Quenching Our Thirst in the Wilderness

Exodus 17: 1-7 & John 4: 5-30 & 39-42

Roger Lynn

February 28, 2016

3rd Sunday in Lent

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

As we journey deeper into this season of Lent, wilderness emerges as a prominent theme. It is a powerful metaphor for faithful living - a place where danger and challenge seem to wait around every corner, and yet also a place where the presence of the Spirit can surprise us, precisely because it is outside of our normal, predictable routines. It is not necessarily a place we would choose to travel, but it can be a life-changing experience for those who do.

Wilderness can take a variety of forms. It can be any experience which moves us beyond the boundaries of our comfort zone. Wherever we find ourselves overwhelmed by forces which seem beyond our control can be a wilderness experience for us. It will be different for each of us. For some it takes the form of a relationship that always seems to keep us off balance and in the grip of turmoil. For others it comes as a painful illness or debilitating physical condition. The death of a loved one can thrust us suddenly into a wilderness experience. Sometimes wilderness can be an unsatisfying job, while for others it is the struggle of unemployment. Often our wilderness experiences directly impact our faith experience - a “dark night of the soul” time when God seems nowhere to be found.  

In all of the various forms it can take in our lives, many of us resonate with this idea of wilderness. If you do not yet know what it is to feel as if you are lost and alone and forgotten, then the chances are very good that at some point in your life you will. And, as with all those in scripture who find themselves in the midst of a wilderness experience, we have a choice. We can give in to the fear. We can let the darkness sweep over us. Or we can remember that even in the wilderness we are never alone. If we will pay attention, we can discover that in the very midst of the “wildness” of such experiences God’s presence can come alive for us in powerful new ways which would never have been possible had we stayed in the easy, comfortable circumstances of our ordinary routines. What is required is that we let go of the illusion that it is possible to be “in control” and “self-sufficient.” Wilderness is a place where we can get lost, but it is also a place where we can be found. Lent is a season when we can spend some time reflecting on our wilderness experiences and pay attention to the ways in which God might be meeting us here.

One of the characteristics of a literal wilderness experience is often the seeming scarcity of water. Here in this part of the world that might be the challenge of finding safe, drinkable water. Certainly in the part of the world where much of the Bible was originally written it would have been simply the scarcity of water in any form, drinkable or not. And this search for a source of water offers a powerful metaphor for our ongoing quest to quench our spiritual thirst for connection and meaning in our lives. Just as we need water to survive and when we can’t find it we can easily begin to panic, so also fear and panic can easily set in when we lose sight of all the ways in which our life is sustained and nourished by God, not just in this moment but in every moment.

The Hebrew people in the wilderness with Moses reveal this danger over and over again. On a regular basis they follow the predictable pattern of finding themselves faced with some hardship, at which point they panic and begin to complain to Moses. “Why did you bring us here to die?” In the particular case presented in our reading for this morning, the subject was water. They needed it and they weren’t finding it. Please note that this is not an inconsequential concern. The point of the story is not that they were worried about nothing. The point is that they lost sight of the ongoing presence of God in their lives. Over and over again they were supported by the abundance of God. And over and over again they forgot and started to panic. Even in the wilderness there is abundance, the story tells us. But all too often our fears and our limited perceptions of the world around us prevent us from experiencing that abundance. 

The 12th-century Sufi poet Rumi described such an experience this way:

Late,

by myself,

in the boat of myself,

no light and no land anywhere.

Cloud cover thick

I try to stay just above the surface.

Yet I’m already under

and living within

The Ocean.

In the Gospel story about Jesus and the woman at the well we find a different sort of wilderness - a different take on water, scarcity and abundance. It would have been a wilderness experience for Jesus because it was a situation beyond the boundaries of his cultural comfort zone. This story takes place in Samaria, home to a people despised by the Jews. They represented a corruption of the true faith, and contact with them was to be avoided whenever possible. In addition, the person with whom Jesus engages in conversation was a woman. Men and women did not easily interact in that culture. And the final straw would have been that she had a bad reputation. No one with any self-respect would have been seen talking to her. There was a reason why she was alone at the well in the middle of the day, instead of gathered with the other women early in the morning. And this is who Jesus is talking to! In the wilderness of that socially awkward and uncomfortable encounter, there would have been no water to be found, literal or metaphorical, if Jesus had been limited by the usual culturally imposed barriers. But because he chose to look beyond those barriers, an experience of the living waters of the Sacred Presence took place there in that wilderness.

The abundance of God is all around us. The waters of God’s grace surround us, and, indeed, as Rumi reminds us, completely envelop us, in every moment of every day. And the only way to truly quench our thirst is when we take the risk of moving beyond our fear. In another of Rumi’s poems, he invites us to “move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.” In the wilderness experiences of your living, where will you look to find spiritual water for your thirsty soul? Will you trust God enough to expect it in unexpected places?