Living Water
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Introduction
Introduction
This morning we are continuing our series from the gospel of John by looking at how God and only God can satisfy our souls.
5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
When I think of San Francisco and the Bay Area, I think of people who have everything that the world has to offer but for one reason or another, there isn’t a corresponding sense of fulfillment or even satisfaction. But at the same time, no one is willing to admit that this is a problem even though their unhappiness is readily apparent. A pastor from New York shared that New Yorkers are at least honest about being miserable and that makes it much easier to point them towards God hence the significantly larger numbers of Christians in NYC. My experience with people over the last 6+ years of doing church is that very few of us are willing to be open about our discontentment even though it is the white elephant in the room. It seems like we are always looking for the next job, the next place to live, the next church, or the next relationship but we won’t . When I first came up to San Francisco, I couldn’t help but wonder why people in the city seemed so unhappy especially on the Muni and then I lived here for a few years and I figured it out. There are things in life that money, success, and education cannot fix and that becomes a stark reality when you live in one of the most affluent, educated, and accomplished areas in the world. Even though we have everything that the world deems to be important, there is still that
On the surface this conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well seems a bit disjointed but when you dig in a little bit deeper, you begin to see the spiritual and relational genius of Jesus as he moves this conversation in the direction that He wants it to go. We can break down this dialogue into 3 distinct points that Jesus is trying to make.
Everyone has a spiritual thirst that cannot be satisfied by the world.
When I think of San Francisco and the Bay Area, I think of people who have everything that the world has to offer but for one reason or another, there isn’t a corresponding sense of fulfillment or even satisfaction. And yet at the same time, no one is willing to admit that this might be a problem A pastor from New York shared that New Yorkers are at least honest about being miserable and that makes it much easier to point them towards God hence the significantly larger numbers of Christians in NYC. My experience with people over the last 6+ years of doing church is that very few of us are willing to be open about our discontentment even though it is the white elephant in the room. It seems like we are always looking for the next job, the next place to live, the next church, the next vacation, or even the next relationship and we assume that there our happiness is external
Despite that fact, we all try to satisfy that thirst with things that cannot satisfy it.
Having failed that, we have to realize that only the true knowledge and worship of God can satisfy our souls.
When I think of San Francisco and the Bay Area, I think of people who have everything that the world has to offer but for one reason or another, there isn’t a corresponding sense of fulfillment or even satisfaction. And further compounding this issue is the fact that no one is willing to admit that this might be a problem. My experience living here for the last 6 plus years is that very few of us are willing to be open about our discontentment even though it is the white elephant in the room. I’m sure that some of us may even think that any admission of being unhappy or unfulfilled is a sign of weakness or failure. But most of us, if not all of us will at one time or another be unhappy in our marriages, in our careers, with our friendships, and even with our lives.
And like this woman at the well, we will put on a brave face, pretend that nothing is wrong by avoiding our problems, and then try our hardest to get through life the best that we can. This is certainly not the abundant life that Jesus promised to us but we don’t see anything else we can do but deal with hand that life has dealt us. Sadly, this is the life that many end up settling for. When Jesus sees this woman coming alone at the 6th hours which would be around noontime, he would have immediately recognized that something was wrong. Women didn’t travel to get water alone and they didn’t go to the well in the middle of the hottest time of the day. Unlike our culture, ancient middle eastern was highly social and so the women of the town would have gone with friends to get water together either in the cool of the early morning or later at dusk. Noon is when everyone has lunch and so it seems this women intentionally picked the time of the day when she knew that no one would be at the well.
This is the exact point where Jesus meets her and asks her for the unthinkable, a cup of water. From our cultural perspective, this may not seem to be anything out of the ordinary but for a Jewish man to drink from a cup or use the utensils of a Gentile, especially the hated Samaritans, this would have been unheard of. The Jews and Samaritans had no dealings with each other at that level because of their long history of strife. So the woman doesn’t respond with the customary middle eastern hospitality but asks Jesus, “How is it that you being a Jewish man ask me a Samaritan woman for a drink?” Jesus was breaking all sorts of social taboos by ignoring the boundaries of race, gender, and class.
(Let me take a quick tangent here. For those of us who are interested in reaching the poor and marginalized, the best and quickest way to breakthrough our differences is to ask them first to serve us. One commentator points out that “Jesus is not unaware that the way to gain a soul is often to ask a service of it.” Something to think about especially as we prepare to launch a co-op here in the Fillmore. Obviously Jesus didn’t pretend he was thirsty to strike up this conversation but at the same time any other Jewish rabbi would have waited until his disciples came back with water. But Jesus saw an opportunity to bring hope to someone’s life and he seized it.)
After breaking the ice in a awkward way, the conversation takes a pretty hilarious turn. Remember that Jesus looks like any other normal man and this is the first time that these two have ever met and he says, “If you recognized me and and what I have to offer, you would be asking me for even better water.” Imagine what must have been going through the woman’s head, “This guy is really full of himself. What arrogance to think he has better water than the one that flows out of this well that has been passed down from generation to generation since the patriarch Jacob.” Believe it or not it actually still runs today. For the Samaritans this would have been the closest thing to perfect water, better than Fiji, better than Evian, and Jesus has to gall to tell her “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, you and everyone else in the town, but whoever drinks the water I give will never thirst and better yet it will become a spring within your soul that will cause your very life to flourish.”
One of the clear signs of spiritual thirst is when we have the very thing we have always wanted and yet we find ourselves wanting more. One pastor observed that human beings are limited in every way but one: we have unlimited desire. No matter how much you stuff into your life, there always seems to be room for more. We are never completely satisfied. The author of Ecclesiastes puts it this way:
11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
There is nothing wrong with getting temporary satisfaction from our careers, relationships, and life experiences because God has made everything beautiful in its time but the problem is you and I and were not made to be bound by the constraints of time, we were made for eternity. Everyone, irrespective of belief, has a part of us that longs for eternal things that the world cannot satisfy and you would be lying to yourself if you said that you didn’t. You may not recognize it, you may have buried it under all your busyness and activity but it’s there.
My question to you is how many of you are running away from your problems and avoiding people and issues that keep you from truly living.
And we can we can either choose to satisfy that longing legitimately or we will do our best to fill it illegitimately. This bring us to the second point which is all of us try to fill this eternal desire with things that cannot satisfy it.
And we can we can either choose to satisfy that longing legitimately or we will do our best to fill it illegitimately. This bring us to the second point which is all of us try to fill this eternal desire with things that cannot satisfy it.
Going back to the passage, the woman clearly isn’t convinced of Jesus’ offer. And just like you and I, she remains skeptical. And though it’s hard to read tone into written text, you can sense the biting sarcasm in the woman’s response. “Fine, give me this water so that I won’t have to come to this damn well by myself any more.” She is still thinking in terms of the natural world and no one believes that there is some magical water out there that cures them of their physical thirst but she is at least willing to humor Jesus and this is where the conversation takes a dramatic turn.
Jesus tells the woman, “If you want this water, bring your husband.” Again remember, these two have never met. And so she tells a little white lie, “I don’t have a husband.” To which Jesus replies with grace and truth, “You’re absolutely right, the fact is you’ve had five husbands but the man you’re living with now is not your husband. Thank you for being honest.” Now Jesus has the woman’s attention and He should have ours as well because you and I are no different than this woman, we have just chosen other things to try and satisfy our eternal desires. Fundamental Christians will look at a person like this and see someone who is morally bankrupt, liberal Christians will see the same person and see a victim of social inequality and injustice. Both are partially right but Jesus looks through all of that and sees a soul that is thirsting for life in all of its fullness and joy.
When I first came up to San Francisco, I couldn’t help but wonder why people in the city seemed so unhappy and why that unhappiness is palpable especially when you ride the Muni. After living here for a few years, it became very evident that there are things in life that money, success, and education cannot fix and that fact becomes a stark reality when you live in one of the most affluent, educated, and accomplished areas in the world. We have so much of what the world values, but people still remain unfulfilled, unhappy, and unsatisfied. In a sense we have reached the bottom of the well, the purest water that the world can give us, and it still leaves us parched and thirsting for more.
It’s tempting for us to look at this Samaritan woman and believe that we have nothing in common with her but apart from her marriage record, she isn’t all that different from you and I.
One of the most tragic stories that I’ve come across in my time here in San Francisco was the death of Tristan O’Tierny, the late co-founder of Square. I wasn’t sure why this made me so sad but I think it was because his life reminded me of so many people in our church. He could have been anyone of you but the main difference is that he actually fulfilled his earthly dream and most of you are still in pursuit of that dream.
But ironically, the fact that you haven’t achieved everything is your saving grace because O’Tierny literally had everything that the Silicon Valley promises and his soul let him know that it was not enough.
Tim Keller astutely points out that one of the signs of spiritual thirst is when we have the very thing we have always wanted and we are still discontent.
Generally when people are not happy, they begin to play the blame game and it usually comes out in a predictable order.
People end up blaming themselves for their lack of happiness. If I was smarter, more ambitious, if I worked harder then I could have the life that I’ve always dreamed of. It is a subtle form of self-condemnation that often drives people to the edge.
It seems like we are always looking for the next job, the next place to live, the next church, the next vacation, or even the next relationship and we assume that our happiness is going to come with some external change in our life and we fail to address the internal changes that need to happen in order for us to enjoy life in all of it fullness.
Then the fortunate ones who experience some levels of success move from blaming themselves to blaming external circumstances. They remember the temporary sense of satisfaction when they got they job they wanted or the performance report that they worked so hard for. And they assume that if they achieve bigger and better things, that fleeting sense of fulfillment will last a little bit longer and go a little bit deeper. But at the same time, there is no contentment so we are always looking for the next job, the next place to live in, the next vacation, or even the next relationship and we assume that hit of satisfaction is going to come with some external change in our lives and we fail to address the internal changes that need to happen in order for us to actually enjoy the things we have accomplished.
When I think of San Francisco and the Bay Area, I think of people who have everything that the world has to offer but for one reason or another, there isn’t a corresponding sense of fulfillment or even satisfaction. And yet at the same time, no one is willing to admit that this might be a problem A pastor from New York shared that New Yorkers are at least honest about being miserable and that makes it much easier to point them towards God hence the significantly larger numbers of Christians in NYC. My experience with people over the last 6+ years of doing church is that very few of us are willing to be open about our discontentment even though it is the white elephant in the room. It seems like we are always looking for the next job, the next place to live, the next church, the next vacation, or even the next relationship and we assume that our happiness is going to come with the next big external change in our life and we fail to address the internal changes that need to happen in order for us to enjoy life in all of it fullness. With that intro, let’s look at our passage for today.When I first came up to San Francisco, I couldn’t help but wonder why people in the city seemed so unhappy especially on the Muni and then I lived here for a few years and I figured it out. There are things in life that money, success, and education cannot fix and that becomes a stark reality when you live in one of the most affluent, educated, and accomplished areas in the world. Even though we have everything that the world deems to be important, there is still that
From there, if you have achieved everything and experienced everything and you are still unfulfilled, you begin to blame the universe. You start to look at life as if it is one big unfair game of roulette and you get jaded and cynical. This is where many highly successful people begin to experiment with drugs along with dangerous and illicit sexual behavior. What little I know of the the underworld of tech culture is the articles I’ve read detailing rampant drug use and over the top sex parties. And we can stand in moral judgement over these excesses or we can choose to see these men and women for who they are, lost souls that are thirsting for the living waters of God.
Still others blame the universe. They look at life as if it is one big unfair game of roulette.
Within the parameters of her culture, this woman would have once been considered successful. For anyone to get married five times, she must have been incredibly beautiful. I don’t want to sound mean or offensive but no woman that I know who has been married 4+ times is ugly. (Elizabeth Taylor, Cheryl Teagues, Christy Brinkley) Like anybody else, she leverages her greatest asset in order to satisfy her deepest desires and in the end, she has made a complete mess of her life. By this point, she has given up on the institution of marriage, given up on sexual fidelity, and given up on friendship and community. She is at the stage of blaming the universe for all that is wrong in her life. Tragically, I think some of us in this room are already approaching level three of the blame game.
, I think some of us in this room
But there is a fourth level of blame that we all need to get to because it is actually healthy unlike the other three. Tim Keller describes it poignantly as blaming our separation from God. And by this I don’t mean blaming the church, or your small group, or your pastors, I mean finding fault in your personal distance from God. Have you ever the considered the thought that you are unhappy, unfulfilled, and unsatisfied because you don’t have the depth and intimacy relationship nor the prerequisite knowledge of God that can actually become streams of living water within you. I know that this a hard pill to swallow and I can guess what some of you are already thinking, “I’ve already tried this Christian thing and I’ve found it to be lacking.” But is that really the case?
GK Chesterton, the great Catholic thinker and the single greatest influence in the life of CS Lewis would disagree and tell you:
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”
And is it possible that Jesus would say the same thing to you that he said to the woman at the well, “You worship what you do not know.” Jesus wasn’t trying to be mean, he was simply pointing out what was true. The Samaritans only read and believed the first five books of the OT and rejected the rest. They didn’t worship in truth. But the Jews were no better because even though believed in the whole OT, they reduced it down to a set of rules and regulations and so they could not worship in spirit. But why is accuracy in our worship so important? Because true worship leads us to the One who is our soul’s satisfaction. And only the true spiritual worship born out of the true knowledge of God can satisfy the eternal longing within our soul.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
4 So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,
and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,
9 For he satisfies the longing soul,
and the hungry soul he fills with good things.
My question to you is how many of you are running away from your problems and avoiding people and issues that keep you from truly living.
Conclusion
I want to leave you with these famous words from CS Lewis.
"Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
It is hard to imagine that this women who lived on the margins of society and avoided people would have been a frequent attender of church but all this talk about God and worship begins to bring up all the memories of what she had once learned in Bible study. She knew enough to tell Jesus, I know that there is a Messiah, a Savior that is coming and he will tell us all things and he will lead us into true worship.
When you read Jesus’ reply in the original Greek, it brings chills down your spine. NT scholar, Leon Morris who has written the best commentary on the gospel of John translates verse 26 in this way:
“I who speak to you, I am” There is no he found in the Greek, so Jesus isn’t just saying I am the Christ because the idea of the Messiah had become so distorted in both the Jewish and Samaritan religion. But when “I am” is used alone without an object, it is a reference to the proper name of God. Jesus is telling this broken woman and telling us, I am the living God, the only one that can satisfy the eternal longing of your soul. Come to to me and I will bring you to the waters of eternal life.