Running Water

John 4:5-42

I am addicted to water. 

To fresh, clean, running water. 

And when the all-too-frequent notices go up in my condo building about water shut-off for repairs, I get anxious and cranky.  I imagine everything that can go wrong if the water stays off.

I can’t cook or clean up.

I can’t wash my hands.

I’ll get thirsty.

The bathroom isn’t much use without water.

Things get dirty.

Dehydration gives you headaches, you know.

Imagine if the water were off in your home and workplace every day.

If the woman in today’s gospel story lived in the twenty first century developing world, she might find herself at the well at noon – in the worst heat of the day – because that’s the only time and way she could get water.

The water might be miles from her home.  Perhaps there are dangerous wildlife or gun-toting rebels between home and water source. 

Some days she has to send the children to fetch the water, but they can’t carry all she needs, and they miss school because keeping the family alive is an all-consuming project.

Her husband has died, because this water carries typhoid and intestinal parasites, and her brother, who has the only income in the family, is so sick he can’t get reliable work

The small garden she tried to plant has died because she can’t carry back enough to water the plants.  Fresh food is scarce.

Lack of water is deadly: to the body; to the heart and mind and soul.

Of course, that’s probably not the story of this Samaritan woman.  More likely the well is a short walk from her village.  But still, to cook, or clean, or drink, or bathe, she has to come haul heavy buckets of water up from the well, carry it home, and do it over and over again, as often as she needs water.

So when she gets over her astonishment at a Jewish rabbi asking her (a woman from the “unclean” stepsister tribe of Samaria) for water, and hears him offer her flowing water, running water, no wonder she leaps at the chance:

“Give me this water so I never have be thirsty again!”

Water is life.

Running water, flowing water, is freedom and abundant life.

Of course, this gospel story about water isn’t about running water, even though that’s what the phrase “living water” meant in the first century.   It’s about water that leads us to Spirit and truth.  It’s about the way that Jesus’ gift of life isn’t just for our thirst, but becomes a fountain within us, bubbling up continuously to spill over into other hearts and lives and souls.

The woman at the well asks Jesus for flowing water because her shoulders and her heart and her mind and her spirit are tired from hauling and fetching water over and over and over again.  Because she wants her life back.

But Jesus gives her what he offered in the first place. Not the running water she imagines, but the flowing Spirit that gives new life.

We see it happen gradually, as she begins to see him for what he is: a man of God, who sees the hard truths of her own life.  We see that flowing Spirit spill through her, inviting her neighbors to faith even before she is sure that she has seen the Messiah.

You and I don’t have to ask Jesus for running water.

When we don’t have flowing water we generally call the plumber.

But this morning we remember that every drop of flowing water in our lives is a sacrament, an outward and visible sign of God’s call to abundant life. To life without fear and anxiety, life with overflowing generosity.

This week, when you are anxious or distressed, go to the sink and turn on the water.  Fill a glass, and drink deeply of God’s call to live with confidence and freedom.

When you are tired or not feeling well, wash your hands in warm, clean water, and receive God’s gift of health and love.

Wash dishes.  Crunch vegetables that grew well-watered. 

Turn on the shower, splash with a child in the bathtub, and marvel at the sacrament of abundance.

When you sit down in a restaurant, or visit a friend, and someone offers you a glass of water, give thanks for God’s call to share our joy.

And this week, if you are moved to write a check, or dig in your pocket for some cash to help us dig a clean water well where it’s most needed,

pause to feel God’s Spirit bubbling up within you.  Notice the “spring of water gushing up to eternal life”  that Christ has already given you.

Because that is what’s happening. 

God gives us gifts we may not even recognize until we share them.

Many of us bought cupcakes and brownies last Sunday with pocket change, a dollar or two that we might not have thought about having in our wallets.  And the Rite 13 students raised $250.  (That’s 5% of our well, but it’s a very respectable number for pocket change.)

We can give the gift of life even before we realize we have received it ourselves. God’s Spirit bubbles through us even if we aren’t paying attention.  All we have to do is let it happen.

That’s what the woman learned at Jacob’s well one hot afternoon.  That’s what you and I get to learn this Lent:

Water is life. 

It’s health and freedom and opportunity for body and heart and mind and soul.  And it’s for sharing, whether we know it or not.

It’s not our water, it’s God’s: the gift of life bubbling over from our questions and our hope, from our thirst for God, and God’s love for us. 

We know it’s God’s water when it flows through us to bring new life to strangers and neighbors alike.

So when you turn on the tap this week, notice God’s gift of living water: all around us, and within us. A fountain of living water, gushing up to eternal life.

Are you thirsty yet?