Water

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
March 12, 2023

3 Lent A

          In the first 20 years Don and I were married, we lived in 9 different places.  Some of the moves were local as we moved from a rental house to one we bought.  Some moves were to a new state.  Sometimes movers packed and moved us and sometimes the move was a do it yourself operation with the help of family and friends.  Some moves were before we had our kids and others were moves with kids.  Leaving some places was harder than leaving others but in each case we were excited about what lay ahead in our new location.

          Because we moved so much in those early years, any romantic notion I might have about moving was lost by at least the third move if not the second.  Even under the best of circumstances, moving is hard work, exhausting emotionally and physically, stressful-especially with children, and expensive even when someone else is paying for the move.  So, I have a good bit of compassion for the Hebrew people this morning when they find themselves on the move through the wilderness to a new home.  They are tired, thirsty, and very grumpy.  They left Egypt on a moment’s notice with almost no time to pack.  Any food they took with them had either been eaten or had spoiled.  Just a chapter ago in Exodus, God had provided manna for them in the wilderness so they are not starving, but the shelf life of manna is very short.  Who knows whether God will continue to provide for them?  The people are worried for their children and themselves as the time in the wilderness seems to stretch on forever and the people don’t even really know where they are going. 

          The lack of water is a serious problem.  Human beings die without water.  The people are not just whining when they say “Why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”  The people are stating a desperate fact.   Without water they will die.  They will never get to the Promised Land.  God’s mighty act in delivering them from Egypt will be wasted.  What is Moses going to do about that?  Is the Lord among them or not?

          Jesus is also thirsty this morning, as is the Samaritan woman who comes to draw water at the well.  There is no indication in the story that either of the two ever get a literal drink of water, and they are also in a climate that can quickly dehydrate the human body.  When Jesus offers the woman living water, she assumes he means literal water when she says “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here again.”

          But Jesus is talking about living water that quenches an even deeper thirst.  Jesus is offering the water that quenches the thirst for life, for a depth and richness of life that is satisfied by the Source of life itself.  Jesus uses the body’s thirst for water to talk with the Samaritan woman about the soul’s thirst for eternal life.  The Samaritan woman is so moved by the conversation that she runs back to the city and invites everyone she sees to come and meet Jesus.

          Unlike Jesus and the Samaritan woman, the Hebrew people do get their drink of water, but like the Samaritan woman, they get even more.  They get some proof that the Lord really is among them, that the Lord is the source of their life.  While they are reminded of their dependence on God in the wilderness, they are also reminded that God is worthy of that dependence and the trust that is required.  They are reminded that not only will God provide, but that God hears their cries in the wilderness just as God heard their cries when they were in Egypt.  They are reminded that their relationship with the God who brought them out of Egypt and now guides them in the wilderness will sustain them.

          The Samaritans invite Jesus to stay with them, and Jesus stays two days.  The Samaritans invited Jesus because of the Samaritan woman’s testimony but by the end of Jesus’ stay, they believe that Jesus is the Savior of the world because of their new-found relationship with him.  Perhaps when we hear these two stories together, the story of the Hebrew people in the wilderness and the story of the Samaritan woman, we learn that the water of life which we crave in the wilderness is the water of deep and sustaining relationships with God and with fellow travelers. Whether a physical wilderness like the Hebrews were in, or a wilderness of our own making, or an unfair and cruel wilderness, or even the wilderness of Lent, we learn that God hears our cries and sees our thirst and responds, often in ways we do not expect.  We learn to let God work through us the way God worked through Moses and the Samaritan woman to meet the thirst of others.  In the wilderness, we learn to trust the Psalmist’s words: “For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.”         

                                                                    Amen.