My family enjoys taking an annual trip to Lewey Lake St. Park in the Adirondacks. I think it is a wonderful place. The park has lots of lake front campsites; you can launch a canoe or rowboat right from your campsite. There are few bugs. And since it is a small lake there are almost no power boats on it. It is peaceful and calm.
Maybe you like camping. Maybe you don’t, but I imagine most people’s ideas about retirement are a lot like Lewey Lake. The place is nice and relaxing. If the weather is nice and you want to take a walk or go for a canoe ride on the lake you can. If the weather is bad you don’t have to. If you want to sit back and do absolutely nothing, you can do that. You can do what you feel like doing, and only what you feel like doing whenever you want to.
Perhaps that is people’s ideas of retirement, but inasmuch as it is within their power, those not yet retired would love to have the same thing. It seems to be part of our human nature that we like to make things easy and convenient for ourselves. What is the trend in building houses? Do we build them with less and less conveniences and comforts? No, we forever add more. It used to be that a house was simply a structure of wood and stone. Then people started adding pipes for plumbing – so they didn’t have to go outside for the bathroom. Then wiring for electricity and pipes for natural gas. Then phone lines. Then TV cable. Now we add computer access and wireless technology too. We try to make everything easier, more comfortable and more convenient.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love waking up in the middle of winter in a house with a furnace that has kept me warm all night, stepping on a cozy carpeted floor, flipping a switch to have the lights come on, and on and on go the comforts. But I think we run the risk of making life and “progress” be all about ever more conveniences. And if we do that we run the same risk in our lives of faith; thinking that somehow things should be forever getting better and more convenient.
Lewey Lake in the Adirondacks is a calm lake. The water isn’t exactly stagnant, but there is no noticeable current. If the campsites were along a raging river you can be sure I wouldn’t find it so nice.
In our gospel reading Jesus meets a woman by a well. A well is of course a man-made thing in order to make getting water easier. If you live somewhere and you don’t want to have to walk to a stream to get water you dig a deep hole. Hopefully you reach water, and if you do you now have water where you want it. Jesus says to the woman that he will give her living water, not water from a well. And if you remember last week’s gospel reading where Nicodemus the Pharisee meets Jesus at night time you’ll remember that Jesus uses many words with double meanings. He says to Nicodemus that he must be born again, or born from above – same word in Greek but with two meanings. Nicodemus takes the wrong meaning.
Here again in this week’s gospel reading are words with double meanings. Jesus says he will give this woman living water, which also means flowing water, not stagnant. The water in that well was basically stagnant. Jesus says, “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.” (vs. 13-14)
Now of course the woman, being like all human beings and wanting things to be comfortable and convenient for her says, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” This is funny because we know Jesus is talking spiritually and this woman is taking him literally, but do you see how her first thought is to take the goodness of Jesus and domesticate it to make her life easier for her? She wants to take the living water and have it be her own private little source of tap water in her kitchen where she can turn it on when convenient and turn it off when convenient. But is this what Jesus intends? Nope. Like much of the gospel of John the story unfolds in a somewhat comic way as the discussion turns to this woman’s husband – or perhaps we should say her lack of a current husband – in light of her regular stream of husbands.
We could get side tracked on this whole husbands issue, and it could be quite amusing, but to keep moving on, notice that Jesus never actually criticizes her. Whatever her past may be, it is a side issue that Jesus only uses to reveal that he has special knowledge of her. And through this the proverbial light bulb goes on in her head. She starts to put it all together. She realizes what Jesus is talking about. The spring of living water begins to well up within her. The conversation continues and she understands.
As proof of her understanding when the bungling disciples return she goes off to tell others about Jesus, and she leaves her water jug behind. So much for her need of water from the well! So much for her need to domesticate the world into a calm pond where she can take out her canoe when she feels like it. A new and living force is driving her. It is untamed. It is unpredictable. But it is very joyful. Something greater and even more important than the need for water has come up. It is the need to spread the word about the arrival of Jesus and the spring of living water that he brings.
I think our first choice would be to have life along a lake where we can put the canoe in when we feel like it, but not if we don’t feel like it. Sometimes I fear many people put their whole lives into making the world a calm pond for them to play in. And it spills over into the spirituality too. They’d rather worship stagnant water, rather than living water. Stagnant water is safe, contained, convenient and controllable. Moving water is not. Just ask the people of Japan.
Following Christ is a very convenient thing if the water is stagnant. You can take your canoe of faith out when it suits you and when the weather is nice. And if it doesn’t suit you then you can stay on shore and do what you like. Many people would love to have faith in Christ be like this.
But Jesus did not say, “I come to bring you stagnant water.” Stagnant water just grows algae and starts to smell. And Jesus did not say, “I come to give you a lakeside life where all is convenient.” He said, “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
Jesus speaks of a lively and dynamic life of faith. It is one of adventures and challenges, joys and tragedies. And it is one of unexpected surprises. Who’d have thought something would come up that is so important that a person in need of water would set that aside to do something else. God is up to the same sort of unpredictable things all the time. Don’t miss them by confusing convenience and comfort with Godliness.
Though we may tame everything in our lives, God remains untamed. May the spring of living water that our God uses to nourish each of us flow with abundance in your life so that you may never be thirsty. Amen
