March 27 Lent 3 "About Thirsting" Exodus 17:1-7 John 4:5-42
[CLICK HERE to listen to sermon as delivered.]
A poem from Antonio Machado:
Last night as I was sleeping I dreamt—blessed illusion!—
that a fountain flowed within my heart.
I said: By what hidden aqueduct, Oh water, do you come to me,
Spring of new life Where I never drank?
Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt—blessed illusion!—
that I had a beehive within my heart.
And the golden bees were building there
from my old anguish white combs and sweet honey.
Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt—blessed illusion!—
that a fiery sun shone within my heart.
It was fiery because it gave warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light and brought tears to my eyes.
Last night as I slept, I dreamt—blessed illusion!—
that it was God I had here inside my heart.
Don’t we all hunger for some sense of God’s gracious presence to transform past failures? Don’t we all thirst for some sign of blessing, to help us cope with the challenges of the present? Don’t we all yearn for courage to get on with building a shining future?
In the years during and after World War II, small communities of unsophisticated Melanesian islanders observed vast amounts of material wealth arriving from heaven, the land where their ancestors had gone. First, Japanese and later Allied forces arrived in airplanes or airdropped manufactured clothing, medicine, canned food, tents, weapons and other goods for the soldiers, who shared some of it with the islanders. After the war, charismatic individuals started cults that promised to bestow the same stream of goods on their followers. Islanders copied the day-to-day activities and dress of soldiers, performing parade ground drills with wooden or salvaged rifles. They carved headphones from wood and sat in fabricated control towers. They stood on runways and waved landing signals to lure the cargo birds. They lit signal fires to light up runways. They built life-size replicas of airplanes out of straw and cut new landing strips in the jungle, hoping to attract more airplanes. These “cargo cult” members thought that the foreigners had a special connection to the deities and ancestors, who were the only beings powerful enough to produce such riches.
Cargo cults illustrate the danger of putting too much faith in the “Field of Dreams” maxim (you know how it goes): “If you build it, they will come.” Of course no one here at PCMK is so unsophisticated as to believe these things, but other Presbyterians have seemed to imitate cargo cult behaviors, imagining that if we just imitate the practices of the successful church of the 1950’s, with greater faith and diligence, we could reverse the decades of our denomination’s decline.
It’s understandable. Even here at Mount Kisco, we yearn for a return to a packed sanctuary, overflowing parking lot, and flush finances. I’ve heard phrases in our “Holy Conversations” visioning like these: balanced budget, restore Associate Pastor position, pews filled, no more upheavals.
There's a fountain of riches in the stories in next Sunday's scripture! Far more than we'll be able to explore today. I want to focus on the story of Jesus and the Woman at the Well, known to the Orthodox as St. Photini (or in Russia, Svetlana).
Many things stood in the way of Jesus' good news for the Samaritan woman and her community. First, his own followers and his own religion would have told him not to speak to her, a woman. It was the same groups who tried to stop him from welcoming children, or tax collectors, prostitutes, alcoholics, and others branded as "sinners." Second, the difficulties of cross-cultural communication made it almost impossible. Jews and Samaritans had no dealings with each other. And in her attempt to escape reality, the woman tried to talk theology rather than to meet Jesus. But finally, Jesus broke through and talked to the woman about her life as she lived it, and the love of God spoke to her heart.
We miss the love and power of Jesus if we ignore the water, the word and the witness in this story. Water is the answer to thirst--addressing real human yearnings. What would you like to drink? This is the first thing you hear in any restaurant, anywhere in the world… Word is speaking to where people are, not where we might like them to be. More than bread alone… Witness is telling the truth. That God is neither here or there (not Jerusalem and not Mt. Gerizim), not in books of theology or buildings. God is in your heart, and in your blood and in your breath, and worshipped in the daily life of who you are and where you find yourself.
Even the church's distortion of the woman's situation, imagining that she was a prostitute, blaming her for the ending of her previous marriages, and leering about the line "the one you have now is not your husband" stand in the way of our hearing the witness of Jesus in the story…
Some years ago, inspired by Mary E. Hunt, I wrote a poem:
In Praise of Photini, The First Evangelist
She was tired of all the rival religions.
Of their arguing about the right way and the right place to worship God.
Of their rules about who can talk to whom, and who belongs and who is out.
She heard the word that Jesus spoke.
A word of love and acceptance for all God's creatures.
She went home to her village and told her neighbors about this stranger.
She didn't try to sell them, she simply shared her wonderment.
Perhaps he was the one to bring all people together.
Why don't you go and see for yourselves, she said.
She felt a thirsting in her soul, and she found the answer to her yearning.
She saw a need in the hearts of her friends, and chose to fill it. Praises be!
The ravages of injustice were simply too much to bear any longer.
The options for children were too few.
She dreamed a world, and vowed to create it. Praises be!
It didn’t take a genius to imagine how things could be different.
It took one person willing to speak forth on behalf of the vision,
And a community, however small, to begin the journey. Praises be!
For this woman of Samaria, praises be!
For the women and men who heard her message and followed, praises be!
For the One who gave her the word, praises be!
St. Francis is supposed to have said, "Preach the Gospel always, if necessary use words." (Probably not.) Actually, in 1221, Francis wrote: "Let no friar preach … unless it has been conceded to him by his minister. And let the minister beware of himself, lest he indiscreetly concede (this) to anyone. However let all the friars preach by works."
As followers of Jesus, we are compelled to speak, but we must also remember that actions always speak louder than words. Today, as we yearn for a church that equals or surpasses the churches we remember from our past, we’re going to have to learn to talk about it. And ACT LIKE IT! Draw water to meet the thirst of all spiritual seekers. Speak the Word that addresses people where they really live. Live your witness in a way that all the world may see the good that you do. As we find the answer to the hunger and thirst of our souls, and share these gifts of God, we shall have “living water.”
I think of the words of a hymn by Richard Blanchard:
Like the woman at the well I was seeking
For things that could not satisfy;
And then I heard my Savior speaking:
"Draw from My well that never shall run dry."
Fill my cup Lord, I lift it up Lord,
Come and quench this thirsting of my soul,
Bread of heaven, feed me 'til I want no more,
Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole! Amen.
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