Living Water

Psalm 1; John 4:5-15

 

A Sermon by Donald Mackenzie

February 27, 2005

University Congregational United Church of Christ

Seattle, Washington

 

“Where do you get that living water?” John 4:11b

 

            If plain water is stagnant water, water that is not moving, water that is not living, water that cannot for whatever reason give life to something else, then how do we understand living water? And if Psalm One frames the essential question for all of scripture, which is that we can choose between a life lived by love or an empty life-- then it is not surprising that this story of Jesus and a woman and a well touches us. It touches us because we are acquainted with the dry places in our lives, the places where we feel the need for water deeply. This is why images of desert and river are important and recurring themes and images in scripture.  They recur because they help us to see and touch the importance of living water.  The wandering of the Hebrew people takes place in the desert, the desert of Sinai. Then they cross the river, the Jordan River, into a land flowing with milk and honey.  They cross from the desert into a place that is watered by living water, a place where they can have the opportunity to feel “planted,” a place to feel “filled,” a place to feel love, to feel connected to other people, place finally to feel fully connected to God and to all of creation.  Rivers in the desert are like blood vessels in a living being.  They bring life and without them we die, we dry up and blow away.

Living water, we all want it! It is that absolutely essential ingredient in life:  living water.  It is that thing that not only has life, but gives life.  And the story we have heard read has a place for everyone in this room, indeed for everyone in all of creation.  We are all carrying water and we do it all day long.  We are all on the way to the well and although we are carrying water, we are not finding that thing that we really want:  living water. Brothers and sisters we all want living water, but we all know that it is hard to find. What is that living water and where do we get it?  I mean what is it that we are after?  What makes us get up in the morning?  What makes us move forward?  What motivates us?  What do we want in life?

There’s a scene toward the end of the film “Ray,” the story of the life and music of Ray Charles.  In 1961 Ray had refused to play in a segregated hall in the state of Georgia and because of that, he had been banned from playing his music in the state until this moment in 1979 when the State of Georgia officially welcomed Ray back to the state and made his song, “Georgia on My Mind” the official state song.  Julian Bond, playing himself makes the presentation at the Georgia statehouse in Augusta.  At the conclusion of his speech Ray Charles received a standing ovation from the assembled folks white and people of color.  It was a great moment, not because suddenly everything had changed in the state of Georgia, but because of the way it illustrates the essential yearnings of the human heart and the human mind for a world where the preciousness of human relationships is honored above everything, and where the essential dignity of every human being is both honored and cultivated, a world where everyone has equal access to all human and civil rights and where the loving experience of community of living together and not being alone is the norm. And it was no coincidence that Ray Charles’ music, music that brought together black gospel, black and white rhythm and blues and white country music, music that he called music with stories, was the music that was underneath and enabling such a moment in the state of Georgia back in 1979. Living water is what gets us to a moment like that and answers the question about what we want in life with a resounding, “to live together in loving community helping each other, having compassion for each other, forgiving each other and working for justice in life for all people.”

Lent is a particularly important time to be pondering the need for living water. In this season of Lent, we are headed for that moment in our history called Holy Week, the story of the passion of Jesus containing the celebration of the Passover by Jesus and his disciples.  It can be no accident that Lent, a season for reflection, for taking stock, a season for repentance, that is for taking a new path in life, leads us to the crucifixion and the resurrection through the Passover, a moment that commemorates the liberation from Egypt by the Hebrew people.  In Hebrew the word for Egypt is Mitzrayim, signifying tight places, or places of ‘stuckness.’  Our friend Rabbi Ted Falcon calls this “a metaphor that exists within the self, to be discovered and released as we grow. Spiritual awakening,” he says, “requires releasing ourselves from inner enslavements to old patterns, old self-definitions, old beliefs.”[1] The possibilities for that sort of liberation are rooted for Christian people in Jesus’ proclamation that he is, himself, that living water that can help us to become the people that we and God dream of our becoming.

The fact that this is difficult is not lost even in our reading for the woman never really understands what Jesus is saying.  She says, “Sir, give me this water that I may not thirst or come here to draw this water.” (John 5:15) After all has been said and done, she still understands it literally.  And who wouldn’t be drawn toward something that would mean we could cease those daily chores that wear us down?  But let us hear Jesus’ message in this season of Lent to mean that that thirst that she speaks of is not the same as Jesus’ message and yet it is related.  She means that she could quit hauling water, water that is so essential for life.  He means that that essential yearning for a life where all God’s children are free to live in love, the love that God is and that God gives us, is accessible to us now in this life if we can choose, choose with our minds and with our hearts to live lives of love and not lives of isolation and self-absorption, lives where love has no place.

In order to make the most of this Sabbath and healing season of Lent, I want to invite you into is the practice of Sabbath.  Lent is a season of Sabbath.  Sabbath means taking time on a regular basis to find spiritual, intellectual and physical renewal.  Biblically it is used to refer to the seventh day, or the seventh year as in sabbatical or the 49th year (the seventh seventh year) as in Jubilee.  In Sabbath we do things that nurture us and we put aside things that do not nurture us.  Because Lent is a Sabbath season we say we give up things for Lent.  But we must be careful to keep that which feeds us and give up only that which does not feed us.

Living water is what we seek.  Living water is the love that helps to create the world God dreams for us. Living water means all people have equal opportunities. Living water creates a world where the precious of human relationships and the essential dignity of every person is honored and cultivated above everything else.  This is the world that is possible because when we reached the well, Jesus was there and offered us living water.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

 


[1] Falcon, Ted, A Journey of Awakening, Kabbalistic Meditations on the Tree of Life, Seattle: Skynear Press, 2003 p. 2.