What does it mean that Jesus offers living waters, waters that for anyone who drinks of them “will become a river flowing from inside them, giving them the life of the world to come that never fades away, full of beauty and harmony.” (John 4:14, First Nations Version)
Waters, in other words, that quench our deepest thirst, in a way that nothing else does.
What does this mean?
What is our deepest thirst? What is our deepest need?
What do you think?
We have the needs of our body, to stay alive – air and water and nourishment. Those are deep needs. Are there deeper needs than that? Soul needs?
Apparently, there are, because plenty of people have all their physical needs met, and met 100 times over, and yet are still unsatisfied, deeply unsatisfied. Even someone living the dream of being a god of rock & roll at the height of fame and fortune “can’t get no satisfaction.”
So, what are our deepest needs?
More than one wise person has offered that our deepest need is to know that we are known and loved simply for who we are. To know that we have fundamental worth and dignity. And that we live in a world that has fundamental worth and meaning. To know that fundamentally we aren’t alone.
When we don’t have this, then nothing ever truly satisfies. We have an unsettled sense of insecurity. We may try to fill that need with things that at best can only give us a fleeting sense of value or satisfaction, but leave us in the end feeling empty and desperate. This is how we can get caught into cycles of addiction. Addictions don’t need to be dramatic to be very real – most of us are addicted, and in more ways than one. Looking for love in all the wrong places, looking for satisfaction, or for value or worth or belonging in things that don’t truly give us what we need, or what the world need. It can be through any of our physical appetites or through anything that will give us a sense of status over and against someone else.
The world of social media and online shopping is well designed to capitalize on these desires, and on the fact that we always need more. The smile on the amazon box is ultimately empty and quickly fades. They’ll give you a discount if you do it again and again.
Now, a very important way we have to actually address our deeper soul needs is through truly loving relationships and supportive community. We can show each other that we all have fundamental worth and dignity, and that we live in a world that has fundamental worth and meaning, and that fundamentally we aren’t alone. It is good to work for these loving relationships, for these supportive communities. It asks of us growth, soul growth.
And, at the same time, it’s wise to acknowledge that relationships, even healthy relationships, also are insecure. We’re all flawed. And we don’t last forever.
And many people, for many reasons, have been denied loving relationships and supportive community …
What I’m getting at, my friends, is that we need God.
We need a foundation of meaning and worth and belonging that is ever-present and ever-lasting. We need to know that the very Source of our very beings is the Holy and Eternal wellspring of Being itself, which gives to every bit of being in this cosmos a blessedness.
This is what Jesus knew so deeply, and what he offered the world, and offered everyone he encountered.
The embrace of love without conditions, a love so fundamental that its Source is none other than the wellspring of all Creation, the Holy Creator.
This is also why Jesus went out of his way to embrace those people in particular who were cast out of loving relationships and supportive communities.
The woman at the well in our gospel story is one such person, out of many in the gospels.
It’s telling that she’s alone at a well at midday. What everyone else does is go to the well in the morning, before it gets hot, and collects the water they need for the day. This is a social event, a daily opportunity to connect.
She’s avoiding this for some reason. She has been made to not belong to the group. Usually this carries shame.
Later in the story (after the passage we heard), the woman tells Jesus that she has had a string of broken marriages and is currently in a relationship outside of marriage. Traditionally, preachers say this means she is “a woman of loose morals,” but it could be that the men all did her wrong, or that she bore the shame of being unable to bear children. We don’t actually know.
What we do know is that Jesus responded to her in a way that was completely free of judgment.
Jesus responded to her with an embrace of conditional love.
That is how he responds to each of us and all of us.
Jesus offers us living water that satisfies our deepest thirst. He gives us what we truly need:
The knowledge that God loves us as we are. And with God we are never alone.
No one and nothing can take that away from you.
That’s living water that not only is available for us to receive, but to share with joy and gratitude. This love, this Love Supreme, can “become a river flowing from inside us … full of beauty and harmony” nourishing our own ability to be there for each other in loving relationships and supportive community, honoring the essential worth and dignity of each and all.
Thank you for sharing this Living Water together. Above all, thanks be to God.
Video of this sermon is viewable here.
Delivered Sunday, August 11, 2024, by Rev. Nathaniel Mahlberg, at the United Church of Christ at Valley Forge
The Dandelion Way 