday in Lent
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42
Water of Life
“Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?” the Samaritan woman asked Jesus. Jesus, looking at the water in the well, teaches her about two different kinds of water. There is water that will quench our thirst for a while, and even if we stock pile it, buying all that can be bought, we would eventually have to go looking for it again. And then there is the kind of water that reaches far beyond human need, into a realm of eternal life. It is water that is ours for the taking, whenever we are open to receive it. Water, which comes from a well that never runs out, never runs dry. We don’t have to keep going back to it when thirst comes upon us, in the way that we do with the water we use to keep our bodies alive.
Over the last few days, more and more news has come to us of our need for self-preservation in the face of the novel coronavirus – COVID-19. On Friday evening, on my way home I stopped by a grocery store to buy a couple of needed items. The lines were long, and the baskets were filled to the brim. The shelves were completely cleared of all the supplies people felt the need to posses for the duration of this war against a microscopic bug that has the world at its feet. Of all the most sought-after items, such as canned goods, frozen meals, rice and pasta, and even though we have not heard from any authority that the virus could infiltrate our water system, the shelves usually filled with water, stood empty.
When we faced the Y2K Millennium Bug problem in 1999, people stocked up in the same way. That was the year that everyone was convinced that computers would simply crash on December 31st and the world, as we know it, would revert to horse and carriage days, or at least be impossible to continue life as we knew it. Planes would fall from the sky, power systems would fail, bank accounts would be wiped out and nuclear missiles would inadvertently launch.
And, true to human form, along with all the canned soup, the paper plates and plastic forks, everyone scrambled for water. We instinctively know we need water to live. We need water to cleanse, to wash things in; dishes, clothes, our bodies from our teeth to our toes.
Jesus was well aware of that need when he came to the Samaritan well. He was thirsty and in need of a drink of water. It mattered nothing to him that the woman who happened to be there and could serve him a drink of water, belonged to a people long despised by the Jews. She was an outsider of the first degree…..a woman in a man’s world, with a questionable past, a Samaritan, and yet for all that, curious and bold. She is so very different from Nicodemus, whom we met last Sunday. Nicodemus came in the dead of night, an intelligent, informed, respected leader of the Jews.
Yet while Jesus seems to want to teach Nicodemus, and even chastised him for not have broader or deeper understanding, Jesus seems a little amused and very engaged as he recognizes the curiosity of the nameless woman and her native intelligence.
Jesus was tough with Nicodemus, and even impatient, but not with this woman. With her he is kind and understanding, patiently explaining his metaphors, staying with the conversation.
Patience, understanding, and kindness seem to be the prevailing characteristics of Jesus which John acknowledges in the forefront of his Gospel. Jesus can be tough and unyielding and isn’t afraid to confront when confrontation is needed, but he can be tenderly compassionate and kindly generous with those who are seeking for the path to faith.
Jesus speaks to her about a different kind of water…the water of the Spirit, the water of the faithful….that gives eternal life to the soul. In the eyes of the community, she is a nobody, yet she is important to Jesus. The Samaritan woman matters to Jesus, and his interest in who she really was, and who she could become, resulted in her future discipleship.
Whatever complicated circumstances were in the wilderness walk o the Samaritan woman before, since being open to God, she has been found and has new focus, new direction and new life. She had become a believer in that living water, before realizing she had already begun to sip deeply of it.
Just as it was for the woman at the well, so it is for us. Jesus wants us to be bold in our quest for faith. With Jesus guiding and supporting us, we do not walk alone. All we have to do is recognize and acknowledge that guidance and support. Just as she allows him to reveal her story, so we can allow Jesus to uncover our own. We have our own story to share with Jesus.
We each have a story within a story of how we live, what our experiences have been in life, what those experiences have taught us. God wants us to reach into those experiences and employ them, so that we can deepen our faith in the here and now, and especially as we face a common threat to our way of life and life itself. Just as Jesus surprised the woman by knowing the details of her story, we cannot hide who we are, how we have been formed by our lives, our common customs and practices and how we bring them all to bear when we turn to God for direction.
Jesus knew the woman needed to know about the living water in order to truly come alive and Jesus wants us to remember, that as we are storing water to drink to quench our bodily need for water, that we continue to have open access to the water that revives the soul as well as the body.
The living water that Jesus is talking about comes in a variety of forms and it is needed as much as the water that has been flying off our grocery store shelves as we attempt to stockpile a personal shield against an invading army that is too small to see.
Yes, we need water, but we need to pay attention to an even stronger urge to seek more living water. It is easy to see who understands how to find it and who must still learn.
As always in times of challenge and crisis, stories emerge of human capacity to give and receive living water, and of those who have yet to learn how. Two stories came to me yesterday which seem to lend themselves to when living water is easy to see and when it isn’t. You may have heard of them.
One story was about a fellow who visited every Mom and Pop store, every Walmart and other big box stores in his town, and bought up all the hand-sanitizer to be had. His idea was to resell the sanitizer at a profit via the internet. This misplaced profiteer set about offering his product at vastly inflated prices on the internet, until Amazon, E-Bay and the like, said no, you cannot be a profiteer on our sites. So now, he has a garage filled with 17,700 bottles of sanitizer. This is the living water that is transitory, fleeting and cannot sustain us forever. That man is left thirsty and his soul is parched and dry, and the world now looks upon him with a mixture of derision, amusement and sorrow.
On the other hand, in China, truck drivers risked infection to bring desperately needed food to the people of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. In Iran, doctors in masks and scrubs dance to keep their spirits up along with the spirits of those sick with the virus.
Perhaps the most stunning example of freely flowing living water comes from Rome, Italy, where its people have been offering living water to the doctors and nurses working around the clock to combat the coronavirus. As you probably know, the Italian people have been under mandatory lockdown, a kind of house arrest, in Rome to prevent the spread of the virus, which has now infected more than 21,000 Italians and left 1,400 dead. They have reacted to this by coming to their rooftops, windows and balconies, making music and breaking out in song. They started out with the national anthem, then moved to a variety of music playing piano, trumpet, violin and the riotous clanging of pots and pans….all spilling out from homes into the streets. On Saturday afternoon, the people began to clap, and soon streets and streets of people were clapping. They were clapping for the doctors on the front lines of defense against Europe’s worst outbreak of COVID-19.
The empty streets ring with the sound of music, and on last Friday evening, at the exact hour of the evening when the health officials of that country update the daily numbers of he country’s increasing infected and dead, Italians from the Southern islands to the Alps, Italians sang the national anthem and played on.
“It was from our heart, to say thank you and show that we can get past this,” said Emma Santachiara, aged 73, who came out onto the terrace of her apartment in the Monteverde section of Rome to clap with her granddaughters. The cacophony of sound erupting throughout the neighborhoods of Rome reflects the spirit of a people, facing their worst national emergency since WWII, who are resilient, remember to laugh, and who celebrate those working to save the day, providing living water to all who are ready to receive it.
We choose water strictly for self-survival or we choose to share that water in order to receive living water for the soul. The coronavirus has the power to make us sick, and it has the power to try our souls and to test our spirits. It provides a Lenten test of temptation to cling only to the water that we may need to survive, and to neglect giving and receiving the living water that will give us the opportunity to ensure that others may survive too, in body, mind and spirit.
Around the world, social media is filling with encouraging, sentimental and humorous cartoons and videos. One man, I’m not sure from where, exhibiting a wonderful sense of humor meant to lighten the spirits of all he encountered, made himself a vest of horizontal carboard spokes, that maintained a one-meter distance from anyone around him. He looked like the center of a propeller, as he set off for work. Another man, extolled how happy he was to be home. It was just hard to hear him over all his loudly bickering children surrounding him on the couch.
Here in the United States is an account that showed up yesterday on a twitter feed of a woman who went to the grocery story and was walking by a car and heard a woman’s voice calling to her. She walked to the car and found an elderly woman and her husband there. The woman cracked the window open a fraction and explain, in tears that they were afraid to go into the store, because they were both in the 80’s and afraid to get sick. They were alone and had no family to assist them. They handed the woman $100 bill and a grocery list and asked if the young woman would be willing to buy the groceries. She did and place them in the trunk of the old couple’s car and gave them back the change. The woman tearful in her gratitude, said she had been waiting to ask the right person for help.
Offering an abundance of living waters to those who thirst is what fulfills and sustains us. This is what Jesus is teaching the Samaritan woman and all of us today. The Samaritan woman was waiting to ask the right person for help, and she found Jesus. The old couple had been waiting to ask the right person for help, and they found Jesus in the form of a young woman. The young woman brought them water for their bodies and provided living water for their souls.
This is a time that carries within a microscopic bug a world of anxiety, uncertainty, worry and a measure of hysteria. More and more countries are moving toward total lockdown and we are uncertain of what tomorrow’s news will be. On thing is certain, however. We will be called to assist our neighbors in ways we have never been called to assist before, when we understand that is our turn to offer that living water to someone who may have never encountered it before. Maybe it will be a daily phone call, or a trip to the grocery store for someone who cannot make the errand, who knows when and where the living water will be sought after and who will be seeking it.
As we move through this strange and surreal crises brought about by something we cannot see, let us fight against it with all our souls, and hearts and minds, with the living water that is just as hard to see, but holds a power than not even a virus can overcome.
Our love of God and our loving kindness to our neighbors, our awareness of who needs our assistance, and how we are able to assist, our willingness to share, to provide, to listen, to connect in any way that lifts another’s spirit is the living water that we receive in every moment from God and the living water that we offer to the world.
As Christians we know where to find the living water and now, more than ever, we need to understand when someone is asking us….what is this living water. We need to know in what form we are being called to offer it.
We each live our stories out in various ways, when life and times are easy, as well as when life and times are challenging, and filled with uncertainty and doubt. It is when times are challenging, when we are called to adjust, when we are called to be open to change and to examine our circumstances in ways which are out of the ordinary that we are open to receiving and giving the living water of grace from God. To receive and give that living water is transformational, opening doors that were tightly shut, finding courage where there was only fear, entering calm where there was hysteria, humor where there was only aggression, light where there was only dark. To receive and give living water is to be witness to the power of God and to open hearts and minds to true discipleship in a world that exists mainly for those who avail themselves of what it has to offer for them alone.
“Sir, you have no bucket and the well is deep. Where do you get that Living Water?” The Samaritan woman asks the question for all of us and receives her answer as do we. She stands for all of us who are thirsty for something in our lives that will not only sustain us at a dark and confusing time in the world, but for that living water which will bring shining light into the dark night of every thirsty soul.
Amen
Written to the Glory of God
E. J. R. Culver+
March 15, 2020