St. Paul’s United Church
Sunday March 11, 2007
Thirsting for God – Rev. David Mundy
Isaiah 55:1-9 Psalm 63:1-8 1
Corinthians 10:1-13
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How far would you be willing to walk for a glass of clean water? Across the room? Around the block?
A kilometre, or five? This may seem like a foolish
question for people in a country where drinking water is usually as close as
the nearest faucet and costs us next to nothing.
Unless of course we wanted to purchase our
water in containers of some sort, because we feel that it will be purer, or
perhaps more fashionable. When did water become a fashion accessory? Anyway, even then we
wouldn’t have to walk to find it. We would simply get into a vehicle and drive
to our choice of stores that sell water of various brands and in many
quantities. It may say something about the wealth of our culture that even
though we are the envy of much of the world in terms of our water clarity we
grumble far less about the cost of a litre of water from the grocery store than
we do the litre of gasoline that we use to get there. And in case you haven’t
noticed, the water in the bottles is more expensive than the fuel.
In many parts of the world water is a precious and increasingly scarce
commodity. People, usually women, walk and walk to reach
sources of water. They wait in lines for the opportunity to fill
containers. They have no way of knowing whether it is clean or if what they are
providing for their families is potentially lethal.
As the population of the planet grows, water will become harder and
harder to find. We’re being told that in this century wars will be fought over
access to water, no oil. We can only pray that this isn’t true.
Perhaps because water is an essential aspect of life on this earth and a
necessity for most creatures, it has a spiritual quality as well. The major
religions of the world have rituals which involve water, including
Christianity. Several times a year you look on with approval and support as I
use water to welcome individuals of all ages into the community of Christ
through baptism. We even pray over the water as it is poured into the baptism
font, remembering the significant times when God has touched the waters.
Today three of the lectionary passages are about the God who satisfies
our thirst with the waters of life. The prophet Isaiah writes from exile and
promises that the day is coming when everyone, even the poor and the outcasts
will be filled with good things: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the
waters . . . ” And the psalmist is nostalgic for a relationship with the
Creator where his spiritual needs are truly met:
O God, you are my God, my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you, as in dry and
weary land where there is no water.
Finally we heard the intriguing passage from the apostle Paul’s first
letter to the Christian community in which former rabbi Paul reminds his readers of the
epic story of the exodus from Egypt by God’s people. If you look at Exodus, you
will discover that the people grumble to their leader, Moses, that they are
hungry and thirsty. On God’s instruction, Moses takes the same staff that he
used to open the waters of the Red Sea and strikes a rock in the wilderness
which gushes forth water to satisfy the thirst of the ill-tempered Israelites.
In their moment of need God provides life-giving water.
Paul tells the Corinthian church that Christ is like that rock and it is
Christ who quenches our spiritual thirst. There is something that needs
clarifying here. Paul says “For they drank from the spiritual rock which
followed them, and the rock was Christ.” Why does it say that the rock
followed the people, even though this detail is not in the bible? The question was asked in the centuries
following the exodus, how did the people get water to
drink after that first dramatic moment. The rabbis and the sages decided that
the rock must have followed them through the wilderness on their forty-year
journey to provide sustenance, and Paul includes that image here. In my
tormented imagination this has all the makings of a Mel Brooks skit, as one nomad
says to another:
Call me crazy, but that rock is following us.
You’re crazy – rocks don’t move.
Well that rock moved, and it’s leaking!
Are you thirsty for God? Are you thirsting for the water which is
Christ? The answer for our culture is yes and no. You have heard many times
that the polls show we are still persistently and resiliently spiritual in
Canada. Most of us believe in God and a surprising percentage of us pray. What
we hear and see is that a steadily decreasing number of Canadians go to church,
or synagogue or mosque.
Years ago sociologist Reginald Bibby coined
the phrase religion a la carte to describe our tendency to pick and
choose the aspects of spirituality which suit us and our sensibilities. For
many people who were raised to be nominally religious, the decision has been
made to leave Christ out of their spirituality.
I appreciate that this has been stimulating and meaningful for some but
I can tell you that some people are drinking from a mighty shallow well, at
least on the basis of conversations I have shared with folk who are earnestly
spiritual but tremendously unfocussed. Often they are hurrying from one trend
to another in search of something, anything that will be fulfilling. The words
of warning in 2 Peter come to mind of “waterless springs” and “mists
driven by a storm.”
Then again, some go in the opposite direction and become so committed in
their religious convictions that they become overbearing and even fanatical.
There are probably a number of us who have friends or family members who have
become so enthusiastic about their faith that you can’t really have a
conversation. It’s very one-sided and while they earnestly believe that they
are witnessing to their conversion or transformation and want you to share the
same experience it isn’t always helpful. Their “living water” is not being
offered to others in a way that is palatable or potable, to hold on to the
metaphor.
Not long ago the CBC radio program, The Current, interviewed two
Islamic scholars, both women, who discussed the extreme requirements in some
Muslim communities for women to cover themselves. They were both gently
insistent that the extreme form of hijab was not a
requirement of the Koran, nor was it a part of Islamic tradition. Women were
invited to phone it and one young caller explained that she had taken on this
dress code as a sign of devotion. It turned out that she was not from a Muslim
family, but had converted from Christianity and chose to adopt this way of
dress as a sign of her radical commitment to this new way of life. She thirsted
for something spiritual and has found it, or at least she thinks she has found
it.
Somehow, in this day of tremendous spiritual choice but limited
spiritual depth we need to find a place between the extremes where those who
seek sustenance can be revived and satisfied. The message we heard a few
moments ago in scripture is that we are all thirsty for God. That is the way we
are created, no less than we as humans and our entire planet is dependent on
H20.
To come back to the story of the people of Israel in the wilderness, we
can picture these desperate
pilgrims pushing their way frantically toward the rock to have
their thirst satisfied in the way we have seen, far too often, with victims of
natural disasters.
There is another image which might be more helpful for us. We didn’t
read the gospel today because it is the only passage which doesn’t speak of how
God addresses our spiritual thirst but there is a gospel story which we know
well. It is the encounter between Jesus and a Samaritan woman which is found in
John. In this story Jesus has a one-on-one conversation with a woman who may
have walked a long distance to draw from Jacob’s well, a source of water which
still exist today and is nearly two hundred feet deep. Their exchange has some
of those rather bewildering qualities that are characteristic of John’s gospel.
There are lots of stories in John where those who meet Jesus try hard to
figure out what he is actually saying to them. According to chapter four
Jesus said to her, ‘‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,
but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.
The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to
eternal life.’’ The woman said to him, ‘‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may
never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’’ John 4:13-14
It seems to me that this exchange still happens every day, although
obviously not in the literal sense. In his most recent book, The Boomer Factor, Reg Bibby points out that
in his surveys seventy five percent of Canadians born in the post-war era say
they have spiritual needs. While their approach to meeting these needs has
changed from the day when everyone trouped off to church on Sunday mornings, it
is still there and if anything it may have more to do with quenching the thirst
of the spirit than convention.
If that is the case, it is our choice and responsibility and privilege
to direct those who are saying “give me this water” to the source of
eternal life who is Christ.
We are all encouraged not to be complacent about our faith in Christ.
Please understand that we are here because we are promised an encounter with
Christ, not just because it is good for our kids or because we have always gone
to church. Our life together is not about making sure there are enough bodies
filling pews or dollars to balance budgets. This is about abundant life, rising
up from the deepest places and full to overflowing.
We can be both as diligent and creative as possible in being the
community where people will discover Christ in a balanced, meaningful, loving
relationship and be truly satisfied. In a book on worship with the great title
of Reaching Out Without Dumbing
Down Marva Dawn advises:
We need worship deep enough to change us,
strong enough to kill our self-absorption,
awe-full enough to shatter the little boxes
into which we try to fit God,
and thorough enough to address the
world’s need because God is already at work to meet them.
This is true not only of worship but of every aspect of our life
together.
Are you thirsting
for God? Then drink from the rock which is Christ. Do you believe
that others are thirsty for that relationship? Help them to find their way to the
well of life and hope.
Our thirst can and will be satisfied. Thanks be to God!