Year A

John 4:5-42

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Living Water that Quenches Thirst

I’m sure I’m not the only one here this morning that has experienced a time when you’ve been so thirsty and not able to quench your thirst as quickly as desired. Your mouth gets so dry which can cause some people to become frightened or frustrated. It can be a miserable experience, especially when we are so used to being able to quench our thirst quickly and simply by walking a few feet to a faucet. I remember after hurricane Charlie and the more recent hurricane Ian seeing hundreds of people in my home town line up to receive bottled water from the National Guard. The water fortunately was not affected at my mother’s home, just the home itself. But, for so many they went days without it flowing from their faucets.  Water is a blessing. We know we can’t live without it and yet, we take it for granted in this country.

We assume there’s an endless supply which we know is not true. Water availability and its scarcity have been brought home recently by historic levels of drought in the west and in the central parts of this county. The Mississippi River has been at historic low levels of water. And yet, it seems that even when we have an abundance of water, there are many reasons why we find ourselves dry and thirsty both literally and spiritually. Our thirst is what leads us to seek water and we see this seeking all over the scriptures which well documents the importance of water. Not only is it used for drinking, cleaning, and growing crops, it is used as a metaphor for life, new life and as a central symbol of God’s grace in baptism.

In today’s text’s, we see different kinds of thirst’s with each being satisfied in different ways. In the text from Exodus, the Israelites cry out to Moses for water, putting God’s grace and patience to the test. In the Roman’s passage Paul points to our “thirst” for being made right with God or reconciliation with God and its results. In the beautiful story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, we encounter a deeper, spiritual thirst that is satisfied. The blessing of thirst as we see from our texts today is that it can lead us to seek that which quenches it. The Israelites during their wilderness journey had already complained of being hungry and God sent manna, “bread from heaven,” that came with the morning dew, and quails in the evening.

The new complaint is that of thirst. Potable water was and still is in the Holy Land’s arid climate a precious and scarce commodity—powerful enough to cause civic unrest in its absence as in the Exodus story. This quarrel between Moses and the Israelites deteriorated to the point that Moses felt that his life was threatened. He cried out to God, and God told him what to do. Moses did as God commanded to strike the rock and the water gushed out. Their physical thirst was quenched but there was still a problem. Their thirst led them to accuse God of deserting them because they were afraid that Moses would not be able to lead them to water.

It is apparent that they had quickly forgotten what God had already done for them. They allowed their fears to undermine their faith and trust in God. The irony of this story is that even though their physical thirst was quenched, lack of trust harmed their spiritual thirst, their relationship with God. They would continue to wander in the wilderness for forty years and would not be the ones to enter into the Promised Land. While the Israelites’ thirst led them to accuse Moses and God of abandonment, our thirst does not have to lead us away from God. Throughout history, faithful women and men have turned to God in times of thirst and have chosen faith over fear, trust over panic. Their thirst led them to God and God quenched their thirst.  

In my opinion, there is no better example of God quenching thirst than in the gospel story today. It points to the central way water plays in our longing for life’s fullness. In the ancient Near East, wells were a source of life. Villages and communities grew up around wells because they were the only reliable source of water for both the people and the livestock. Today at Jacob’s well, Jesus, tired and thirsty from his journey encounters a woman who is longing to quench her thirst for healing and wholeness. Crossing major social and religious boundaries, he asks her for a drink and promises her that everyone who drinks of the living water he offers will never be thirsty again.

Jesus offers this woman the promise of new life; no matter what has happened before, a new beginning. She believes the truth Jesus offers her and this woman becomes the first evangelist in John’s gospel. This powerful story offers us an opportunity this Lent to recognize our thirst for living water and drink deeply of it. We have come to the rock, and Jesus gives us the water of rebirth he has come to bring as he reveals that he is the one our hearts have been longing for. His invitation to each of us to drink living water is an invitation to abundant life, to eternal life. As Christian people we are called to be people of water, people longing for justice to flow down, people called through the water of baptism to a new life of reliance on the God who saves.

Baptism is water from the rock of Christ, which is ours not because we knew where to find it, not because we knew how to ask for it, but because God is God. It is water that has cleansed all the saints, gave them hope and a future. It is water that has made us right with God Paul tells us, and brought us “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  The late Henry Nouwen, In his book ‘Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life,’ writes of the spiritual movement from viewing others as ‘strangers’ to considering them as ‘friends.’ Which Christ did for woman at the well but while Nouwen was speaking of human relationships, Paul would have applied this idea to our relationship with God.

In his view, we are strangers to God because of our weakness and sin. Through sin, we have estranged and alienated ourselves from God. The amazing thing is that God is still willing to offer us a path to quench our thirst, to be made right with God. God offers us the Living Water of his Son Jesus Christ and through our faith in him we drink of this water and the “love of God…is poured into our hearts. God’s love transforms all who drink deeply and they are saved. The grace of God abounds and our sins are forgiven. Whatever our past and present situation, whatever choices we’ve had to make in our lives, we too can be forgiven, transformed and healed.

We can live a new life. For by God’s grace and power, we are being transformed.  I pray that as we get closer to the cross in our Lenten walk, each of us will be so filled with the peace of God which in no way can we understand that we can’t help but be drawn to drink deeply of the living water God offers to each one of us. Thirst is a blessing when it leads us to the source of living water: a water that quenches the thirst of our souls. May we recognize the nature of our thirst for abundant life and drink from the One who quenches it.