“The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing to eternal life.”
Could he have been speaking about us? Did you wake up this morning sensing a spring of water gushing to eternal life? Most of us regard gaining that experience as work for a lifetime. We stand to learn a great deal from this Samaritan woman, because she learned how to drink this living water in one encounter with Jesus lasting less than an hour. Just look at the extent of her transformation: She left her home expecting nothing other than the drudgery of hot and arduous work, as she plodded to the well in the noonday sun. We can guess that she was a social outcast, perhaps because of the “family life” Jesus later describes in full. Think about it: Noon is not the optimal time for a trip to the village well, if you live in the desert. Most would want to go in the cooler hours at dawn or dusk. Whether by her choice, because she dreaded the judgments of others, or by their choice, this woman was consigned to go when she would be alone. An hour later, she had cast aside all worries about judgments of others. She ran into her village eager to speak with everyone. She had news that overcame all fear of negative reaction. She had to tell about living water. A spirit satisfied by that water, a quenched spirit, does not experience one iota of stress about anyone else’s judgment.
Most of us share the apprehension the Samaritan woman began with about the judgments of others. A friend in this parish has shared her frustration over remembering with regularity a case in which a neighbor wrongly accused her of having something to do with the dog getting out. She can’t keep this wrongful accusation from revisiting her mind again and again. Now wrongful accusations like this are one kettle of fish. Well-founded judgments are a whole different kettle of fish. Sometimes, the person we have injured is able to express forgiveness, but we still have trouble forgiving ourselves. I still get sick thinking about someone’s very rightful indignation when I failed at age 14 to give my mother a phone message. The caller wanted her daughter to be picked up for some volunteer service, and her daughter was left waiting. She was sure her daughter would be dissuaded from volunteering ever again. I can only hope she is over the experience by now. You can see that I am NOT.
Just possibly, the source of our trouble in forgiving ourselves is our oldest enemy: death. This may sound extreme, but think about it. Envision life like a basketball game. If there were no time clock, would we stress over muffing a shot every now and then? I don’t think so. We’d just plan to make a basket on the next try, or the next, or the next. But we are painfully aware that there is a clock on this experience. If you are thinking that you are free from all fear of death, be careful. The fear of death adopts many disguises. Consider the source of all these anxious questions: When will my time come? Will I find the right mate? Will I ever get anywhere in my job? OR from the other side of the timeline: Why does the world act like my time has passed? Did I pick the right mate? Have I accomplished anything in my work? Don’t these anxious questions all stem from the same apprehension? We are painfully aware that the clock will strike midnight, and this ball will be over. When it is, we want to feel like we have accomplished something. We want to feel like we have danced, and danced well. I don’t believe for a minute that God has anything against dancing, or dancing well. And God hopes for us to accomplish, but for the sake of the Kingdom, not for the sake of some personal legacy that we hope can reach past our mortality.
I had a sobering experience about legacy as a salve for healing the distress we feel over our mortality. I was in a small group here at church, and someone’s name came up, someone whose ashes are now in our Columbarium. It’s someone I think of as a defining part of Trinity Cathedral, just as “permanent” as the stained glass windows we talk about taking with us should we rebuild. I was startled when none of the eight or so others present knew this name. Of course, we want our community to continually change and grow. Water is not living water unless it is constantly flowing, flowing to more and more new people. But I was nonetheless shocked at how quickly the cast can change. What we say on Ash Wednesday really is true: We ARE dust, and to dust we shall return.
A fully quenched spirit, one that has drunk freely from the living water Jesus promised, must be OK with that. There is an inescapable sadness around the leave-taking of death. Jesus cried at the grave of Lazarus, so we know there are holy tears to be shed. But a fully quenched spirit must be free from all the added anxieties we attach to the experience. What can we learn from the Samaritan woman that can help us progress toward quenching our spiritual thirst?
She reminds us of one of those lessons that is so basic we are at risk of skipping it as we search for advanced understanding. All those anxieties I’ve listed really stem from our desire to be loved. We care about the judgments of others because we want to be loved; and we dread death, because we want to be loved forever. This must not be bad. We seem to have been designed with the desire to be loved and to be loved forever. The experience of the Samaritan woman reminds us of this basic fact: If we want to feel really and truly loved, we have to be really and truly known. That happened in her encounter with Jesus: She was known and accepted for exactly who she was. Jesus told her of all the things that made her a social outcast, and he was not fazed in the least. To the shock of his disciples, he put aside all social taboos and chatted with her like his best friend. Men were not to speak with women, and Jews were not to speak with Samaritans. The remnants of the northern tribes had intermarried with others to produce the Samaritan residents, and that meant compromising of Jewish tenets.
What happened at the well is the Gospel in nutshell. The love that brought us into being, chose to become our best friend, to fully know our condition, and to love us, just as we are. We can’t feel really loved, loved in a way that quenches our anxieties, until we feel really known. Ironically, we are often drawn to behave counterproductively. We present the person we think others will love, even if that is a false image. Any resulting love does not quench the spirit. It misses our hearts, which remain hidden. Any time spent “people-pleasing” is thirsty time.
If the church is anything, it should be a place where we can safely gain skill in being known and sharing true love. We have the well; we have the Good News that our creator has chosen to be our best friend. And we have the tools to draw from that well. We have small groups in which we can practice being known in a safe setting. We have private confession, named Reconciliation of a Penitent in the Prayer Book, for those cases when some part of our past is producing such shame that we need to hear words of eternal acceptance. We have the well, and we have the tools. May we at Trinity Cathedral draw from that well ever more fully, until those who visit here are moved to exclaim: “These people have a spring, a spring that is gushing to eternal life.”