March 10, 1996	Only a Drink of Water	Exodus 17:1-7

Romans 5:1-11

John 4:5-26

Our Old Testament lesson for today talks about how the people of God were out in the desert after leaving Egypt. Now, you would have thought that after all those plagues that God brought down on the Egyptians, and after the experience of the Passover with the death of Egypt's first born, and after walking through the parted waters of the Red Sea; and then seeing the army of the Pharaoh get wiped out, to top it off, the Israelites would have really been convinced that God was with them and that Moses was their man. But it didn't work out that way. In fact, if there is a lesson in this at all, it is this: people are fickle. People have very short memories. And, what's more, and as many a leader, rock star, actor, used car salesman, and preacher has learned, once you start doing amazing things, you better keep it up, or else.

That's what Moses found out, anyway. You would have thought the Israelites would have given him a rest. But, no. As they started to make their way through the dessert, they began to realize that the place they were in was a dry, barren, arid, nasty place. And they also realized that their water supply was limited. So, they started to panic. And although they probably had enough water to last them a couple of weeks, they came to Moses in their panic and let him have it: "What are you trying to do, kill us? You get us out of Egypt where we at least had something to eat and drink so that we can die of thirst?"

So, you can imagine what poor old Moses must have been thinking about this time. He'd put a lot of prayer, not to mention blood, sweat, and tears into getting the people of Israel into this place. God had been faithful! It had been one miracle after another. But, now the people were about ready to stone him for a lousy drink of water.

Sometimes we as God's people, in the midst of our own wildernesses, panic just like the people of Israel did in that dessert so long ago. I find it interesting to note that our Old Testament passage starts out with these words: "The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the Lord commanded." Did you hear that? The people of God, in the Wilderness, were in the Desert of Sin."

Now, I realize that the name of the desert they were in, "Sin," doesn't mean "sin" or "transgression," in Hebrew. It only has this meaning for us in the English language. In Hebrew the word "Sin" probably refers to the race of the people who lived in the area, similar to the word, "Canaanite." But, still, to say that the people of God were in the desert of Sin does provoke my imagination a little bit. For, indeed, it suggests that even though God may have done marvelous things for us in the past, we may still, on more than one occasion, find ourselves yet in a dessert of Sin: unhappy, dissatisfied, nit-picking, afraid of the future, faithless, and without any confidence in the God who had brought us thus far to sustain and nurture us in the days ahead. And even though we've seen miracles take place before our very eyes as we have been led by that God of faith, we all have yearned more than once to go back to Egypt, to the way things used to be, back to the '50's, back to the days when people called the '20's the good old days, back to a time when people knew their place, back to the days when everybody went to church, back to the days when farming is what most people did for a living, back to the days when families were a mom and a dad and a few kids, back to the days when bombs could only kill just a few people at a time instead of tens of thousands of people, back to the days when cars cost only $2,000 instead of $20,000, back to the days when a contract consisted of a handshake, back to the days when Dad brought home the bacon and Mom cooked it, back to the days when church was the only place people went to on Sunday.

Like those people of God in the desert of Sin, we want to go back. But there's no turning back. There's no turning around. There's only the future that is before us. And, unlike those people in the desert of Sin, we have got to believe that God is with us. We have got to believe that God is even now looking after us and preparing a way for us, even leading us into the future. We have got to resist the temptation to turn around and go back; because if we continue our walk with God who leads us into the future, it is only then that we can explore the miracles God has waiting for us. You don't want to miss them, children of God! you don't want to miss those miracles, O Israel! So, unlike those people in the desert of Sin – have faith!

I'm reminded of a little poem that came out of a Christian magazine:

Doubt sees the obstacles,

Faith sees the way!

Doubt sees the darkest night,

Faith sees the day!

Doubt dreads to take a step,

Faith soars on high!

Doubt questions, "Who believes?"

Faith answers, "I!"

Now, in this story of the people of God who were out there in the dessert of Sin, grumbling and murmuring together because of the hardships they feared, there is one thing that we should always remember: God had not forgotten them. And as Moses was at wit's end about what to do with these people, we need to remember that God had not forgotten him, either. Indeed, if the people of Israel had been people of faith and confident in God, I really believe that they would have found water. They really didn't need to go through all the hysteria they went through. God would have provided. They really didn't have to go to Moses and threaten to stone him. God would have given them the things they needed. And that's what believe in our own lives, as well, isn't it? As it was, Moses had to go to God in fervent prayer, asking God to give him a miracle. And, so, God told him what to do. He told Moses to take the stick he had used to part the waters of the Red Sea and hit a rock near the base of Mt. Sinai. And, so, that's what he did. He hit a rock, a chunk broke off, and water started to flow out of the rock. Shazam! A miracle before their very eyes. Moses was a hero, again, at least for another day or so, and tragedy was averted.

The thing we really need to remember about this, however, is that God would have provided this water to the people of Israel without the hysteria, without the fuss, without the murmuring, and without the threatening. All they would have had to do is trust in God. Any one of them could have hit that rock. The water was there all the time. In fact, that's how people get water in the Sinai, today.

What a lesson of faith this is for us! When we go through life and we meet an obstacle, do we panic or do we put our faith in God? When we get sick and have to go to the hospital, or when we lose a loved one, do we insist that we're all alone, or do we trust in a God who will never let us go? When it looks like we're not going to have enough money to pay the bills, do we think that it's the end, or do we put our faith in God who continues to find a way? In the face of trouble, obstacles, or change, do we grumble or do we put our trust in God?

Our Gospel lesson for today, like our Old Testament lesson, was about water, and about faith, and about God's grace as well. Here, Jesus is, walking through Samaria. And as he passes by a town he comes to the town's well were there's a woman drawing water from the well. And he asks the woman to give him some water from the well.

Now, today, we might think that this shouldn't have been any big deal. The traveler's thirsty, so he stops at a well for water, asks a woman for water, she gives him some, and he drinks it. It should be as simple as that. You'd think so, but life isn't always as simple as God would like it to be. In fact, we human beings have a way of making it pretty complicated, at times. Getting a drink of water in the places and days of Jim Crow could be a fairly complicated procedure. It didn't have to be that way, except for the fact that people just do these things to each other in order to keep things the way they like them. And getting a job shouldn't be all that difficult. Except here we are in the 1990's and statistics prove that women continue to earn less for the same job than men. And getting to your job shouldn't be a difficult thing, unless you live in the Gaza Strip and work in Tel Aviv, or live in Detroit and have to take the bus to Burmingham, or live in Monroe and have to walk or ride a bicycle out to the Frenchtown mall, everyday. You know, that's something we don't always think about: But try to go to the grocery store without a car, or from here to the closest bank without a car. Life shouldn't be difficult, but it is. And sometimes it is difficult simply because someone else wants to make sure you know your place.

It wasn't easy for Jesus to get a drink of water, that day. Why? Because Jesus wasn't a Samaritan – he was a Jew. I was watching C-Span the other day. There are some pretty interesting things on C-Span. The program I was a live call-in program featuring the editor of the Washington Review and an economist from New York. They were taking calls on the telephone from viewers around the country, answering their questions about the nation's economy. And I'll never forget: One of the calls they got was from a man who asked, "Why is it that more Jews get on as guests on C-Span than others?" The caller said he'd been keeping track of how many Jews had been on C-Span in the past few months. And the program's moderator asked the caller, "How do you know who is a Jew and who isn't?" And the caller said, "By their names, by the way they look, and by the way they act." And the moderator had to confess that as the host of the show he had never kept track of who was Jewish or not, because to him it just didn't matter. But, it is amazing how whether you're Jewish or not is still important to a lot of people in our country and in our world, today, even 2,000 years after Jesus had trouble getting a drink of water because he was a Jew.

But, there he was at the well, without a thing to draw water, asking the Samaritan woman for a drink. And she asked him, "How can you ask me for a drink?"

It was in this encounter that Jesus was able to talk about another kind of water: the kind that comes from God – the living water – a water that brings life – a water that quenches thirst forever – a water that never runs out from a well that never runs dry. And he told her that this was a water that is available to all persons without price, whether they were Jewish or Gentile, Black or white, Hindu or Moslem, male or female, young or old, Catholic or Protestant. And this water, given to all, is nothing other than the grace of God.

The well of God's grace is still flowing freely for us, today. And, yet, we still need to practice drawing from that well, not only for ourselves, but for others, too. For the grace God gives to us is a grace that we must share. Just as God gives us grace, we give grace to one another, freely, without price, without expecting anything in return.

Amen.