Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church
Lake Worth, FL

The Eve of Lent 3 [Feb. 26, 2005]

Canon Richard T. Nolan

Thirst For A “Rush” (revised 2002 homily)

A few years ago when teaching one of my college classes, we were discussing mental and physical health as an issue of individual moral responsibility. The exploration took an unexpected direction when a student consensus seemed to emerge that unnecessary risk taking and the resulting “rush” were more important than considering possible side effects and negative - even disastrous - consequences. There were no clear-cut explanations for the thirst for repeated rushes, the continual quest for highs, and the repetitive search for peak experiences. The class pointed out that for people of all ages there are several methods for bringing on some kind of rush, such as the use of various chemicals, engaging in certain sports such as boxing and sky diving, or watching a game such as the Super Bowl.

After class, my mind jumped to the many other activities in which a few participate and many watch intently. The public jumps from holiday to holiday, from game to game, from concert to concert, from fair to fair, from movie to movie with an unquenchable thirst for increasingly exhilarating entertainment. So-called reality television has become popular. The riskier and more heart pounding the event, all the better. Get that adrenaline rush going!

I later recalled a mediocre college dean. He actually created so many battles that the faculty recognized his personal preference for combat. Regrettably, his style was “management by crisis.” When things were going well, the faculty just waited. We knew that peace could not last; we would not be able to focus on our teaching for long. When he needed another fix, he would create unnecessary wars.

Even some religious groups try to market their ministries by “feel good” standards. As one clergyman’s wife cynically commented to me about their congregation: “They just want to be entertained and get high on whatever they think is ‘spirituality.’ To have a successful church, you have to have gimmicks, toys, lots of busy activities, and tell them they’re O.K. However, no matter what, do not challenge their childish beliefs or values. Wave the American flag, smile and hug – do all this, and you’ll have a successful church.” Ironically, some churches do offer an overabundance of groups searching for more and better “spiritualities” – a rush of imaginary holiness.  Never mind that deeper thirsts go unsatisfied!

The sad consequence for those who thirst for one rush after another is that they are never truly satisfied. Their lives are restless, filled with discontent and focused on the next rush – wherever it might be. They cannot be tranquil. Between highs, their way of life feels flat, empty, lonely, and stagnant. They eagerly, even anxiously, await the next performance, the next battle, the next high, the next fix among equally needy individuals. They bond together in a futile pursuit of a powerless savior. Such frustrated individuals and superficial gatherings are the very underpinnings of our culture.

Among the many wonderful meanings of tonight’s scripture reading is the symbol of living waters offered by Christ.  He promises that those who drink of the water he will give them will never be thirsty. Their lives will never feel flat, empty, stagnant, or wanting. They will need no temporary fix, no artificial rush, and no additional sanctity.

I suppose Jesus could have said to the woman at the well a sarcastic “Get a life, lady.” However, he patiently taught her heart, mind, and spirit that there is an alternative to her present unsatisfactory circumstances. A central feature of the story is her search for greater meaning in her life. Meaning is so crucial that there is no satisfaction of thirst without a profound resolution to the quest for meaning.

How do you and I quench our thirst? By desperately gulping at the water? No, we would probably choke. Instead, one’s thirst is truly quenched with one sip at a time - and not all at one sitting. First, we recognize Jesus Christ as God’s Exemplar, as God’s own clue to what life is all about. Second, we choose to accept Jesus’ invitation to live in a mutually caring, ever evolving fellowship with God and neighbor. Third, in a trusting, reverential relationship with the Creator unhurriedly nurtured by prayer and corporate worship, we open ourselves to God’s Spirit - a Spirit that steadily provides us with essential comfort, basic strength, vital love, crucial refreshment, and the greatest joy.

This fellowship among God, neighbor and oneself as lived by Jesus is the Way the Creator intends human beings to live. No longer thirsty, no longer going from rush to rush, no longer feeling alone, we become fully integrated as a whole and unified person, knowing a fulfilled life in all its height and depth and power. We are incorporated - not among a hollow, fanatical, frenzied assembly of pretentious strangers - but within an imperfect people of God, or in other words, the very fallible church.

This is not to say that life then becomes a bed of roses. Even within Christian fellowship there are disappointments, nuisances, uncertainties, a degree of discord, tragedies, and, of course, the separations of death. Additionally, fun-filled recreation is not abandoned; but there is a profound difference between the exhilaration of true recreation and the driven addictions for rushes that cannot satisfy basic thirsts.

So, there they are: the woman at the well and Jesus with his offer of “living waters” – the simple answer to life’s deepest thirsts. Although you and I cannot change the world, or even the small regions in which we move about, we can listen, simply and straightforwardly pray both individually and in this fellowship, share the symbolic bread and wine, and in time and with patience  have our most essential longings satisfied – all by the Way of Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.

John 4:5-42

Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 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." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" Jesus said to her, "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." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."

Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?" Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something." But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done." So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world."