Lent 3 – Thirst

Readings are Exodus 17:1-7 and John 4:5-42

The first time I read our Old Testament reading I confess I laughed. Moses’ exasperated call to God – what do you expect me to do with these people? – and the peoples’ outraged complaints at their leader – basically “another fine mess you’ve got us into!” – had an almost farcical tone. But the second time I read it, I felt fear. In our experience, where clean fresh drinking water is available from every tap, we rarely know what it is to be truly thirsty. But perhaps you can recall going on a long walk on a summer’s day and you forgot a water bottle, or maybe you didn’t carry one, and the heat and the exercise catch up with you and a nagging discomfort steadily becomes an all-consuming need. I have had days like that walking in the Scottish wilderness. You start to calculate as you never have before how far you might be from the nearest refreshment. Coming across a clear fresh spring of water feels like a glimpse of heaven itself!

True thirst is a deeply anxiety-provoking thing, especially when – like the people in our first reading – you have no idea when or how it might be satisfied. Especially when you have a thirsty family and thirsty livestock and you know they cannot survive much longer without water. The question of whether God is truly with them is no theological conundrum – it is a matter of life and death. Moses is exasperated that the people do not trust God, for indeed God does have it all under control. And perhaps we read this story through Moses’ eyes – but the reason we do is probably because we have not ourselves experienced the panic of real physical thirst in a context where fresh water is not readily available. Thirst is a powerful thing…

In our Gospel, we have two thirsty people. Jesus is physically thirsty and so asks help from a woman who approaches the well. Now I wonder if you have someone in your family who sits and watches films and likes to predicts what happens next. They can always predict when Bond is going to get the better of the villain. They can tell which unlikely couple will fall in love. They can spot the baddies before the story is half told. They can spot the patterns that stories fall into and can see what is going to happen next. The thing is that this story would have felt a bit like that to the first readers of John’s Gospel – certainly those from a Jewish background. Stories of a man and a woman meeting at a well were romances. Ever since Abraham’s servant met Rebekah at a well and asked him for a drink, this motif of a woman providing water for menfolk was the start of a marriage story. They knew what was coming…

Except – plot twist – the last thing this woman needed was another marriage. She had been married many times and was now living under the protection of someone who wasn’t her husband. Some have assumed she was a woman of ill repute, but there is no reason to think this. There are many reasons to think that this woman had been sinned against as much as sinned. However, what we do know is that a succession of marriages had not made her happy. What she thirsted for at this well was not another wedding day…

This is one of the longest conversations Jesus has in the gospels. And it is wide-ranging: from physical thirst, to Jacob, to the woman’s history, to the worshipping practices of Samaritans and Jews. They cover a lot of ground. But in it, perhaps we see a thirst being quenched – not a physical thirst, but a thirst for connection, for respect and engagement, for someone to see her and know her and yet not avoid her, to recognise what she has to offer – even if it is as simple as being able to offer a mouthful of water. And in the profoundly theological questions the woman asks, we see someone who is thirsting for truth. She finds all these things in Jesus.

I wonder what you are thirsting for today? What are the things you really really long for, with the urgency of a thirsty person in a wilderness? What do you try to distract yourself from with work, or food and drink, or spending or social media or telly? What is it that you need so desperately from God – how confident are you that God is truly with you? Ask for what you need, even if you aren’t entirely sure what it is!

Some time later, at around noon, in another lonely place, Jesus thirsted again. This time, he was not helped by a woman at a well but was offered only vinegar. On the cross Jesus experienced a spiritual and physical thirst beyond our comprehension, so that all our thirst might be slaked. Our thirst for forgiveness. Our thirst for connection, because no barriers now separate us from God’s love. Our thirst for truth, for we now have the Holy Spirit leading us into all truth. Our thirst for hope in a world of despair.

Jesus says that because what he came to do and because of the Holy Spirit who now lives within us, we will have springs of water rising up in us. This spring of the Spirit can refresh our thirsts, but is surely not just for ourselves. Rather as walking springs of water in our world, we are to refresh the thirsts of the world, by offering that forgiveness, connection, truth and hope.

May the Spirit flood us with the love of God, so we might be refreshed in all our thirsts and be able to share the love of God with others. Amen