There
is perhaps no more powerful human motivator than thirst—the physical need for
water, the very stuff of life. People can survive many days without food, but
far less without water. Thirst is powerful, basic, and primal—a newborn’s first
impulse is to drink. As Jesus hung on the cross, his last words before
declaring the end of his mission were “I am thirsty.” From birth to death, we crave
water. We thirst.
The
wilderness event commemorated in the Exodus reading and the psalm is
significant not so much for Moses’ giving water to the people—amazing as that
may be—but for the people’s grumbling and testing of the Lord. Even though they
had been delivered from slavery, and God had given them manna to eat, they were
still unhappy with Moses’ leadership, and perhaps for a very good reason.
Deserts are dry places: they were thirsty and fearful for their lives. It would
be natural to wonder what kind of God would lead them to a place without water.
So they asked: “Is the Lord among us or not?” He called the place “Massah and
Meribah”—“Test and Quarrel.”
Fast
forward many centuries, to another person enduring thirst—a Samaritan woman,
going to the well at mid-day. The time is important: women customarily went to
the well in early morning or late afternoon, making the fetching of the needed
water into a community gathering. A lone woman is probably there at mid-day to
avoid the regular gathering. Although she has the same need for the well’s
water, she is unwelcome in the village’s “polite society.” Unwanted in your own
home town! Can we imagine the emotional and spiritual thirst that would lead to?
As
she approaches the well, she sees a stranger, a man sitting alone. She prepares
to draws her water and leave, but then he does something remarkable: he speaks
to her! More than that, he asks her for some water!
Most
of us today would say “What’s the big deal?” It’s mid-day. Jesus has been traveling,
and he is certainly thirsty. Why shouldn’t he ask for water, when she has the
means to get it? To begin with, he’s a man and she’s a woman—and good male Jews
don’t acknowledge women in public. (Even today, some orthodox Jewish men will
not acknowledge their wives’ presence outside the home.) Talking to a strange
woman is a double offence. Besides that, there’s the religious divide: he’s a
Jew and she’s a Samaritan, two groups who had scorned each other for centuries.
In
the simple act of meeting a basic physical need, Jesus reaches across all of
these boundaries, offering the woman the fulfillment of her much deeper need.
Jesus
offers her “living water,” which can be heard on different levels. In ordinary
terms “living water” means clear flowing water, unlike the sometimes stagnant water
in a cistern or a well. The woman’s first response is to ask where he’s going
to get such water, when even Jacob had to rely on a well. She hears the offer
in earthly terms, when Jesus is talking in spiritual. It is the same thing that
happened in Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus, in the previous chapter, heard last
Sunday. Jesus calls us to look beyond the material world and our physical need,
to the heavenly realm and our spiritual needs.
Look
beyond—neither ignoring the physical nor denying its reality, but looking to
the deeper realities of eternal life, the life that Jesus came to ensure to all
who believe.
The
woman who had to draw her water at midday became a witness to Jesus as the
saviour of the world. By opening her eyes to the spiritual reality before her,
Jesus opened her life to new possibilities, and, so it would seem, gave her a
new role in her community.
In
recent weeks a number of people from St. Matthew’s have been volunteering at
the Helping Hands soup kitchen. For many of the people whom we serve, that meal
may be their only real nutrition that day. They are hungry and thirsty—in need
of the basic requirements of human life. But something special happens in places
like Helping Hands. People come together, whether in need, or seeking to help those
is need, and find that a deeper thirst is there—the need to know that people
care, the need to know that doors are open, the need to know that you are
needed. And at times that deeper thirst—so much deeper than a simple craving
for water—is met, by the grace of God.
Jesus
calls us to go into the harvest-ripe fields, to reap God’s harvest through
loving service, reaching out to those who thirst—for food and water, for companionship
and love, for peace and justice, for prayer and the knowledge of God’s presence.
Every
time we extend our hands to meet another’s needs, Jesus is there, fulfilling all
our thirsts.
Thanks
be to God.