For What Do You Thirst?

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For what do you thirst?

Lent 3A 2017

Dieticians are now saying a large percentage of us are constantly thirsty, but we don't seem to get what this means. Either we sense that our mouth is dry so we grab a diet soda, which actually dehydrates us more.

Or we don't realize that it's thirst at all and we just feel the need to put something in our stomachs so we grab chips, or cookies, or containers of carbs that we don't need.

They say hunger and thirst trigger the same signals to your brain. And so it is easy to get confused between the two.

It’s important to know what we thirst for.

People who followed Moses in the desert were thirsty for water - they had just spent another long day of walking in the wilderness on their way and weary of being endlessly on the way and were ready to call it a day, but there was no water at the place they were going to rest.

They said to Moses “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”

Exasperated Moses went to God: 2 of 6

“What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”

“ Go on ahead of the people, God said, take some of the elders with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.”

The people quarreled so much wondering if God was really present with them or not that a special name was given to the place they had stopped.

We all thirst, sometimes for H2O and sometimes it is a deep thirst for God’s pres- ence - and at times we feel parched dried up, cranky, and empty - is God with us or are we going to die of thirst in the wilderness?

For them it was literal, H2O, water to drink. Like the people of South Sudan whose stories of not having water is heartbreaking to hear.

Sometimes we don’t know where to re fill that emptiness -a soda and a bag of cookies won’t really do the trick, neither will a bottle of vodka or a 6 pack of Coors.

Jesus encountered the unnamed Samaritan woman at the well when he was thirsty for water, and he knew she was thirsty for something else -

Jesus made no attempt to shame or judge her even though five times she has been either widowed or abandoned. We don’t know why even though many interpreters have smugly delighted to assume so, that she was a tramp - she could have been in- fertile? 3 of 6

He was not a Samaritan, like she is.

His temple resides in Jerusalem; her sacred site is on Mount Gerizim.

Their people read different scriptures. Their rival religious traditions make compet- ing claims about who belongs to God and how God can be known. There were di- visions between her and Jesus.

And she questioned him.” Our ancestors, she said, “worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem?”

I love that she questioned him and I want to do a sidebar here and say that it is so important to be free enough in our relationship with Christ that we question him.

There have been times I have gone out into the middle of a forest where I am really alone, just so I could yell out - “What are you doing!?” Enough already!

Amen to that?

Once she raises the tangled and divisive issue about the parameters of true and false forms of worship, Jesus says:

Authentic worship happens not in a specific, designated place, on this mountain or this city, but God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. She then said that she knew the Messiah is coming to which Jesus replies, simply and shockingly, “I am he.”

He had already told her that the water that he gave, will become a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.Not the water he sought - he sought regular H2O - but water she sought, water for her soul.

Stories of water are woven throughout the Bible, and often plays a prominent role in stories. 4 of 6

• Creation, which began with a wind from God sweeping over the face of the waters, and then God creating life out of those waters

• Moses parting the Red Sea and later striking the rock at Horeb

• Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan

• The woman at the well from whom Jesus requests a drink

• The disciples and Jesus on the boat when the storm comes up

One of my favorite passage comes from Ezekial when he prophesies to a people who had grown weary:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. ...

What you see in the basket and boat are hearts of stone - and they are stones that God has put on my path to remind me of the water given to me by Christ.

I have shared before that I grew up in an alcoholic household; it was worse when I was a young girl. My parents got their lives more together when they were older. And as a result of that things happened in my childhood that I struggled with and caused me to harden my heart.

It’s not important to know the specifics of my story, because we all have these stories of struggle- so think about what yours was or is.

I was telling a priest I knew who worked with alcoholic families about some of the things that happened to me. I told the story in a very matter of fact way. He said he had just read a book called After the Tears and asked if I had ever cried about what happened. 5 of 6

I said No - I don’t have to cry, I can deal with it.

He recommended that I try to get to know the young girl, who was me, a little bit better.

And as I did that and spent time listening to that young girl tell me as an adult I wept for the pain she (I) went through.

I needed to be able to feel that -not just understand it in my head and survive - in order to bring it into Christ’s light and love to be healed in a deeper way.

I went for a walk and tripped on a stone heart and the passage from Ezekiel came to mind:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. ...

Sometimes waters of healing come in the form of tears that are shed. I cried a lot for a while and since that time I have noticed many stone hearts that remind me to keep my heart soft and open and not be afraid of painful emotions. That Christ is there too.

What to you thirst for?

End with a paraphrased part of a poem that Maya Angelou wrote called 6 of 6

On the Pulse of Morning

‘Come to me, Here beside the River. Plant yourself here

Each of you, descendant of some passed- On traveler, has been paid for.

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am yours -- your passages have been paid. Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need

Lift up your eyes Upon this day breaking for you.

Give birth again To the dream.

Lift up your hearts Each new hour holds new chances For a new beginning.

Do not be wedded forever To fear, yoked eternally To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward, Offering you space To place new steps of change

Here, on the pulse of this fine day You may have the courage To look up and out and upon me,

Here on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out’

Let all who thirst - come to the water