John 4 : 1-33

 A Well of Living Water

Context for this message is an historic congregation located in the downtown area of a medium sized city in the American Midwest.  One source that I used to stimulate my thinking was a video series by Prof Patrick Kiefert

If you read some of the great novels in literature, one of the recurring themes or symbols which you will come across is water. Water has a mysterious hold on the human psyche because we all know that we cannot live without this clear, odorless, tasteless liquid. A few weeks ago, I listened to a radio program which reviewed the way the theme of rain has played a role in music and a week later the theme was drinking water and its role as a theme in music. Water it’s a central part of our lives.

If you doubt that water plays a critical role in your life, I would challenge you to go to the water main valve into your house when you get home and shut it off and see how you go about dealing with the afternoon. We recently had a notice dropped off at our house that we would have the water shut off for a day. That notice caused some careful planning for the day which otherwise we don’t need to do. Water is just always there. Turn on the spigot, turn on the shower, turn on the dishwasher, turn on the clothes washer, flush the toilet. Water is always there.

Now, it was not always so. I remember as a little boy that we carried all the water we used into the house from outdoors. There was a water hydrant just outside the front door, but to get the water in, we had to have a bucket. Then we would carry it into the house. We all drank from that same bucket. We would use a dipper which hung over the bucket. I guess we could say it was the common cup of everyday experience.

But water was not always so convenient. In fact, in most places around the world even today, water cannot be had from a faucet in the house or even from a hydrant near the front door. Water is drawn from a nearby stream or a well which the entire village uses. And in most places of the world today, the village well is the place where people gather to socialize with each other, to watch each other, to be near other human beings who share similar life with them.

But there are times when the well also becomes the place of ostracism and rejection. Suppose you were a part of a village and each time you went to the well, no one would talk to you, and no one would help you to draw water. You’d be rudely shouldered away from the well, and even though no words might be spoken, and in all probability would not be spoken, you get the message loud and clear, you are not wanted around here.

Suppose you were a woman who was about 30 years old, you’d been shouldered away from the village well any number of times as the village women went out to the well in the cool of the early morning hours. You’d found yourself always last in line. Always unspoken to, always accidentally bumped when your water jug was perched on your head so that the household water was spilled yet again. So finally, you take to going out to the well at the time of day when no one would be there. Making the lonely trip out to the outskirts of the village to draw some water for your household. There are times when you’re making the trip and you’re berating yourself for the way you’ve messed up your life.

Whatever went wrong? With Simon, it had been some little thing like refusing to watch his feet one night when he was drunk, but he had written you a certificate of divorce on the spot and had sent you away. With Josephus, it had been that sweet young thing. Once he found he could marry her, it had been all over for you. Who was next? Ohh, yes. Nabel had been the third. That one had ended when he discovered you were having relations with the trader who passed through the village every month or so. David had been the 4th. He had divorced the chief man of the town’s daughter to marry you. How he ever decided to do that was a miracle in itself. But then he had seen a younger and more exciting woman and you had received a 4th letter of divorce. But then you had met Jeremy. This was gonna be the man with whom you would spend your life. And life had been so so for a few years until one day, he too, announced he was divorcing you. His reason? You were not carrying enough water to town to suit him. Even though by this time, all the women of the town considered you a home wrecker, and it was basically true.  No use hiding it, but life sure was miserable trying to get along when all the townspeople considered you a no good woman.

So now as you trudge along the dusty pathway to the well 1/2 mile outside of town, you think about the guy who’s sharing your bed now. What a loser. He would not even marry you. But, hey, he did bring home a paycheck even though it was meager. It was enough to scrape by with the two of you.

If you’ve been able to identify with this woman of a village called Sikar in a despised place called Samaria, then you would realize as well that this woman is thirsty in more ways than one. Not only is the physical water she’s coming to the well to draw needed in her life, she needs the cool clear water of human love, of human compassion, of human understanding. She’s a five time loser who’s not even able to get the current affair to the altar. Talk radio psychologist Dr. Laura Slessinger would be reminding her that first we make a nest, then we settle into it, honey. But she’s a loser and losers have lost all ability to get control of their lives and now she makes her lonely way out to the well again as the daily chore looms up once again.

But today, there’s something different for this woman. She is about to meet someone who does love her as the gift of God to a humanity thirsting for a life that is real. For as she approaches the well today, there’s a stranger who greets her, a Jewish stranger no less. Now Jews simply did not have anything to do with the Samaritans. The Samaritans were a distinctly inferior race and as such had no claim to any Jew’s time at all. But this Jew asks her for a drink. now for the past several years, no one had been kind to her. But this man was and her reply indicates, ohh maybe he was kind. You are asking me for a drink? How can that be?

You see, her world had become so skewed with all the hate and hurt she had experienced that she could not believe a Jew of all people was asking her for a drink! Even her own townspeople didn’t do that. But there he was, the one we call the savior of mankind, on Samaritan soil, striking up a conversation with the person who needed to hear his voice. She was a person with some deep needs in her life, but Jesus did not see her as a loser. He sees her as a person to whom the love of God had come and as a person who needed to have a well of living water springing up inside her. As Jesus speaks with her, she believes and find the very character of her life is changed. She was the one who was living without God and without hope in the world. And suddenly she was given a gift of grace which turned her life around completely.

Now, we need to draw some teaching from this story. And it is this: the church looks around at the people who live in the community where the church is at. And we say, you know, there are lot of people who need the Lord. Someday, they might understand that God wants them to come to know him. And we wait for them to come to a place where we are safe and where we are in control and where we are not the stranger.

But Jesus is showing us here that the fields are white unto harvest right now. People are thirsty for the living water of God. They’re tired of having to carry the burdens of their lives. They’re tired of having to search out a taste of water here and there, but always feel like they are thirsty again as soon as they have drunk some of that stagnant water from the wells of this world. Meanwhile we have living water springing up within us, and we hesitate to share it with someone for fear they might be offended.

People are thirsty right now. You and I need to be like Jesus, and get out of our safe places and go to the places where people in our community gather to interact. Jesus would go to the mall, and stop and talk to people. He’d go to the coffee places, not to have coffee with people he already knew, but to meet some new people and share living water with them over a cup of coffee. He’d go to the golf courses and spend some time getting to know someone and letting them know that they are accepted as they are, and as thirsty people. And he’d offer them living water.

Four years ago, seminary student who was a waiter in an Applebee’s restaurant in a major city decided he would invite some of his coworkers to a Bible study at the bar. It was an interesting first meeting for a Bible study. His whole group was smoking, chewing, and drinking beer. Then in the four years since, dozens of his coworkers have come to know Jesus and now they have a room full of Christians. He took living water to them where they were and they have drunk deeply at the fountain and now they too have springs of living water flowing from them.

What’s this say to you? where are you going today?

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Scripture reading John 7 : 14-44 Is Anyone Thirsty?

Context for this message was an urban / suburban congregation with historic roots. It was written just before my family and I were to go on a vacation. It utilizes two images, that of the camping tent and the living water flowing from a person.

Tomorrow I and my family are going to pack up our van and go on vacation. This year we’re going to spend 2 weeks going camping in a couple of tents. We’re doing what the ancient Israelites did for a week every year as one of the great festivals. Can’t you just see it? The whole country would spend a week together in tents. The sort of tent they had was really more like a makeshift lean to than a canvas tent. They would take some branches of trees and some palm fronds and make little tabernacles to camp in for a week.

By the time that Jesus was here on earth this feast of camping was the greatest and the holiest of the feasts. It was more important than the great day of atonement. It was more holy than the Passover feast. It was the big occasion of the year.

So we should ask ourselves, what went on at this feast? Why does John think it important to include this story about Jesus? You see, John in his last chapter says that he wrote these things with the purpose of helping people to believe that Jesus is the Christ and that by believing, we could have life in his name. So, John didn’t just write whatever he happened to remember. No, he wrote so that people when they hear what he says can believe and have life in Jesus. So why does he include this feast and this and this story about Jesus?

Well, as I said, this was a feast when the whole nation went camping together. Nobody who took their faith in God seriously lived in a house during this week. They camped in the streets, in the yards, in the fields, wherever there was an open area these booths of branches would spring up.

The purpose of this was to remind everyone about their ancestors living in the wilderness for 40 years. Where they lived in tents for all those years, God had taken care of them. He gave them manna every day, six days a week. He gave them water from a rock more than once. He made water available other times when the Israelites thought that they were going to die of thirst.

Now this feast came at the end of the harvest each year. There was a celebration of God’s blessing in the fields. It was Thanksgiving for them and it lasted for a week every year. From all over the world, the Jews of Jesus day would come together and camp out and celebrate God’s goodness for another year. They’d think back to how God had kept their ancestors alive in the desert miraculously, and during this feast they’d thank God again for making the fields fruitful and for giving life to them for another year.

And during the feast, every day at the temple, the priests would lead a procession to the pool of Siloam, and there they get a picture full of water and carry it back to the temple. There the priest would pour the water over the great altar. And this water pouring ceremony was a symbol of prayers for rain so that the crops  would grow. and that symbol of prayer was seen in how the steam would rise from the altar from the water that was poured on it. And so in the midst of their thanks for the past year’s blessing, they were also praying for rain for next year. Most likely, hoping it wouldn’t rain while they were camping out that week!

The water was a symbol of life itself as well. They needed water and God had given water in the desert. He had given water this past year. And they prayed that water would continue to be given.

Now for seven days the priests have gone to get their water, they’ve carried it in solemn procession to the altar, and poured it over the altar. And after it’s all done on the last day of the feast, Jesus takes his spot where many can see him and hear him and he cries out, John’s word here is a word meaning shouting out loud, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink! Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him!

In chapter 6, Jesus had said he was the living bread from heaven. In that he had claimed to be the fulfillment of the man God had given in the wilderness. Now he stands and claims to be the fulfillment of the water God had given. You can drink living water and find life in me, says Jesus. The greatest and holiest feast of the Jews is centered around this water, and now Jesus claims that the water is pointing to him. He claims that life can be had by drinking deeply of him.

What does that mean for us? For us who don’t go camping together for a week every year at Thanksgiving time? For us who don’t have a feast where the priests carry some water to a great altar and pour it out. What can this mean to us?

This past week, it was hot, wasn’t it? Did you get thirsty at all during any of those hot days? Did you go to the fridge and get something to drink? Some iced tea, some lemonade or just plain cold ice water? Did you ask yourself where that water came from? Maybe you don’t wanna know where that water came from! But the water you got was life for you. Very few people can survive more than three days without water. You and I need water to live.

When the reservoirs go down, we start hearing about conserving water. But most of the time water is had just by turning the tap.

But suppose we were all out camping in tents, where none of the household conveniences were to be had. Water would have to be carried from a well. If life were to go on, water would have to be brought to our tents. And we’d become more aware of how much we need water.

I want you to think about that tonight. Think about water and how much you need it for life and remember, Jesus is the source of living water for your soul. The water you drink will never save your soul, the water used to wash your hands will never wash your soul clean; the water you swim in to be refreshed on a hot day will never refresh your thirsty soul that craves the water only Jesus can give.

You need Jesus to refresh your soul. You need Jesus to wash your sin away. You need Jesus to save your soul from death. What you must do, says Jesus, his believe on me.

You and I have to trust his word. We need to let go of the pursuit of our own ideas in life to let Jesus set the agenda for us.

The story is told of a man who had been wandering in the desert for a couple of days with no water. He came upon an old rusty pump with a note attached. When the man looked at it, it said, under the rock over there is a bottle of water. If you take it and pour all of it down the top of this pump and pump for all your worth, you’ll get all the water you want. Don’t go drinking any first, or holding some back, you need it all to prime the pump. When you’ve drunk your fill put a full bottle back under the rock. Thanks. Signed desert willie

If you take out that water, you have two choices. You can obey the note or you can disobey it and it all depends on if you believe what it says. The same is true of Jesus, if you believe what he says, you’ll obey and you’ll come to him and drink.

What’s amazing is that when you do, something wonderful happens. Your life overflows with living water.

John tells us that this is a reference by Jesus to the Holy Spirit. The spirit is the water of life. The spirit is the power of God welling up inside of the believer and pouring out from him or her, from believers.

That’s what happens when a person is spiritually thirsty and comes to Jesus. The believer trusts in Jesus and is so filled with the spirit that the believer himself, herself becomes a source of water too. The stream flows. That means that the believer becomes a source of life in the broader community.

In the week ahead, your life can be a source of life to someone else who’s thirsty. Do you believe in Jesus? If you do, don’t dam up the water of the spirit and become a reservoir. Let the water flow and become a source of life for others downstream.

How could that happen? When a fellow worker is feeling bad because something has gone wrong in their life, take the time to listen, and to offer a healing word, or a helping hand. Give them some of the life you know in Jesus, you’re  helping that person, just one person, and they may help another, and so on and on. And life would be improved in our whole community because a believer in Jesus started a life giving stream of water flowing.

Or again: in your relationship with your spouse, you let the spirit lead you into a deeper love for that person and your marriage improves. And another person will see it and ask about your marriage and you can say, it’s because Jesus is a part of our lives. And the life giving stream can get started and who knows how many lives will be affected by your words?

Or again: you read in John about the work that Jesus does and you find a challenging idea in the process and you see that you could do this work with Jesus and you trust him to help you and you get it done. You invite people to follow Jesus, you spend time one-on-one with someone and you let them know that they need to be born again, you find someone caught in sin and you don’t condemn them, instead you call them to go and sin no more. You weep with the one who grieves and you assure them of life everlasting in Jesus. And a life giving stream flows from you.

When Jesus issued this call to faith, the crowds were divided. And he’s still a divisive figure. Either you will drink deeply of his living water, or you will stick to the physical water because this life is all you can imagine. Which group are you in?