Year A

John 4:5-42

The Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Blessing of Thirst

Have you ever been so thirsty and you are not able to quench it quickly enough? We are so used to being able to quench our thirst by simply walking a few feet to a faucet or a drinking fountain or by carrying around something to drink that we take water for granted. Not so for many people all over our world. In the Dominican Republic for example where I spent many weeks years ago working on several projects, you could not drink the water that came out of the tap. It would make you sick. Even the Dominican people do not drink the tap water. They are dependent on bottled water and in many of the poorest communities the people cannot afford even bottled water. Children and adults are forced to drink the water coming out of the faucet or out of the dirty streams and become sick. In recent years, the government and other relief organizations have stepped up to help get clean water to these very poor communities.

While I was there working, large water tanks on trucks would travel the streets so the people could fill up their containers with the water they would need for the day. This need for clean water continues to be a need all over our world. For those of us who take clean water for granted when thirst strikes and we are unable to quickly quench it, we can become frustrated and maybe even frightened. We know we cannot live for very long without water and the importance of water as a blessing and our thirst for it is well documented all over the bible. The scriptures and our experience lead us to ask, what is blessed about being thirsty? Our thirst is blessed because it is what leads us to seek water and it is God’s plan that we live with water!

We hear of this plan in our readings today where different kinds of thirst emerge. In the Old Testament passage, the Hebrew people cry out to Moses for water, putting God’s grace and patience to the test. In the Romans passage, Paul points to our “thirst” for reconciliation with God and its results. In the Gospel passage, we encounter a deeper, spiritual thirst in Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman. The blessing of thirst in this encounter is that it leads to seeking that which quenches it. “Sir, give me this living water, so that I will never be thirsty.” In the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, we hear the reason for thirst and how only the Messiah can quench it and lead us to the birth of God in our souls.

Last week, we heard the story of Nicodemus and his encounter with Jesus that led to the birth of God in his soul. These two characters, Nicodemus and the Samaritan Woman, are unique to the Gospel of John. The contrast between them is rather striking and with their stories side by side in John’s gospel we are lead to believe that we are meant to notice this contrast in all of its detail. The Samaritan woman is an uneducated woman, while Nicodemus is an educated man whom Jesus describes as a teacher of Israel. She is a Samaritan, an enemy of the Jews; he is a Jew. She has a shameful past; he is a respected moral leader in his community. She meets Jesus at noontime; he comes at midnight. This woman, who much has been made of her sinfulness, her shady past, and her dubious morals, at the conclusion of her story, does something very important that Nicodemus may or may not have done: she bears witness to Jesus and as a result, a whole village comes to faith! This story shows us the dramatic transformation of the woman whose thirst is quenched in the birth of God in her soul.

As the story begins, Jesus has just walked a 100 mile journey through enemy territory, Samaria; a very long and tiring journey for anyone. We would imagine it should be easy for a thirsty man to get a drink at the well, but it seems Jesus cannot do this by himself. He asks the woman to give him a drink and she is surprised that a Jewish man would talk to her. And talk he continues to do which triggers in her a deeper kind of thirst-the thirst for spiritual truth. Her questions and comments show that she was seeking deep answers. What is this spiritual living water she asks? As the conversation unfolds, a dynamic develops similar to that with Nicodemus, as Jesus gently leads her to recognize the face of Christ in a stranger. He encourages the woman’s growth in faith as he leads her from a literal understanding of thirst to the spiritual understanding of living water which refreshes from within and leads to eternal life.

In this encounter, we learn the most about who Jesus is. We see the tenderness of our Lord but we also see that Jesus can be tough too. He uncovers her life story but instead of feeling shamed or condemned by this conversation and encounter with Jesus, she recognizes that she has been talking to the Messiah. She then leaves her bucket and runs to tell others the good news: “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done” and loved me anyway! She does not actually say those last four words but they are spoken by her actions and in the joy with which she runs. Her beginning faith becomes a model for all who have come after. She sees God; she drinks of the living water that Jesus offers her which quenches the thirst in her soul and she runs with joy to tell others.

Her example should spur us to move out beyond the cozy confines of our church building to places and people where the good news can be shared. Out there, not only will we find those who are eager to hear the good news of a living water that quenches the thirst. We will also find Jesus.  This story is an invitation to reconsider our own vocations and the practice of looking around and seeing as Jesus sees. The human community is ripe with longing for love that honors the human dignity of each person and offers generosity, grace and freedom from those things that separate us. Many are ready to know the word of God in Jesus as his followers speak it and act it out. In John’s gospel, Jesus sums up God’s will with the simplest of all commands: love one another which Jesus demonstrated in this encounter with the Samaritan woman and her entire village. He demonstrated that God so loved the world—the whole world.

This very powerful story of an outsider who becomes an apostle sent by Jesus himself to testify on his behalf, offers us opportunities to recognize our thirst for living water and to drink deeply of it. As Augustine said, “our hearts are restless until they rest in thee”; and in the terms of this story, we are thirsty until we drink of the living water. The invitation Jesus offers the Samaritan woman is the same invitation he offered to Nicodemus and now to each one of us in all our differences. It is an invitation to see and receive me, Jesus says, let me quench your thirst and then go tell others how living water can change and transform lives. Thirst is a blessing when it leads us to the source of living water. I pray we will recognize the nature of our thirst and the need to know more, to grow deeper in love with the only one who can satisfy and quench it. So let us see God, receive Christ and go with joy to tell others the good news that satisfies the soul.