Living Water

Living Water

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson, Pastor

March 19, 2017

Scripture: John 4:5-15

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

It doesn’t make a lick of sense of course. Not if you take it literally it doesn’t. Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well that if she had asked him he would have given her “living water.” Living water? Really? Water isn’t living. It is necessary for life, but it isn’t alive. It’s a chemical. H₂O. Two hydrogen atoms bonded to one oxygen atom. Put enough of them together at a temperature between 32^o and 211^o Fahrenheit and you get water. There’s an immense amount of water in the world of course, and it’s vital for life; but it’s not alive. It’s not living. No, taken literally the way the Samaritan woman does Jesus’ promise of living water doesn’t make a lick of sense.

Yet in this story, as in several stories in John, we see that literally is not the way to take what Jesus says. Last week we had Nicodemus totally misunderstanding Jesus because he took Jesus’ line “you must be born again” literally. He thought Jesus was talking about the literal meaning of birth. Physical birth. That of course wasn’t at all what Jesus was talking about. He was talking about spiritual rebirth. Nicodemus, the literalist, didn’t get it. Today we have the Samaritan woman doing the same thing. She thinks Jesus is talking about physical water. Right up to the end of her conversation with Jesus she thinks he’s talking about the stuff in the well. She says “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” If she understood Jesus to be talking about some kind of water other than what was in the well she still thought that whatever water he was talking about was just a substitute for what was in the well. She was a literalist, and she didn’t get it that Jesus wasn’t talking about physical water at all.

No, if Jesus were talking about physical water what he said made no sense at all; but of course he wasn’t talking about physical water. He wasn’t using literal language. He was using metaphorical or symbolic language. The living water he was talking about isn’t literally water at all, and Jesus never intended that the Samaritan woman, or we, or anyone else ever think that it was. No. Jesus’ “living water” is a metaphor. Or better, it is symbol. It is a phrase that says one thing to point beyond itself to something else. That much I hope is clear. But of course whenever we have to deal with a metaphor or a symbol we have to figure out what that something else is to which the metaphor or symbol points. There is a certain art to how we do that. Let’s apply that art to Jesus’ phrase “living water” and see what we find.

We start by examining the words of the phrase itself. Here I think it’s best to start with water. That’s the common, physical thing in the metaphor, and in trying to understand a metaphor it’s usually best to start with the common, physical thing in it. So, what is water? How does it function in our lives? Well, it’s a fluid that meets a physical need that we all have. Our bodies need water in order to function the way they’re supposed to function.

So if physical water fills one of our physical needs, perhaps Jesus’ “living water” meets some need we have as well. What need do we have that something called “living water” might meet? There is no such physical thing as living water, so it’s can’t be some other physical need that living water meets. Do we have some other sort of need that living water could meet? What needs to we have besides physical needs?

Well, our modern world of course tries really hard to pretend that we don’t have any needs besides physical needs. It’s easy to sell people things to meet their physical needs, so our retain based economy addresses our physical needs all the time and rarely concedes that we have any others. Yet we know better, don’t we. As people of faith we know that we humans have spiritual needs as well as physical ones. Could Jesus be saying that his living water meets our spiritual needs not out physical ones?

Maybe. I mean, how do our spirits need something analogous to the way our bodies need water? Without water our bodies dry up. They shrivel. When we need water we feel the physical sensation of thirst. Go long enough without water, and we will long for water. We will yearn for water. We can become so preoccupied with getting water we can hardly think of anything else. There’s on old song made famous by the Sons of the Pioneers about that yearning for water. Perhaps you know it:

All day I face the barren waste

Without the taste of water.

Cool water.

Old Dan and I with throats burned dry

And souls that cry for water.

Cool, clear water.

We can get so thirsty that our souls cry for physical water. But see, we need spiritual water just as much as we need physical water. We need spiritual water for our souls, and that’s the living water Jesus is talking about.

OK, so metaphorically speaking he gives us water, but how is that water “living”? It is living, I think, because it gives our souls life. I don’t think we can really understand how Jesus gives us living water except by living into the metaphor. We come to know Jesus as living water when we turn to him when our souls are thirsty. We learn what his living water is precisely when we turn him as that living water in times when our souls are parched. When we are weary. When the world weighs heavily on our spirits. When we face loss, hardship, fear, pain, or death. Then Jesus’ living water sooths our souls and helps us keep going. We feel the soothing balm of his living water when we are burdened by the weight of our sin, when we know we have done wrong and failed to do what it right. Then Jesus’ living water washes away our guilt and gives us the chance to start anew. When all the need in the world that surrounds us every day makes us feel hopeless and helpless, Jesus’ living water buoys us up and makes us able to do at least something if not everything that needs to be done. When we feel like we’re sinking in grief, or despair, or fear, we can turn to Jesus and float on his living water until we’re able once more to stand at least a bit on our own. When our live seems a desert of materialism and hatred Jesus’ living water brings forth the fresh, green vegetation of spiritual life and love for all of God’s people and all of God’s creation.

Yes, turning to Jesus in our times of great need can bring us living water that can do all of those things. But what does turning to Jesus mean? It means first of all turning to him in prayer. Prayer is never more powerful than when we are most in need. Jesus’ living water never flows more freely into our souls than when we turn to him in prayer and say Lord, I am parched. Water me with the water of the Spirit, with the living water that only you can give. We get some of his living water when we read his story in the Bible. We get some of it, I hope, in communal worship and in the church’s sacraments. There are various ways to open Christ’s tap of living water. I pray that each of you has found a way that works for you.

Now with that let me leave you this morning with a song. With a revised lyric from that old song of the Sons of the Pioneers that I sang a bit of a moment ago. In that song they sing of waking in the morning and carrying on searching for water. I think that image can work for us too when it comes to Christ’s living water. And so I sing:

The world is cruel, and I’m a fool,

I need a pool of water.

Living water.

And come the dawn I wake and long

to float upon Christ’s water.

Cool, living water.

May it be so. Amen.