What Wondrous Love: Thirsty Exodus 17:1-7; John 4:5-30 March 19, 2017 By Dr. David B. Freeman, Pastor Weatherly Heights Baptist Church Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee. Those are the words of St. Augustine of Hippo, a brilliant teacher and bishop of the early church. The older I get the more I believe his words to be true. We are made for Another, with a capital A. Like a fish is made to swim and birds are made to sing, we are made to seek One beyond us. It s innate. We don t choose to seek; it is inevitable. The truth St. Augustine found is this: we will not be at rest until we find our rest in that Other. Evidence of this exists from the earliest humans: the rituals they practiced, how they grew crops, the way they buried their dead. Sometimes they buried the dead with weapons with which to protect themselves as they journeyed through the afterlife. Sometimes they worshiped animals. Sometimes magic and superstition were interwoven with religion. Was it primitive? Yes, it was very primitive. We could even say infantile. The human race and its search for the Other were in their infancy. But it is evidence of that innate drive to seek the One beyond us. Now we re grown up, and every country of the world has its religions. Each religion uses the tools indigenous to that culture their ideas, their images, their language to describe this search. All the world s religions are a result of this innate drive to know the Other, whom we call God. Today it has become fashionable to say that we have outgrown this spiritual restlessness, that we have developed beyond a need for gods and religions. We all know someone who claims to be an atheist, who says that she believes in no gods whatsoever. Sometimes the church has been unfair to people who claim to be atheists. We have stereotyped them as evil, immoral people, cutting the heads off chickens
and doing other weird things. Atheists are no more evil or immoral than any other people. To be completely fair, many have seriously weighed the evidence, and they just don t believe in a god or a religion. I want to share a conviction with you, a conviction that is born out of my own personal experience and a lifetime of study: it is easier to disbelieve ideas about God than it is to disbelieve in God. To say that you do not believe in a god is not the same as saying you do not have this innate drive for Another, with a capital A. To say that you do not believe in my conception of God is not the same as saying you do not have an inner longing for the Beyond. There is plenty in the world s religions that can be dismissed, including Christianity. There is plenty that is still primitive and wrapped with superstition. Discard that, I say. But there is something else, something more, something inescapable, something that is true for which we long and to which we reach. That, I believe, is God. Choose the language that is right for you, but the Bible describes it this way: we are all thirsty to know God. The image of thirst in our text from John is powerful. The dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob s well unfolds on two levels, as does much of the Gospel of John. The woman was thirsty and wanted water, H20, the liquid that can be drawn from a well. However, Jesus responded to her at another level, the level of her deeper thirst, the spiritual longing that existed in that woman and, I believe, exists in every person. Something interesting happens at the beginning of this story. John says that Jesus had to go through Samaria. Why did John put it that way? Why didn t he just say that Jesus went through Samaria? Of course, geographically the route through Samaria was the most direct. But it s more than that. Jesus had to go through Samaria on a theological level. His understanding of God and how we are made would not allow him to escape going through Samaria. Theologically Jesus had to go there. Here s why. The person Jesus met at the well is presented to us as a non-person, a cipher, a person of no value. She was a woman. Strike one. We love and value the women and girls in our lives today. They did not hold such an elevated place in biblical days. When I was in Israel 2
a few years ago, an orthodox Jewish man passed our group. He held his hand up to the side of his eyes to prevent him from looking at our group. I asked my friend, Rabbi Ballon, why he did that. The rabbi said, Because we have women in our group. He didn t want to see the women. This woman at the well was also a Samaritan. Strike two. As a Samaritan, she was an outcast, even the enemy. Animosity between the Jews and Samaritans had existed for centuries and ran deeply. It was considered inappropriate for a Jewish teacher like Jesus to engage a woman of Samaria in conversation. She was dirty, ritually unclean. Jesus violated a strict religious taboo. And notice that this woman of Samaria is never named. Strike three. Nicodemus was named. Philip and Nathanael were named. Even Zacchaeus, the hated tax collector, was given a name. But not this woman. She was the cipher at the well, the theological non-person. The established religion put a hand up beside its eyes so it didn t have to see people like her. But not Jesus. John says that Jesus had to go there, to see her, because he knew that she, like everybody else, was thirsty. Give me a drink, Jesus requested of this unnamed Samaritan woman. She was incredulous: How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria? Note those last four words: a woman of Samaria. She knew her place. I wish I had time to unpackage this whole story. It gushes with symbolic and theological meaning. At the end of the day, Jesus did not take water from this unnamed woman of Samaria. He gave her water, what he called living water, water gushing up to eternal life, Jesus said. She accepted living water from Jesus that day, and a deep longing of her life was met. She left her water jug beside Jacob s well and ran back to the city and her people, the outcasts, the other theological nonpersons. 3
John says that the people left the city and went to Jesus at Jacob s well. This story has the most wonderful ending: Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman s testimony. So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. Two days. Among the outcasts. The unclean. Because he knew that they too were made for God. And many believed. C. S. Lewis created an insightful scene in one of the volumes of The Chronicles of Narnia. The little girl Lucy was growing up. She was speaking with Aslan, the lion, Lewis symbol for God. Lucy says to the lion, Aslan, you re bigger. That s because you are older, little one, Aslan responds. She asks, Not because you are (bigger)? Aslan replies, I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger. (Prince Caspian) That s the way it happens. With human civilization and with us as individuals. Something is awakened within us when we are children about 10, 12, or 15 years old. We begin to seek One beyond us. We become thirsty for Something. Some call it Beauty. Some call it Truth. We were taught to call it God. But as children, the Other was small. Because our thinking was small. As we grew, the Other got bigger. Not because the Other was actually getting bigger. But because we were. Our ability to conceive of God was getting bigger. That exists in everyone, and that is why there are no ciphers at the well, no outcasts, no theological non-persons. Theologically Jesus had to go to Samaria to meet a thirsty unnamed Samaritan woman and her people. She was made for God, and Jesus knew it. Her heart was restless, and it found its resting place that day. The world is filled with her. Restless. Searching. And Jesus wanted her to know that the One 4
for whom she was searching was searching for her. God s search culminated upon a cross. That is the truth of our faith, that the One whom we seek is in turn seeking us. And we see it no place more powerfully than on the cross. Oh, what wondrous love! Closing Prayer We bring our restless, searching hearts to you, Lord. Meet our thirst with living water. Amen. 5