"Thirst"
February 24, 2008
Beverly Allen, Lay Speaker

 Do you remember the movie Forrest Gump?  Now if ever there was a perfect example of a lily of the field, it was Forrest!  He was born with a lower than average IQ, but a larger than average heart!  Like the lilies of the field, Forrest ‘takes no thought for the morrow’ but he somehow manages to achieve great things in his life.

             One day, for no apparent reason, Forrest Gump starts to run.  He runs to the west coast, then turns around and runs to the east coast.  When he hits the Atlantic, he turns around and heads back to the Pacific...and this goes on for three years!

             Not surprisingly, the media begins to take notice, and as speculation grows over why he’s running, some people start to follow him. He must know the answers to life’s big questions, they think, and being clueless themselves, they follow what they believe to be some new Guru.  Surely there must be a purpose to his running.  But Forrest is largely silent throughout the three years of his running, so these ‘true believers’ are able to keep their illusions and blindly follow him.

             As it turns out, of course, the joke’s on them.  One day, in the desert, Forrest suddenly stops, turns around to the people following him.  ‘Ah,’ they think, ‘finally, Forrest is going to reveal some great truth to us.’  But to their dismay, Forrest simply says:  ‘I’m tired.  I think I’ll go home now.’   And that’s just what he does.

             There’s a tremendous thirst for the spiritual in the world today.  Most of us feel it more strongly the older we get.  There must be something else – something bigger than us.  Maybe when we were young, we believed in the power of things to make us happy.  If only we got a bigger house or the latest electronic gizmo, we would have everything we needed to make us happy.

            One of the desert fathers, Abba Euprepios, said that ‘the person who loves worldly things loves stumbling blocks.’ How true that is!

             Sooner or later, if we are honest with ourselves, we wake up and realize that ‘worldly things’ just aren’t enough, especially when you’re ‘preparing for the finals,’ as Jim Jones likes to say.  Material things may make us happy for a brief while, but they don’t fill us up spiritually. 

             And then one dark night, we wake up in a cold sweat, like Nicodemus, with the sneaking suspicion that we’ve missed something essential, and we go searching for the answer in the dark.

             But - we’re not all like Nicodemus or the guru-seekers in Forrest Gump.  Some of us need something to jolt us out of our complacency, to make us question our comfortable lives, and to look at things in a new way.    

It might be an illness  - or a death - that wakes us up.  Or maybe it’s the birth of a grandchild that lets us see again through the eyes of a child.  In these moments of great emotion, of either joy or sadness, we can come close to what the Celtic mystics call ‘thin places,’ -- places where the ‘walls between the worlds grow thin’ and we are able to touch the divine.  These moments can be catalysts to help us connect with what’s really meaningful in our lives.

I suppose I’m one of the ones who needed a shock to the system to reawaken my need for God.  Being widowed at a young age made me reconsider all my priorities and needs. 

And at almost the same time, a long-lost relative came into my life and showed me that living a Christian life need not be rigid and sanctimonious, which was the tradition in which I was raised.  His silent testament of love and respect for others, combined with deep peace and faith, made me long to have what he had. 

Since you’re here, I’m assuming that you, too, are trying to find another way of ‘seeing’ or that you have already discovered what it took me so long to find.

Jesus was always trying to shake things up and to get people to ‘see’ in a new way.  And he didn’t always wait for the seekers to come looking for him either.  The woman at the well didn’t think that she had come looking for God or for her life to change that day.  But it happened.

Jews and Samaritans loathed one another.  And Jews would usually take the long way around Samaria to get where they were going. But not Jesus.

He deliberately went to Samaria.  He had business there, his Father’s business. 

This woman of Samaria was out getting water at high noon, an unusual time to be fetching water.  Most of the women would be getting their water in the cool of the day, and socializing at the well.  But this woman went out in the heat of the day, because she knew that she wouldn’t be welcome otherwise. 

So -- imagine her surprise when she approaches the well, and not only is there someone at the well, but it’s a MAN -- and a JEW.  Men did not talk to women in public in those days, and Jews and Samaritans had nothing to do with one another in the ordinary way.

But as Jesus did so many times throughout his ministry, he sought out those who would be considered outcasts in his own Jewish culture.

 If you’re like me, you’ve heard these stories told over and over practically from the cradle.  And we think we know what they mean.  But, the Bible, like all great literature, has many layers of meaning. 

Have you ever stopped to consider what Jesus receives from the Samaritan woman or have you only heard this as a story about Jesus giving?  But what if Jesus recognized in her a spiritual thirst as great as his own?

Consider this:  He asks the Samaritan woman for a drink.  We can’t tell from the scriptures whether he ever got that drink or not.  But not only the woman, but Jesus himself come away from the encounter refreshed.  She runs off, forgetting her water jug AND her original reason for coming to the well, and goes off to proclaim the good news to everyone she can find. 

Also, think about the story’s central image of the well.  Wells have long been considered symbolic of female creativity and fertility.

What if the well from which Jesus was asking for refreshment was not a physical well, but the mind and the soul of the woman he meets?

Jesus, for his part, tells his returning disciples that he has had ‘food to eat that they know not of’ – perhaps in doing his Father’s work, quenching another’s thirst, he has been refreshed too!

In this story, thirst is satisfied in unexpected ways.  Jesus seeks and obtains hospitality from a person his own culture considers an outcast.  He encounters a woman who shares his thirst.  And in their encounter, both are refreshed and strengthened. 

And another thing – whenever I’ve heard this story, there’s always been a strong focus on the supposed immorality of the Samaritan woman.  But if you read the scriptures carefully, Jesus doesn’t condemn her.  He tells her her life, yes, but that doesn’t stop him from making her his disciple.

According to the Rev. Andrea La Sonde Anastos, in our Signs of Lent series, at the end of this story, we hear the first acclamation of Jesus as the Messiah.  This comes from the Samaritan woman and her witness must have been very powerful to get all those people to leave the village and listen to Jesus for themselves.  

You might even say that the Samaritan woman is the first evangelist – but have you ever heard her referred to that way?  I sure haven’t!

In our own lives, we may encounter people, like the Samaritan woman, whose witness about Christ we might tend to ignore or dismiss.  Does someone have to be theologically trained or spiritually mature in order to have something valid to say about their experience of God?

 I thought a lot about this before I agreed to give the message today, because in many ways, I think of myself as a ‘baby Christian.’  But if I waited until I thought I was ‘spiritually mature’, I’d probably never say anything!

I believe that this story is not only about spiritual thirst and renewal, but also about acceptance.  We are all God’s children – from the homeless woman - to the successful businessman - to that adorable grandchild of yours - to the gay man with AIDS.  Jesus didn’t, and wouldn’t, keep anyone from His table.  We all have gifts to give, and hearts to receive, if we will only open ourselves to seeing one other in the loving way that Christ does.

During Lent, I invite you to try a new way of seeing.  Lent is a time for meditation, reexamining our lives and our faith, and preparing for the miracle of Easter.  Whether it’s ten minutes, or an hour a day, try being intentional about contemplative prayer.  Quieting our minds long enough to listen for that ‘still small voice’ can reap great blessings. 

One of my favorite poets, Rainer Maria Rilke, wrote about the gifts that come from looking inward, and letting the answers come to you, rather than trying to reason them out.  He said -

"I beg you to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.  Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without ever noticing it, live your way into the answer."

So I invite you to join me in trying to live these questions this Lent: 

What are we thirsty for?  
          What or who has ever satisfied that thirst in you? 

          May we seek God’s grace to help us live our way into the answers.

Amen.