Thirsty

Exodus 17:1–7 ESV

All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

John 4:5–42 ESV

So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 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. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 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.) 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.” 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? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 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.” 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.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 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.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the town and were coming to him. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

Our current situation of hunkering down and trying to avoid going out when at all possible is not unprecedented. Many a quarantine has been imposed or recommended in the history of the world. Polio, scarlet fever, and more. There are two big differences I see between our current situation and those in the past.

In the past, people weren’t as mobile as we are today, so epidemics usually stayed local epidemics. With cars and planes and busses, people get around more, which means viruses get around more. Epidemics get bigger and scarier and turn into pandemics faster now than ever before.

Technology. While viruses can spread so much faster these days, so can information. We know way more about things like this way faster than we ever did in the past. Love it or hate it, it’s days like today that our modern technology really shines.

I could watch the governor’s press conference about the changing situation live in my house. Live televised press conferences are only around 60 years old.

We can access the CDC and WHO websites for the most current information about the disease and where it’s been confirmed. We’ve only had the internet as we know it for about 40 years, and it’s only become common in homes in the past 30.

We were able to consult and communicate with dozens of members, Presbytery leaders, elders, and more yesterday in a fraction of the time doing that all as phone calls would have taken. The other worship leaders and I were able to coordinate changes to worship through texts, video calls, and facebook messenger. 20 years ago, that would have mostly been time-consuming phone calls. I didn’t even have to call the news stations to report our closing. Just logged into their websites to report them.

We got worship set up in a way that is safe and accessible for as many people as is possible. 10 years ago, this would have all been impossible. Even 5 years ago, it would have been really complicated. Today, we just pointed an iphone at me and hit a button and here you all are, joining us for church without being physically together.

It is dizzying! I’m only 40 and the changing world is like a crazy fast roller coaster.

We can feel a little lost in the shuffle sometimes.

In our passage from Exodus this morning, the Israelites have had more change than they can handle. They are so over change and they are not handling it gracefully. “Moooooseeeees! Why did you bring us to this terrible place?! We liked it back there where we knew what was coming next.” Moses, like an exasperated parent, yells to God, “What am I supposed to do with them!?”

I love that God’s answer is that the Israelites are basically just hangry. That’s where you’re so hungry you’re angry - hangry. God says, “Let’s give them a drink and it’ll all be just a little bit better.” This small thing gives them a little bit of hope.

S

Connections p63: “In our story, Moses is leading people so tired of change that they are sick of life. He relinquishes his anguish, his doubts, to God in trust. The people follow his lead. God responds with compassion. Water gushes from the rock with renewing life. The journey in the wilderness of change continues with new hope.”

Sometimes, all we need is a drink of water. Little things matter. As people around us panic and buy all the toilet paper in Target, look for the small moments of hope like the fact that we can still have worship together this morning in this futuristic way while also doing our part in helping to contain and slow the spread of the newest virus that’s trying to take us down. Maybe by the time the next pandemic rolls around, we’ll be able to worship together by hologram. I’m not gonna lie, having grown up on Star Trek, I really hope that’s true.

When have you realized the difference between “need” and “choice”?

PGTJ: “When you are in the wilderness, slavery in Egypt may seem preferable.” Moses is trying to lead people who were slaves, even though he never was one himself. “Transformative change takes time and patience.”

Let’s remember too that not only should we be looking for the small moments of hope when we’re feeling disoriented and tossed around, it’s ok to ask for small kindnesses when we need them. This is an important way into relationship and deeper community.

In , Jesus meets a woman at a well. The well has been the site of many a marriage match. Every romantic comedy in the Bible starts at this well. Jesus, a man, talking to this woman at the well is scandal enough. Add to that the fact that Samaritans and Jews at that time were not friends. This is a weird and uncomfortable situation. One of the podcasts I listen to joked this week that Jesus is violating the “Billy Graham rule” here.

The Israelites have had more change than they can handle. Connections p63: “In our story, Moses is leading people so tired of change that they are sick of life. He relinquishes his anguish, his doubts, to God in trust. The people follow his lead. God responds with compassion. Water gushes from the rock with renewing life. The journey in the wilderness of change continues with new hope.”

Caroline Lewis: is a “here’s what looks like”

If this weren’t all crazy enough, Jesus starts the conversation with a request: “Could you get me some water?” She is, of course, surprised that not only is this Jewish man talking to her, he’s asking for her help. This opens up the opportunity for conversation and relationship and as the conversation unfolds, we see that the woman has been married 5 times and is now living with a 6th man.

This woman isn’t, for the record, some sort of gold-digger. She’s not “getting around”. At that time, a woman would have had no say in a divorce. She was considered property that could be dumped easily if she wasn’t producing children or satisfying her husband. So, she’d been divorced and/or widowed FIVE TIMES. She was at the well in the middle of the day. Most people would come at the very beginning of the day. She is avoiding the judgmental or pitying stares of her neighbors by coming for water in the heat of the day. This woman was completely on the margins and shut off from the heart of her community’s life because of circumstances that were outside of her control.

Jesus is violating the “Billy Graham rule”

This is not about sexual promiscuity or sin - note there is no forgiveness, not condemnation - only compassion

I think many of us can sympathize with that feeling. Some of us are made to feel left out because of our gender or our race or our income or our age or our health. Some of us feel stuck in bad jobs or unhealthy families or other difficult circumstances.

This emphasized the horrifically marginalized position this woman finds herself in

Pretty much most of us feel confused and alarmed by “social distancing” protocols and entire countries shutting down to help prevent more spreading of a deadly disease.

Contrast to last week’s text on Nicodemus

We feel like the Israelites wandering around in uncharted territory with no real end in sight or like the Samaritan woman, discarded and pushed to the edges, doing what we have to do to get by without dealing with haters and snark.

But like the Israelites, we can look for those moments when God hears us and provides hope where there didn’t seem to be any. Like the Samaritan woman, we have something to offer. We are seen by God, regardless of how trapped we are in our circumstances, and we are offered a hope that never dies - a hope that can get us through the trials.

Man vs Woman

This week, it’s important for us to reach out to the edges to connect with those who are struggling. Look for hope in things like being able to go to church online and having telephones and email and video chat to connect with friends and loved ones. Ask for help and signs of hope when you need them - remembering that even Jesus asked someone for a drink of water. If you are an older adult or you have an underlying health complication and you need someone to make a grocery run or pick up a prescription for you so you limit your potential exposure to viruses, call up your pastor, elders, or another friend from church. If you’re feeling really anxious about everything, call up a church friend or your pastor for a chat. That’s what we are here for, as a community.

Night vs Day

In the weeks ahead as we muddle through this weird time, let it be known about us that we are givers and receivers of hope and community.

Private vs Public

Pharisee vs Samaritan

Samaria is NOT “on the way” to where Jesus is going. Hiss reason for being there is theological, not geographical. It’s “sorta” between the two, but in the way that you stop at a friend’s house on a road trip, even though it’s not the way you’d normally go to get to the final destination.

The well is a very personal place: A typical setting for an ancient “meet-cute”/betrothal scene

Jacob and Rachel

Moses and Zipporah

Isaac and Rebekah

The well is a place of intimacy. Karoline Lewis suggests John present God in numerous intimate settings: Father with children, friend, and as lover.

She, like Nicodemus, point out the impossibility in what Jesus is offering - you can’t crawl back into the womb to be born again and you can’t get water without a bucket