March 8 ~ Discovering the Desire for Depth

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/3ef8bd_15ac9b27ba7a46e8879a4346dcf7324c/720p/mp4/file.mp4

Exodus 17:1-7

Psalm 95

Romans 5:1-11

John 4:5-42

Sermon by Joel Crouse

We are a searching species. We search for success, for money, for good fortune. And yet even when we achieve those things, we still feel something is missing, that our search is not complete. That is because, as we learn when we have them, life is not truly rich without purpose, meaning, curiosity, and introspection – because through those qualities, we find love.

The Samaritan woman teaches us all this lesson. Her story is one of the simplest and yet the most profound of how life becomes more real and meaningful when we add the dimension of depth. Her story is also remarkable – it is one of the longest conversations that Jesus has with someone in the gospel, and he has it with a most unlikely character. As we hear in the gospel - even the disciples were shocked.

Her story begins with a great discovery, one that happened by chance. Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem. At the sixth hour—noon our time—he stopped at the restaurant of his day—a well. It was Jacob’s well on the outskirts of the city of Samaria. While the disciples went to the nearest store to get some food, Jesus sat down to rest his weary legs.

As he sat there, a woman came along to draw some water from the well. She was astonished when Jesus asked her for a drink. For one thing, Jesus was crossing the barrier of the sexist custom which did not allow a man to speak to a woman in public. For another, he was crossing the barrier of racism. Complete amazement at the request of Jesus caused her to blurt out, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman from Samaria?”

To which he replied, “If you knew the gift of God and who was saying to you, ‘Give me a drink’, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” What a strange response. She could have said, “Why don’t you mind your own business?”, as she was trying to mind hers. Or she could have said, “That’s ridiculous.” How could you give me a drink when I have the dipper in my hand?” But she didn’t. She was at the point of making a discovery. What better way to do that than to ask the question, “Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well?” Jacob was her hero, you see. Anyone greater than him would have to be God.

With the first part of his answer, Jesus points out something the woman, in her weary role of going back and forth hauling water, was already sensing. You can’t find happiness in life if you live it in only two dimensions. “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again.” Jesus said, “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give will never thirst.”

Whoever finds the third dimension of the waters of God’s grace will know the gift of new life that is freely offered. That is the great discovery that the Samaritan woman made at Jacob’s well.

I suppose our presence here this morning indicates that we have also made that discovery. Or maybe we have come here hoping to make it. If you have already made the discovery, then the greatest pitfall is that the water might have become stale. It is not easy to sustain faith as a discovery. What once was greeted with great enthusiasm becomes commonplace. Note that the thing you once discovered with great joy and satisfaction hasn’t changed one bit. If anything, it’s probably improved. It’s our perception, our attitude towards it, that has changed.

Happy is the person who greets each day as a new discovery, each moment with a loved one as a new opportunity. But especially happy is the person who keeps the water of life fresh. Love and grace are meant to become deeper and more meaningful to us.

That really happens through desire. “Sir,” the Samaritan woman said, “give me this water, that I may not thirst.” The psalmist says, “my soul thirsts for the living God.” I believe that just as our bodies have been created with a thirst for water, so our inner beings have been fashioned with a thirst for the divine. Deep within us we cry out for depth. But so often we don’t let that cry come to the surface. The surface desires of our own immediate needs so preoccupy us that we never take the time to focus on the real questions.

Notice that the desire within the Samaritan woman needed to be expressed in worship. Her only problem was she didn’t quite know how to worship. Should she go up the mountain like her fellow Samaritans did to speak to God, or down to Jerusalem to the temple as the Jews did?

Jesus helps her out with one of the great lines to come from his mouth: “God is spirit, and those who worship God must worship in spirit and truth.” The place, Jesus says, is not important even though his custom was to worship in the synagogue each Sabbath. But what is important is the worshipper, their readiness in Spirit to have a relationship with the Divine and their absolute honesty in expressing their desires.

That leads us to the third dimension the woman found at Jacob’s well—direction. She came to the well as an aimless wanderer. The only vision she had was gathering water. She left the well to tell anyone who would listen how her life had been renewed.

For one thing, that new direction meant being honest with herself. She had to look at the truth of who she was and find the direction that would give her new life and hope. We can’t hide from ourselves. And we certainly cannot hide from God. When you stand before God, your whole life stands before God. A life with direction which meditates upon what is true, honourable, just, loving and gracious, is a life that has meaning and depth to it.

But the other direction the woman received, as she left her waterpots, was to go and tell others about what she had learned to be true for her. What a change in direction. Where once she questioned Jesus for talking to her, now she was speaking to men and women alike about this Jesus that had changed the direction of her life.

The direction we are called in is a radical change from living for ourselves to living for others. To help ourselves AND OTHERS find the dimension of depth for life by hearing the gospel and living it out in action. We become the dipper bringing new life to all people.

Discovery, Desire, and Direction. They all add up to depth. The Samaritan woman helps us to discover it. Jesus wants us to desire it. And Lent sets us in the right direction to find it.

Amen