All the action in this week’s Old Testament and gospel texts is centered around access to water. Of course, in the Holy Land’s arid climate potable water was (and is) a precious and scarce commodity -- powerful enough to cause civic unrest in its absence (Exodus) and to bring together for a momentous encounter people who otherwise would have little in common and would even be unlikely to cross paths (John). While few things in ancient times were more important than access to water, team member Mary Austin points out in this installment of The Immediate Word that we modern folk think we live in a very different environment. We usually assume there’s an endless supply of water flowing from our taps -- until we discover that we too can be subject to the same vagaries of water availability. That uncomfortable reality has been brought home recently for many by historic levels of drought in California, and by the experience of those living in Charleston, West Virginia, and vicinity, whose lives were completely disrupted earlier this year when chemical leaks made their water unsafe for weeks, leading to continuing health worries. It seems that even when we believe that we have an abundance of water, there are all too many reasons why we find ourselves dry and thirsty -- both literally and figuratively. As Mary notes, that’s a significant contrast to the “living water” Jesus describes to the Samaritan woman. There’s always plenty of it and it will never leave us thirsty... if we allow ourselves to drink of it and break free of petty societal arguments about who should or shouldn’t get access to it. God gives us the water we need -- if, like the woman at the well, we are open to it -- and it flows just as freely as the water released from the rock at Horeb. Mary highlights numerous homiletical themes raised by the gospel story, and by access to water that we all too often take for granted.
Team member Leah Lonsbury shares some additional thoughts on the lectionary texts, and she wonders if we are truly paying attention to the signs God is giving us -- like producing water from the rock and Jesus speaking to a foreign woman -- and whether we are sufficiently caring for his creation extolled by the Psalmist. It appeared that some senators tried to do their part last week with an all-night filibuster/“teach-in” discussing the coming threat of global climate change. But upon closer inspection, Leah suggests, it appears to be more meaningless political theater, as follow-up action is notably absent. Even if our elected representatives seem not to be taking stewardship of God’s creation seriously, are we paying attention to the signs? Or are we, as Psalm 95 puts it, hardening our hearts and becoming “a people whose hearts go astray, and [who] do not regard [God’s] ways”? And, Leah pointedly asks, what other signs in our lives are we looking for... or ignoring?
Water, Water, Everywhere?
by Mary Austin
John 4:5-42
The old song says that “you never miss the water until the well runs dry,” and it speaks of both physical and emotional thirst. Standing at the well in Sychar, Jesus promises that everyone who drinks of the water he offers will never be thirsty again. His offer of living water would be most welcome to people affected by drought in California and by chemical contamination in West Virginia. Clean water is a gift we take for granted -- until there’s a problem. Jesus’ promise of water as a place of God’s flowing grace points us to our deep need for water, both physical and spiritual.
In the World
Writing for Politico, David Dayen calls our climate “increasingly biblical,” with storms, floods, and drought all taking center stage, depending on where you live. In California, currently experiencing a severe water shortage, Dayen writes that “the immediate impacts of this drought herald a disaster. The past year has been the driest in California’s recorded history, perhaps the worst since 1580, hearkening back to the mega-droughts of an earlier age. A series of recent storms in the northern part of the state doubled the available snowpack, but with three straight years of drought, that snowpack remains around one-fourth of the normal amount (you would need rain or snow every other day until May to catch up). The California Drought Monitor shows ‘severe drought’ conditions in 90 percent of the state, particularly in the agriculturally rich Central Valley, sometimes nicknamed the nation’s salad bowl.” The lack of water imperils farmers, and is also threatening to leave communities without drinking water. With limited grass, some producers are selling livestock early, and migrant workers will find fewer places to work this year. Farming is 3 percent of the state’s economy, according to the article, but uses 80 percent of the water resources.
All through the West, access to water creates bitter fights, pitting farmers against other businesses, and cities against each other. The New York Times reports that “years of persistent drought are now intensifying those struggles, and the explosive growth -- and thirst -- of Western cities and suburbs is raising their stakes to an entirely new level. In southern Texas, along the Gulf coast southwest of Houston, the state has cut off deliveries of river water to rice farmers for three years to sustain reservoirs that supply booming Austin, about 100 miles upstream. In Nevada, a coalition ranging from environmentalists to the Utah League of Women Voters filed federal lawsuits last month seeking to block a pipeline that would supply Las Vegas with groundwater from an aquifer straddling the Nevada-Utah border.” Colorado, Arizona, Kansas, and Nebraska are experiencing similar battles.
And in West Virginia, thousands of people have questionable water after a chemical spill in early January. Officials have declared the water safe to drink, but two months later many people still have doubts. Heather Rogers writes in Rolling Stone about people like Sharon Satterfield, who is a “fifth-generation native of the Appalachian Kanawha River region (known as Chemical Valley). Satterfield has always used the water for everything. But even with the official go-ahead having been given several weeks ago, she refuses to drink it. Nor will she brush her teeth with it or shower in it; she won’t run a load of laundry. She even refuses to mop the floor with the water. ‘It’s sad,’ she says, her eyes tired. ‘All my life, with all the chemical plants, Carbide, DuPont, and all the rest, we’ve never had a problem like this.’ ”
Satterfield and her family live in a way that would be familiar to people in developing countries, driving distances to get water, doing laundry at someone else’s home, and refilling water containers when they can. “Like thousands of families in the area, the Satterfields now live virtually without running water. Life in West Virginia wasn’t all that easy to begin with. It is the third poorest state in the country; almost 18 percent of its population lives below the poverty line. Many people in the spill zone are now spending a chunk of their paychecks simply to have access to clean water -- a necessity so fundamental it’s one that people in a developed country should expect.”
In the Scriptures
Speaking to this unnamed woman at the well, Jesus understands the value of water as a physical gift, and a spiritual one. Knowing how scarce and precious water is, Jesus announces to the woman that he is the source of water that can never run out. Water is essential for life in this dry country, but Jesus goes even further, proclaiming that he is refreshment for the spirit as well as the body.
Life begins in water -- the watery chaos of creation; the water of baptism; and, for this woman, the water of the village well. In the Bible, wells are meeting places -- Jacob and his brides, Moses and his wife, Hagar and the angel. This woman has come to get water in the heat of the day. Noon is an unusual time to draw water at the village well. Most women came in the cool of the morning and evening to the well, the social center of village life. This woman is alone.
Commentators over the years have found plenty to judge, as perhaps her neighbors did. Preachers have had a field day with this woman and her five husbands, painting her with a short skirt, bright lipstick, and scanty morals, but the reason for the husbands is never given. There was no divorce for women in that day, so a woman with five husbands was either a victim of people abandoning her, or a series of deaths, or the custom of marrying the widow off to next available brother in the family if a husband died. Either way, we see a woman without much choice in her life.
She comes, lost in her own thoughts, and a strange man interrupts her day. She reminds him that Jews (like him) and Samaritans (like herself) don’t usually speak at all.
But Jesus, waiting for the disciples to come back from town with food, asks her for a drink. In that time, before drinking fountains and bottled water, travelers carried a bucket to get water from different wells as they traveled. He asks this woman for a drink, and he tells her that this water is just the beginning of what he can do for her. Water from this well is just a symbol of something bigger -- living water. Jesus offers the woman the promise of new life, a new beginning, no matter what has happened before, and this woman becomes the first evangelist in John’s gospel. The story ends with her surrounded by people, somehow woven back into community life.
In the Sermon
The sermon might look at water itself, and how we too need this precious gift. It might examine how often we mismanage the gifts of God in our lives, and how desperately we need God’s care to make things right. Or it might look at God’s use of water as a gift, contrasted with how we fight over it and grab it from each other.
In the parched desert of Palestine, Jesus describes himself as living water, a precious commodity. The sermon might ask what the equivalent rare gift might be in our lives. The gift of free time, perhaps, or quiet? Spacious peace, or restful sleep? Time with people, free from beeping, flashing, alluring electronic devices?
Or, the sermon might look at the woman’s transformation out of her own life struggles into an evangelist for the good news. For whatever reason, she has the room and time in her life to listen to Jesus -- and in turn, the courage to tell other people about him. Are we most effective when we share with other people out of our successes, or out of our own sorrow and hurts? How do we make room and time to truly encounter new people, as she did for Jesus? What allows us to pass on the good news we experience?
Jesus and this woman somehow manage to connect across the divide of Jewish-Samaritan mistrust. Partly this is Jesus’ gift of seeing past any barrier we can think of, but it also speaks to an open-minded grace on the woman’s part, that she was willing to listen. Have we had similar experiences of God across our own divisions -- gay/straight, old/young, rich/poor, educated/less-educated? How do we open ourselves to people who seem so different? Are our lives constructed so we even meet anyone different from ourselves?
Or, the sermon might look at how we assess each other, without much to go on. The woman has been judged harshly over the years, but we don’t know much about her life. Do we have the same experience with people around us, drawing conclusions and making assessments, when we should be about the work of acceptance and welcome?
SECOND THOUGHTS
by Leah Lonsbury
Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; John 4:5-42
In 1971, Canada’s Five Man Electrical Band from released the song “Signs,” which climbed to #3 on the U.S. charts and stayed there for 18 weeks. The catchy chorus is one of those that easily gets stuck in the brain...
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind
Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?
It’s catchy, but it’s also onto something. We’re surrounded by signs sending a variety of messages, but can we read them? How hard are we trying, if at all? What is the effect when we fail to read the signs? Is this failure accidental or deliberate?
Earlier this month, the Department of Defense released its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), which includes “considerable attention to the national security risks of a changing climate,” according to the Center for Climate and Security (CCS), a policy institute with an advisory board full of retired senior military officers and national security experts.
CCS has publicly applauded the Department of Defense’s efforts around this review, and has issued statements like this one from advisory board member Rear Admiral David W. Titley, United States Navy (ret):
The 2014 Department of Defense Quadrennial Defense Review got it right with respect to climate change. It correctly links climate change to energy, water and food security, rising sea levels, and addresses climate change as one of the primary global dynamics of the 21st century. This is the adult way to think about climate change.
It appears that at least one body in our governing structures is reading the signs and reacting in an appropriate, thoughtful, and strategic fashion. CCS advisory board member Lieutenant General John G. Castellaw, U.S. Marine Corps (ret), noted this success and spoke in support of the QDR’s assessment of threats to military installations:
The future is likely to bring us more floods, more droughts, and more severe and rarely-experienced weather events -- events that will threaten to inundate our coastal towns, cities, and naval bases with seawater. While the U.S. Congress is still locked in a partisan debate over climate change, the U.S. military is already taking a proactive approach to this national security threat.
About that partisan debate...
Senate Democrats pulled an all-nighter last week to, according to the Associated Press (AP), “warn of devastation from climate change and the danger of inaction.”
Maybe the Democrats have seen and are attempting to act on the signs of global climate change. Maybe...
It seems that Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, who flew aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 1986, has and is. As the closing speaker of the all-night session, Nelson remembered aloud when he had looked out at the rim of the earth: “You could see what sustains all of life, the atmosphere. I became more than an environmentalist. I saw in its entirety how fragile this ecosystem is.”
But what about those who spoke before Nelson?
The AP continues: “Addressing a nearly empty chamber and visitor gallery, more than two dozen speakers agreed with each other about the need to act on climate change. Naysayers -- Republicans -- largely stayed away, arguing hours earlier that regulation would cost Americans jobs in a sluggish economy.”
After the all-nighter, Senate Republicans challenged Democrats to bring legislation to the floor to address the problem of climate change. They issued this dare because they know the Democrats won’t bite. “Bring up the carbon tax bill. Put it on the agenda. Let’s debate it,” said GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
McConnell pointed out that Democrats failed to pass similar legislation in 2009-2010, when they controlled the 60 Senate seats necessary to overcome any Republican blocking tactics. Despite their recent nocturnal bravado, Democratic leaders made it clear they have no plans to bring a climate bill to the Senate floor this year. They’ll stay up all night talking about it, probably hoping to catch the eye of billionaire Tom Steyer, who has pledged to spend $100 million to put climate change at the top of the priority list during the next election cycle.
Other Democrats -- those who are facing tough re-election fights -- were noticeably absent. Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mark Begich of Alaska and Kay Hagan of North Carolina were among Democrats who stayed away from this politically charged night and issue.
An empty chamber... speeches to like-minded nodding heads... antics that look a lot like campaign fundraising... empty seats when they’re feeling a little hot and tenuous... Do these sound like people who are truly trying to read and act on the signs? At least the naysayers are naysaying out loud and in the light of day. They’re at least being up front about their decision to disregard the signs.
God’s world that the Psalmist celebrates is in distress. The depths of the earth, the heights of the mountains, the sea, and the dry land are crying out. So are God’s children who inhabit these places, places held in God’s hand. How hard are our hearts (Psalm 95)? Are we testing God and disregarding God’s long faithfulness and generosity about how we care for the good earth that has been entrusted to us?
Are we truly paying attention to the signs God is giving us -- like producing water from a rock (Exodus) or Jesus speaking to a (gasp!) foreign woman (John’s gospel) -- about our changing world or any aspect our lives or relationships? What do those signs look like today in our own lives?
Do we see and heed these signs, like the woman at the well who runs to tell her neighbors about the Living Water? Or do we mumble under our breath in ignorance and confusion, like the disciples? How and why do we so often emulate the disciples’ ignorance and choose to live in their kind of foggy confusion? Why do we shy away from the woman at the well’s joyous sign-heeding and risk-taking?
Do our hearts go astray (Psalm 95) without shame or do we attempt to hide our disregard for the signs? Are we the naysayers?
Do we stay up all night creating spectacle, pretending to heed and act on God’s signs, yet still disregard God’s ways (Psalm 95) in our daily, daytime realities?
How can we become watchful and disciplined strategists who study the signs and let them direct our maneuvers? How and when will we become those who listen to God’s voice (Psalm 95)?
*** For more on disregarding the signs we are given, check out the expert opinions in this article warning us against complacency that could lead to a nuclear meltdown in the U.S. like the ones that happened at Japan’s Fukushima plant and at Chernobyl.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Chris Keating:
Exodus 17:1-7; John 4:5-42
So That the People May Drink...
World Water Day, which is on Saturday, March 22, 2014, provides connections to this week’s scripture lessons and offers preachers an opportunity to share stories of the 768 million persons who live without access to safe drinking water. For example, in Rwanda more than 1,000 students at Juru Primary School now have access to clean water through a rainwater harvesting system built with support from WaterAid America, a nonprofit water advocacy group. Previously, the students and their families were required to make a three-hour round-trip hike to carry water from a dirty, crocodile-inhabited lake. According to WaterAid America’s website: “Thankfully, they no longer have to make that journey, which means they are able to spend all day at school. Monique, one of the students, told us: ‘We used to get dirty water from the lake. We would go to collect water before school and would bring water with us. There was never enough. Many times I would have to miss school.’ ”
*****
Exodus 17:1-7; John 4:5-42
“Give Me This Water, So That I May Never Be Thirsty...”
From flushing toilets to watering lawns, Americans use about 80-100 gallons of water per day. By contrast, the average person in Mozambique uses 10 liters a day, or about 2.6 gallons. The United Nations also estimates that there are 884 million people in the world who live more than one kilometer from a water source, and only consume about 5 liters of unsafe water a day. Unsafe water is also the world’s second leading cause of death. Another staggering statistic is that connecting to water is often costliest for the world’s most impoverished. The UN notes that people living in the slums of Jakarta, Manila, or Nairobi often pay 5 to 10 times more for water than those living in higher income areas of the same cities.
*****
Exodus 17:1-7; John 4:5-42
Gender and Water
Just as it was a woman from Samaria who encountered Jesus at the well, women today are most often the primary providers of water for their family’s daily needs. A clean water project in Morocco took this fact into account in order to improve the education experiences of young girls. Convenient access to water increased the attendance of girls in school by 20 percent over four years.
*****
Exodus 17:1-7
Testing God
In the wilderness God’s people quarreled and tested God, wondering “Is the Lord among us or not?” In a similar vein, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach writes of a recent visit he made to Auschwitz, the former Nazi concentration camp in Poland where more than a million Jews were killed. Although Boteach says he has spoken often about the Holocaust, this experience was different. “This time it was not theoretical and there was no one but God to speak to.”
Staring right at me was the greatest test to faith in the history of the world. A place so monstrous, so brutal, so deadly, that it has become the very synonym of evil and mass murder.... When I came to the part of the silent prayer where we say the words “Shema Koleinu -- hear our prayer, O Lord,” I said it with particular concentration and meaning. Hear Our Prayer, O Lord. Hear it. Listen to it. We’re not powerful like you. We can’t create universes. All we can do is hold our babies in our arms and try and protect them from evil...
*****
John 4:5-42
Hearing for Ourselves
Martha Grace “Gay” Reese’s “Unbinding the Gospel Project” was a well-documented mainline denomination evangelism research project that revealed the strengths of churches engaged in evangelism. Members of such churches report a significant encounter or spiritual experience with God as well as dynamic relationships between church members. A third element includes cultivating joyful relationships with people outside the church (see Martha Grace Reese, Unbinding the Gospel, p. 59). Members of these churches would resonate with the experience of the woman at the well. Her encounter with Jesus was transformative: she left astonished and eager to share her experience, and apparently her story was fruitful in declaring the gospel. “We have heard for ourselves,” John says, “and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world” (v. 42).
***************
From team member Ron Love:
John 4:5-42
South Carolina has interesting divorce laws. But considering that divorce was illegal until 1949 and the first major revisions were made in 1969, perhaps the state has come a long way. The present law states you must be separated for one year before you can file for divorce. The legislators think that by making a couple wait a year, it increases the chances they will reconcile. There is a 90-day exception on grounds of adultery, physical abuse, or habitual drunkenness. Statistics somehow show that one of these three escape clauses creep into every divorce decree, moving the date from twelve months down to three. It is now before the legislature to shorten the waiting period from 365 days to 150 days to ensure more honesty in filing. But as the opponents of this measure suggest, why wait five months when you can secure a three-month divorce?
Application: When speaking to the woman at the well, Jesus realized the need for honesty if one was going to transform one’s life.
*****
John 4:5-42
With a needle in his arm he died. Such was the fate of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, as an autopsy showed that his body was consumed by a lethal mix of heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, and benzodiazepines. Scattered about his apartment were 50 packets of heroin. Hoffman once told an interviewer that he used anything he could get his hands on before getting clean at the age of 22. But for the 46-year-old stage and screen star, however, the rehabilitation did not last.
Application: Jesus understood the problems the woman at the well confronted each day of her life, and it became his central desire to bring her healing.
*****
Exodus 17:1-7
South Carolina recently passed a law that allows individuals with a concealed weapon permit to carry their weapon into restaurants that serve liquor. Since state law makes no distinction between liquor served in a restaurant or in a bar, weapons are now also permitted in bars -- though you are not allowed to drink if you have a concealed weapon. More than 229,310 people in South Carolina hold a concealed weapons permit, and the real safety concern has now shifted to the patrons and alcohol, a far distance from the off-chance of a robbery. The reasoning behind the bill was that if robbers know a restaurant is populated with self-declared vigilantes, the restaurant and bar will be family-safe.
Application: As the people argued in the desert, we ought to be aware how quickly anger can escalate. With such anger directed toward Moses, how family-friendly was Massah?
*****
Exodus 17:1-7
South Carolina has passed a “stand-your-ground” law similar to that in Florida. Harold Mitchell, the chairman of the state’s Legislative Black Caucus, is trying to get the law repealed. In his statement Mitchell said, “We are taught in Sunday School to retreat.”
Application: It would appear that those gathered at Massah chose to stand their ground rather than listen to the faith instruction of Moses. It would appear that they missed a lesson from their catechism class.
*****
Romans 5:1-11
When Lupita Nyong’o won this year’s best supporting actress Oscar for her role as the slave Patey in the movie 12 Years a Slave, she said in her acceptance speech: “It doesn’t escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else’s, and so I want to salute the spirit of Patsey for her guidance.”
Application: As Nyong’o conceded that it was the life of Pastey that gave her life, Paul instills upon us that it is the life of Jesus that gives us life this day.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by Chris Keating
Call to Worship
(based on Psalm 95)
One: Come! Let us sing to the Lord!
Many: Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
One: Come into God’s presence with thanksgiving.
Many: Come, let us worship and bow down, kneeling before the Lord, our maker!
OR
(based on John 4:5-42)
One: The hour is coming, and is now here, when those who worship God will worship in spirit and truth.
All: We come, thirsting for God’s living water.
One: The water Jesus offers will become a spring of eternal life!
All: Lord, give us this water, so that we may never thirst. Let us worship God!
Prayer of the Day
Holy God: You give us living water that quenches our deepest thirsts. Help us to open our spirits to your presence this day, so that we may worship you with true hearts, ready to be astonished by all you do. Guide us to the Rock where we may discover grace that leads to faith, endurance, and hope. Through Jesus Christ our Lord we pray, Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Giver of all mercy: Help us to confess our sins to you. We are an anxious people, consumed by worries that lead to quarrelling. We squabble with you and each other, and at times even wonder if you are among us. We have spoiled the good creation you gave us through acts of wastefulness and pollution. We have boasted in our own good works, yet have not acknowledged the gifts you bring to us. Forgive us, God. Remind us of the good news of your reconciling love, offered to us in Jesus Christ, who alone is the Savior of the world. Amen.
Assurance of Pardon
(based on Romans 5:1-11)
This is our Good News! The proof of God’s amazing love is that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. We have been justified by Christ, reconciled to God through the gift of his Son. Believe this good news, and be at peace. In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. Amen.
Prayers of Intercession (and the Lord’s Prayer)
God of glory and power, we cry to you in the wilderness of our lives. When we are alone or vulnerable, we become fearful and are consumed by worry. We are thirsty for the living water that nourishes both our spirits and soothes the blistered portions of our souls. Hear us, O God, as we draw near to you. Giver of living water...
Hear our prayers.
We pray for your church here and scattered across the world. May our worship reflect your goodness and our service your commission to proclaim the good news. Equip us to speak clearly of your gifts. Giver of living water...
Hear our prayers.
We pray for all who hunger and thirst, who lack clean water to drink, and who yearn for words of hope and healing. Help us to share fairly the resources you have given, and teach us to care for your creation. Giver of living water...
Hear our prayers.
We pray for those who are lost, who wander in wilderness places, who are weary and needing your refreshment. Be to them a source of hope, and give them peace. Comfort them by your presence. Giver of living water...
Hear our prayers.
We pray for those who are ill, who are facing surgery, or who are fatigued from long, tiring journeys. Bring to all who are discouraged your word of new life and promise of healing. Help us to offer your refreshment and mercy. Giver of living water...
Hear our prayers.
God, we trust in your gift of salvation, Jesus Christ. Help us in our struggles to be astonished by your offer of life. Refresh our lives with the promise of your living water so that our spirits may be renewed. Sow seeds of your hope within our hearts so that we may share the joy of the gospel, offered to us in Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray...
Our Father... (continue with the Lord’s Prayer) ...Amen.
Prayer of Thanksgiving/Dedication
Gracious God, you give us all good gifts. We thank you for your faithful provisions, and in joy return to you our gifts of time, talent, and treasure. We give you thanks for your unending love for us, and dedicate ourselves to be faithful witnesses of all you have done. Hear our prayers in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Hymns
“Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah”
“I Sing the Mighty Power of God”
“Rock of Ages”
“There Is a Redeemer”
“Eternal Father, Strong to Save”
“Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken”
“Gather Us In”
“When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”
“The King of Love My Shepherd Is”
“Jesus, Lover of My Soul”
“All Who Hunger”
“Come, All You People” (especially for Psalm 95)
“I to the Hills Will Lift My Eyes” (Psalm 95)
Contemporary Songs
“I Will Call Upon the Lord”
“I’ve Got Peace Like a River”
“I Could Sing of Your Love Forever”
“You Who Are Thirsty”
Children’s Time
Bring along a pitcher of water, and cups to share with the children. Pour out some water for yourself and for the children. Begin by asking them if they can remember a time when they were really, really thirsty.
In the Gospel lesson, Jesus meets a woman who has gone to get water to drink. In Jesus’ time, people couldn’t turn on faucets to get water. They had to go to a well and fill up big pitchers with enough water to drink and to wash. Can you imagine carrying lots of water back to your home every day?
Did you know that many people today do not have clean water to drink, or to take a bath, or to clean their clothes? In many places in our world, there are children who must drink dirty water. No one wants to drink dirty water!
The good news is that there are many people who are helping others find clean water.
(If your church participates in One Great Hour of Sharing or other relief projects, visit the websites of those projects for ideas on how churches are helping people get access to clean water, or for images of people in countries where clean water is scarce. There are also several organizations like Shoes4Water or Shoeman Water Projects that collect used shoes to fund clean water programs, which could be a fun idea for a Lenten project.)
Next time you drink water, remember that it is God’s gift for all people. We can help others find good water to drink, just like Jesus helped the woman find living water. That would be very good news!
CHILDREN’S SERMON
Are You Thirsty?
John 4:5-42
Object: a glass of ice water
I want to ask you something: What should you do when you get thirsty? (get responses from the children) That’s right... you should drink something. And one of the best things to drink is water. In today’s Bible lesson, Jesus sits beside a well and speaks with a woman. He is thirsty from his journey and asks her for a drink of water. Then he says something that’s very mysterious to her. (hold up the glass) He tells 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.” What do you think that means? (see what they think)
How many of you have ever been really thirsty? (get a show of hands) How do you feel when you’re thirsty? (let them speak a few moments) When you have been playing or working really hard you get thirsty, especially if the day is very hot. (hold up the glass again) A glass of water like this one tastes really good, doesn’t it? It’s refreshing, cool, and wet. It helps you feel better again! Well, Jesus tells the woman that his love is like a refreshing glass of water. When life is hard, when we’re tired, when we’re worn out, his love refreshes us and helps us keep going.
Jesus is using something ordinary to teach about something special. He wanted the woman to think about how it feels to be thirsty and how it feels when our thirst is satisfied. Yes, this glass of water is refreshing for the moment, but God’s love will refresh us forever.
Prayer: Jesus, renew us with your love when we are tired. Please give us a taste of the water that will refresh us forever. Amen.
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The Immediate Word, March 23, 2014, issue.
Copyright 2014 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
