February 27, 2005

Third Sunday of Pentecost

John 4:5-15

“Well, Well, Well” 

     I love that story about Moses and the Hebrew people in the wilderness and how God provided for them by offering water from a rock.  I used to ask children in Sunday School to design the weekly bulletin covers and I clearly remember Ben Macko’s rendition of this story.  He drew in third-grader crayon style a picture of Moses holding that stick in his hand, striking the rock.  And the water was pouring out – it was up to Moses’ neck! 

     Sometimes children can see God’s boundless grace so much clearer than adults can.  Uninhibited by facts and figures, practical stuff and things that make sense, they see with the imagination’s eye.  And sometimes, like that day when Ben sketched out Moses wishing he could put his thumb back in the dike, they show the grownups a thing or two.

     The grace of God is more than we can imagine.  We think it’s a trickle some times, parceled out here and there if we behave right or pray right maybe.  Or maybe we don’t see the water at all, our spirits dried up, our attitudes hardened by a cruel, hard world.

     But Ben, innocent, naïve, visionary Ben didn’t think of such things or at least didn’t let on that he did and saw God’s grace flooding the land, watering everything.  And maybe Ben was right.  He should know what a flood of grace looks like, after all, he lived in it every day of his life.  He saw it poured out for his severely disabled brother, poured out from a father who knows no end to the compassion he can give.  Ben saw this, experienced this on a daily basis.  So he knew what happened when you struck the rock where God’s grace was held – everybody went swimming.

     Jesus met a Samaritan woman at a well one day, not just any well, but Jacob’s well, a sacred place for Samaritans.  He met her there even though he wasn’t allowed.  It was against the law for a Jewish man to speak to a Samaritan woman, an even greater sin that this exchange was happening in a public place.  Jews and Samaritans didn’t get along very well in those days and a number of laws were designed to keep them apart. 

     Jesus wasn’t very good at keeping such laws.  He was forever stepping over the boundaries, touching lepers, welcoming children, speaking with foreign women.  He didn’t seem to make any distinctions between people.  Boundless grace is like that.

     The Samaritan woman thought maybe she knew the rules better than Jesus, so she reminded him of them.  But Jesus went right across those boundaries and peered into her soul and went some place so personal, so intimate, even she rarely went there.  He went to the heart of her integrity.  He went to the dry place, the drought of the soul, the inner hurt, the thirsting spirit.  “I will give you life-giving water”, he said.  And she said, “Lord, let me drink ‘til I thirst no more.”

     Jesus was able to cross the woman’s boundaries because when he drew near she let those boundaries down.  Life-giving water is there for those who dare to do the same.

     Too often we think faith is about our getting something right, attaining something, figuring God out.  We think that if we pray real hard or study enough we might get it.  But the Samaritan woman didn’t do any of this.  She didn’t even know who Jesus was until he showed up at the well that day, yet she is remembered as a person of great faith.  She didn’t have anything figured out, but she knew she was thirsty and somehow this man had what she thirsted for most of all. 

     Perhaps faith isn’t knowing it all, having it all figured out, but realizing that you don’t.  It has been said the first sign of wisdom is confessing you don’t have any.  Maybe that’s when the first boundaries begin to come down.

     Jesus said he would give people the kind of water that would well up within them like a gushing spring, a metaphor for Christ’s sustaining Spirit offered freely and completely to all who would come to dip into the eternal wellspring of his boundless love. 

      When Jesus said we wouldn’t thirst any more, he meant we would never go without his saving grace.  People do need to return to the well of his sustaining Spirit again and again, to drink again and again.  So he promises a gushing spring that will not go dry, that will not leave us thirsty. 

     At the 7-11 they sell a drink called the Big Gulp, as if one big slurp will satisfy the biggest thirst.  One slurp won’t do it.  There will be many trips back to the well for those who seek to have their souls satisfied.  Small prayers, hearts turned to Christ bit by bit, a daily walk, a daily return.  Faith creates a well-worn path to the well. 

     Martin Luther said that every day we die to sin and every day we rise again in the saving grace of the resurrected Christ.  It’s like that.

     I don’t know what stands in the way of your having a deeper relationship with Christ, but if you’re like me, there are plenty of things.  We call these things sin, the stuff that separates us from the Savior, our stuff, our boundaries.  Prayer is about, exposing ourselves to grace, saying, “Here I am, Lord, enter my life, enter my heart, quench this thirst.”  And Christ’s response is always, “Come, come to the water, come again and again.  This well never goes dry.”  No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome at the well.

     I know I struggle with letting my boundaries down.  I’m a reasonable man and I like to think I can reason my way through just about anything.  I like figuring things out for myself.  Maybe you’re like me, like having the well-known dirt path under your feet, the path your feet have trod so many times you know the way by heart.  It‘s the familiar feel of the bucket handle in one hand, the ladle in the other.  It’s knowing how long it takes the bucket to fall until it hits water and how many turns of the crank brings it back up again.  These things we know full well, our lives depend on them or so we think.  But if we dare to let ourselves see more than this, let the Spirit set us free, perhaps we’ll see more than we ever imagined before, a flood of grace.  If we would let it slip, let our guard down, forget ourselves, Jesus can meet us there with refreshing newness.  The whole world can stop in a moment like that, or start for the first time.

     There is so much to gain by losing it, you know, the rules, the boundaries. Jesus says, “Let go of how you see things and I will show you how it really is.  It is grace beyond imagination, water gushing from the rock.  Get ready to swim.”