TRANSCRIPT
The Israelite’s complaint didn’t seem so bad. All they wanted was a little bit of water. Give us water to drink, they said. Moses’ answer kind of seemed a little harsh, didn’t it? “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” All they wanted was a little water.
Maybe I’ll try that response the next time my kids ask me for a little water, or a toy, or something like that. “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” Seems a little extreme, doesn’t it? I mean, they’re in the desert. All they wanted was a little water.
Moses, though, knows his people better than we do. Moses knows his congregation, as they’re called in verse one. The people he was to shepherd to the promised land. Moses knows there’s more to their request than just a little thirst. It wasn’t just water they wanted, but it was a deeper thirst. They longed for the comforts of Egypt. They had just been released. They were wandering, and they wanted comfort.
The word of the place where we find them in our Old Testament lesson clues us in to what’s going on here. “Rephidim.” That means to give support or to give refreshment. They had come to the place called “refreshment” or “support” and their God had no water for them. They were angered. They wanted comfort, and God had not jumped at their request as they thought he should.
Some god you are!
So it wasn’t just a request for water. Yes, that’s what they asked for, but under that request was a question, accusing God of not being the true God. Moses told the people his name, “I am,” the name that he heard at the burning bush. Now “I am” is worthless to the people. He had let them down. He, apparently, is no better than Egypt, where they had Rephidim. Where they had refreshment.
They said to Moses, “have you brought us and our children and our livestock out here to die?” All they wanted was a little water.
But isn’t that how it always starts? Isn’t that how it just begins? Just a little water, that’s all they wanted. But Moses knows there’s something far more sinister laying under the surface of this seemingly harmless request. There was doubt of God and trust in a false god.
They were looking for comfort from Egypt. They tried to quench their insatiable thirst for righteousness by bowing down and becoming slaves again. It’s a wonder that God didn’t just give them what they wanted. Send them back. Ungrateful people.
Well, the woman too at the well. All she wanted was a little water. But her desires had already drowned her in sin. Just like the Israelites, she too had a deep desire to be taken care of. While Israel had thoughts of finding satisfaction in slavery in Egypt, this woman tried finding satisfaction in multiple husbands. Their sin was the same.
Turning from trust in God, the Great I Am, and the things that he provides and looking to things or people in this life, rather than fearing and trusting in God alone and repenting. St. Paul, in our second reading, says we should rejoice in our suffering.
But what do we do? We suffer a little and we bite, we scratch, and we scream, “How dare you God?”
Jesus came to the well too and what did He ask for? All He wanted was a little water. There, though, was the Samaritan woman. And she, of course, is suspicious. “This is not how things normally work, how is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?”
If she’d have known that this was the true God-of-God, Light-of-Light, maybe a more appropriate question is, “how is it that you, true God, even approach me, a dead sinner?”
God appeared to Moses in the bush when Moses was not looking for him. This woman too, running from her sin, perhaps not even knowing it, she is also surprised by the Great I Am. She isn’t nearly as impressed as Moses was when he saw the burning bush. Jesus answered her, “if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, ‘give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.”
If you knew.
But, she doesn’t. So she, still not getting Jesus water, she points out the obvious. She doubts God. “You’ve nothing to draw water with. Are you better than our father Jacob who drank from this well, and watered his cows?” Little does she know that this Jew is better than Jacob. This is the very one who put Jacob’s hip out of socket. The one who gave Jacob the name Israel. Little does she know that this Jew knows her better than she realizes.
At this well is just plain water, Jesus says. All the places you’ve been running to find satisfaction, those are all just plain water, Jesus says. Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water I will give will never be thirsty again. The water I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
The woman said to him, “sir, give me this water so I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” Jesus now makes it evident that even though she doesn’t know Him, He knows her. Even more, and perhaps just a little scary, Jesus knows her better than she knows herself.
And Jesus knows you too. Jesus knows us. Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves. And where we have maybe become comfortable with sin, Jesus knows. Jesus knows what she and us need, even if we don’t. Jesus even knows how this woman has attempted to quench her thirst, and He knows how you have attempted to quench your thirst as well.
The Samaritan woman tried to quench the same thirst the Israelites had, yet instead of Egypt it was a husband. Call your husband come here. The woman answered, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “you’re right in saying, ‘I have no husband,’ for you’ve had five husbands and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
The woman said back to Jesus, “keep your religion out of my bedroom!” How unloving, Jesus. How unkind. All she wanted was a little comfort, a little security in this world. But Jesus is a better shepherd than we are. This woman had tried, time and time again, to find something to quench her heart and soul. Perhaps she was satisfied for a while. But then she realizes that even to quench her deepest thirst with a gift of God, instead of God himself, is worthless. It must be quenched by God himself.
And so we too run around, we long for Egypt, we long for husbands. We too settle not for mister right, but mister right-now. There’s no shortage of places where we run to quench our most deep thirst.
Or perhaps you’re more holy than the Samaritan woman. Perhaps your sins aren’t as public as hers. Maybe you bed down with your pride and your anger. Gossip – that’s easy to have an affair with, no one even knows it except God.
How about now, with our panicking? The whole world seems to be going out of control. The panic is spreading through this world, searching for God to save them. To cleanse this world. How quickly we as Christians even forget how vulnerable we are to death and financial collapse. How we have become like the woman at the well. Like Israel. Comfortably trusting that we have control over our sin, that we have control over this fallen world, control over finances. And God uses a virus to wake us up.
The Old Testament and the ancient church is familiar with words like quarantine and viruses and diseases. God uses these diseases to teach people about sin. Are you heeding God’s call to repent in all of this madness?
Jesus told the woman at the well, “stop sinning.” Her sin of adultery was like a sickness eating her from the inside. Jesus tells her to stop and He tells you to stop as well. To repent.
What sins do you harbor? Maybe it’s everyone else. Maybe you’re the only one who’s not sick. Your sin will rot you out. If you’re constantly blaming others you’re just like the woman trying to fool God. You’re sicker than you realize. When you’re sick, only a fool would spread their illness. Sin is like that – it spreads.
It effects other people’s spiritual walk. Like this woman, going from one man to the next. Or maybe each man using her and abusing her. Our request for a cure to Coronavirus could be just like the people asked for water. All we want is a cure.
A cure comes, the problem de jour ends, and you are off again, refusing to repent. Refusing to see who it is that tells you today to repent.
Jesus knows your thirst. He knows exactly what you need and that’s why He’s here. He is giving to you today, to the weary. Notice, He did not cast the woman out but called her to come even more unto Him. To trust Him even more. To forsake herself. To forsake her husbands. To trust in Him.
Jesus is the one who shows mercy, not to the proud, not to the angry, not to those who are satisfied. But He shows mercy to the thirsty. He knows what you need and at the font of your baptism He made a promise deeper than any marriage vow. A vow that continues so that death may not even part you from Him.
If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is speaking to you today, you would ask Him to nourish your thirst with His body and blood. Crucified for you. For there is our husband. The one who takes care of us. Who purchased us with His own blood.
So yes, God takes the blame for the lack of refreshment at Rephidim. He didn’t instruct Moses to strike the people, but he said strike the rock. And so yes, God takes the blame. Moses strikes the rock, but not the people. And St. Paul tells us that rock is Christ – not literally, but also not just figuratively. For ultimately, our Lord is struck. And what flows from His side for all people, especially sinners?
The water of eternal life. For you. For me. Yes, Christ takes the blame for the Israelites accusing God for not taking care of them. Christ takes the blame for your grumbling against God, your grumbling against one another. On His body and blood bear the marks of your sin. And He takes them and dies with them.
He is struck by the Father so that you would find Rephidim. Today, hear His absolution – your sins are forgiven. Drink deeply from this well. Let that same water flow from you.
And when your sinful flesh gets you thirsty for the things of this world, when your pride rears it’s ugly head, when you refuse to acknowledge your own sin, when you begin to grumble against the Great I Am, or grumble about your neighbor, return to Him. He will not strike you with His rod. Because what does He say? My rod and my staff, they comfort you.
Confess your sin, for His well never runs out of forgiveness. His body and blood always ready to quench you, even during a pandemic. He knows what you face. The journey is too hard to go it alone. So He will meet you at His well. He will give you what you need and quench your deepest thirst as we wander through this desert together as a congregation, as the people of God scattered throughout the whole world.
Our shepherd brings us into the promised land.