Free Living Water For All
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series I, Cycle A
Travelers near the Badlands of South Dakota were surprised and intrigued in 1936 to see a sign which read, "Get a Soda ... Get Root Beer ... Turn next corner ... just as near ... to Highways 16 and 17 ... Free Ice Water ... Wall Drug."
It all began out of frustration when the drugstore was on the brink of closing in Wall, South Dakota. One Sunday afternoon when Dorothy Hustead couldn't sleep, she got up and told husband Ted, "I think I finally see how we can get all those travelers to come to our store."
"And how's that?" Ted asked.
"Well, now what is it those travelers really want after driving across that hot prairie? They're thirsty. They want water. Ice cold water! Now we've got plenty of ice and water. Why don't we put up signs on the highway telling people to come here for free ice water?" said Dorothy. The sign(s) went up and the rest, as they say, is history.
Ted and Dorothy Hustead, fashioning their market strategy after the catchy slogans of Burma Shave, miraculously revived their business. "Free Ice Water." Now today, on a good summer day, 20,000 people stop by the famous Wall Drug to shop, eat, and, of course, get their glass of "free ice water."
On reaching Rephidim, the modern Wadi Refayid, about eight miles south of Jebel Musa, the Israelites stop in the Wilderness of Sin and camp. Travel and life in the hot wilderness for the Israelites is precarious. Now there is a huge problem. There is no water to drink. They are thirsty.
Water, or the lack of it, is a common theme in scriptures. Isaiah, centuries later, describes in poetry the common dilemma:
When the poor and needy seek water,
and there is none,
and their tongue is parched with thirst,
I, the Lord, will answer them,
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
I will open rivers on the bare heights,
and fountains in the midst of the valleys;
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
and the dry land springs of water.
... so that all may see and know,
all may consider and understand,
that the hand of the Lord has done this,
the Holy One of Israel has created it.
- Isaiah 41:17--20
The Psalmist cries metaphorically, "O God, you are my God, I see you, my soul thirsts for you as in a dry and weary land where there is no water" (Psalm 63:1).
Jesus reminds Nicodemus, a leader of the Pharisees, "Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit" (John 3:5).
We are very thirsty creatures. Our thirsts are many and varied. We thirst for true friends; we thirst for success; we thirst for meaning and purpose in our lives. We thirst to be listened to and heard. We thirst for release from addictions and chronic sins; we thirst for God and for that which is eternal.
Sinclair Lewis, in one of his books, draws a picture of a respectable businessman who decides to "live it up." He is talking to his old girlfriend. She says to him, "On the surface we seem quite different; but deep down we are fundamentally the same. We are both desperately unhappy about something - and we don't know what it is."
In every one of us, there is this nameless, unsatisfied longing, this vague discontent, this something lacking, and we don't know what it is or why we have it.
The Israelites are physically thirsty. Their jugs are dry. What wouldn't they give for a glass of Ted and Dorothy Hustead's free water generously mingled with ice?
The Israelites do what they do best. They quarrel. They complain. They direct their complaints to Moses. "Give us water to drink. Why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?" (Exodus 17:2--3).
Moses has heard this "song and dance" before and he will hear it again (Exodus 15:22--7; 17:1--7; Numbers 20:1--13). This low note is the second "movement" of three in the "Hebrew Symphony of Murmuring" over chronic thirst. Moses confronts their groans and re--interprets and redirects them as a test of the Lord's faithfulness. "Why do you test the Lord?" (Exodus 17:2b).
Church coaches and consultants wonder if groaning and conflict in the churches today would turn 180 degrees around if the issues were seen as "testing the faithfulness of the Lord" rather than in "seeing things my way" or "doing things my way." Congregational conflicts have no limit of possibilities. They range from worship wars, to the U.S. flag in the sanctuary, to the hot issue of homosexuality. Conflict is normal and often offers opportunity for change and growth. It is also risky and can lead to negative results. Disagreements, quarreling, pettiness, failure to listen, pumping up minor issues into major concerns could be neutralized and channeled into constructive, positive changes if they were seen as "a test of the Lord's faithfulness."
"Give us water to drink or else ..." - the Israelites are ready to stone their CEO Moses! Like road rage, which boils over when a driver is provoked, the anger, blame, and disgust for suffering thirst threatens to end in the ultimate act of capital punishment - stoning. There are no weapons more handy than stones. Stones and rocks were the Colt 45s of the day, just as handguns and assault weapons, and their insane proliferation, are the weapons of choice in America today.
As this ill wind of discontent begins to blow, there is a wondrous intervention from the Lord. The Lord said to Moses, "Go ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile and go. I will be there standing in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink" (Exodus 17:5--6a).
Now was this "rod" of Moses a witching tool, a dowser's staff? Was it a divining rod or a mysterious ploy - a bit of both?
An elderly man by the name of Fred was engaged by the leaders of the city of Custer, South Dakota, some years ago. Fred was a witcher. So, with copper wires bent a certain way and held tightly in his hands, he traversed a designated area and determined, to the chagrin of everyone, a spot where he predicted the precise number of feet needed to dig down for a city well and where he predicted the precise number of gallons per minute the well would produce. When the well was dug, it was over 200--feet deep, just as he said, and it produced the exact gallons per minute that he said it would. Magic, science, miracle?
After Moses petitions Yahweh for his own safety, lest he be assaulted, he uses the staff as the Lord instructs and strikes the rock at Horeb with great force. Water gushes forth and the people of Israel, at last, are able to quench their thirst.
Free gushing water is grace. It is a sign of the soul of God. This pure, cold liquid, as a gift from God, brings doom and deadness to life, transforms discontent and grumbling into satisfaction, and brings back hope to a joyless fledgling nation.
In another time and in another setting, God's grace is expressed through the prophet Isaiah. "Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters: And you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come buy wine and milk without money and without price" (Isaiah 55:1).
Surely the soul of humanity does not cry out for new and more laws, rules, and restrictions, but deep down experiences an enduring thirst for grace. God's love and forgiveness through the cross of Christ as an unconditional gift assuages the most desperate thirst. No wonder John Fort Newton, old slave trader that he was, marveled that God's grace could extend even to a "wretch" like himself. "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me."
Steven L. McKinley, pastor of House and Prayer Lutheran Church, Richfield, Minnesota, writes in an article, "Knowing Laughter," in the denominational magazine, "Grace, after all, is good news. The best news there ever was. We are saved by God's grace active in Jesus. It's a done deal. Our sin has been put away, wiped out of the books ... time to have the biggest party there ever was ... I like the suggestion made by author Garrison Keillor that we sing 'Amazing Grace' to the tune of the old Mickey Mouse Club theme song. A church that knows God's grace ought to know how to laugh."1
No wonder Glen Campbell, whose multiple marriages, dizzying success, and drug and alcohol abuse were sending him down a one--way street, should one day be freed by the amazing grace of the living waters of God in Jesus Christ. Glen sings as before, but now his church, family, and gospel music have a prominent place in his life.
Isaiah continues to describe God's grace in a moisture metaphor in chapter 55:
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
- Isaiah 55:10--11
The burning question of the Israelites, "Is the Lord among us or not?" is answered in the gushing, flowing water. "Is the Lord among us or not?" is the contemporary question, too, when we are in dilemmas beyond our power and our control. When sickness, death, forest fires, divorce, floods, and tornadoes invade and disrupt our lives, we wonder where God is in all of this.
The theology of the cross assures us that God is wherever there is human suffering and tragedy. God suffers, too, and God cares about our dilemmas. We find consolation and strength in word and sacrament, prayer and praise, community and purpose.
One day when Jesus travels through Samaria and stops by Jacob's well near Sychar, he meets a woman from Samaria. Jesus is tired and thirsty. He asks the Samaritan woman for a drink and engages her in conversation. The woman is puzzled because Jesus, a Jew, asks her for a drink, an unthinkable act. Jesus answers 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 Samaritan woman asks for this living water. Jesus tells her he is the living water.
The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:2--4 allegorizes the Israelite story and sees Jesus as the "spiritual rock": "... and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ."
Dr. Jess Moody, in his book, A Drink At Joel's Place, calls for a church that must provide the Big Miracle if it deserves to be heard. Moody describes the miracle that the world is thirsty for in this way. "The miracle that will cause the world to sit up and take notice will be where a group of people gathers where there's more enjoyment, a better fellowship, a listening ear, and a place and a people who provide the intoxication it advertises."
He says, "If there is a balm in Gilead, if there's health at Jacob's well, an army of sinners will battle down the church's front door - if it becomes a house where love lives."2
Mr. and Mrs. Thirsty have the haunting suspicion that if they brought their troubles to the church, their sins would be frowned on and gossiped about. But "Secret Keepers" offer "Mr. Guilt--spiller" tons of understanding and acceptance.
Jesus knew that the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well had five husbands, but it was she who spilled the beans. Jesus accepted her by dealing with her with respect and honesty. Jesus Christ is the Living Water. Living means something that is moving, fresh, wholesome, health--giving, and winsome.
If Joe's Saloon has become the place of fellowship in this post--Christian era, let us reclaim and renew our place as the body of Christ. Let us offer the drink from the well that is deep and pure and life--giving.
Jess Moody says, "The church, that's you and me, must provide more enjoyment, better fellowship, listening ears, and the intoxication it advertises ... or start packing."3
Long, long ago the prophet Joel predicted a drink and a baptism into the Spirit of Spirits .... "then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh" ... which was fulfilled at Pentecost. Yet in every generation and in every life this drink, this outpouring comes by the gushing grace of God and waters the earth. Thanks be to God.
____________
1. Steven L. McKinley, The Lutheran (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, August, 2003), p. 6.
2. Jess Moody, A Drink At Joel's Place (Dallas: Word Books, 1968).
3. Ibid.
It all began out of frustration when the drugstore was on the brink of closing in Wall, South Dakota. One Sunday afternoon when Dorothy Hustead couldn't sleep, she got up and told husband Ted, "I think I finally see how we can get all those travelers to come to our store."
"And how's that?" Ted asked.
"Well, now what is it those travelers really want after driving across that hot prairie? They're thirsty. They want water. Ice cold water! Now we've got plenty of ice and water. Why don't we put up signs on the highway telling people to come here for free ice water?" said Dorothy. The sign(s) went up and the rest, as they say, is history.
Ted and Dorothy Hustead, fashioning their market strategy after the catchy slogans of Burma Shave, miraculously revived their business. "Free Ice Water." Now today, on a good summer day, 20,000 people stop by the famous Wall Drug to shop, eat, and, of course, get their glass of "free ice water."
On reaching Rephidim, the modern Wadi Refayid, about eight miles south of Jebel Musa, the Israelites stop in the Wilderness of Sin and camp. Travel and life in the hot wilderness for the Israelites is precarious. Now there is a huge problem. There is no water to drink. They are thirsty.
Water, or the lack of it, is a common theme in scriptures. Isaiah, centuries later, describes in poetry the common dilemma:
When the poor and needy seek water,
and there is none,
and their tongue is parched with thirst,
I, the Lord, will answer them,
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
I will open rivers on the bare heights,
and fountains in the midst of the valleys;
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
and the dry land springs of water.
... so that all may see and know,
all may consider and understand,
that the hand of the Lord has done this,
the Holy One of Israel has created it.
- Isaiah 41:17--20
The Psalmist cries metaphorically, "O God, you are my God, I see you, my soul thirsts for you as in a dry and weary land where there is no water" (Psalm 63:1).
Jesus reminds Nicodemus, a leader of the Pharisees, "Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit" (John 3:5).
We are very thirsty creatures. Our thirsts are many and varied. We thirst for true friends; we thirst for success; we thirst for meaning and purpose in our lives. We thirst to be listened to and heard. We thirst for release from addictions and chronic sins; we thirst for God and for that which is eternal.
Sinclair Lewis, in one of his books, draws a picture of a respectable businessman who decides to "live it up." He is talking to his old girlfriend. She says to him, "On the surface we seem quite different; but deep down we are fundamentally the same. We are both desperately unhappy about something - and we don't know what it is."
In every one of us, there is this nameless, unsatisfied longing, this vague discontent, this something lacking, and we don't know what it is or why we have it.
The Israelites are physically thirsty. Their jugs are dry. What wouldn't they give for a glass of Ted and Dorothy Hustead's free water generously mingled with ice?
The Israelites do what they do best. They quarrel. They complain. They direct their complaints to Moses. "Give us water to drink. Why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?" (Exodus 17:2--3).
Moses has heard this "song and dance" before and he will hear it again (Exodus 15:22--7; 17:1--7; Numbers 20:1--13). This low note is the second "movement" of three in the "Hebrew Symphony of Murmuring" over chronic thirst. Moses confronts their groans and re--interprets and redirects them as a test of the Lord's faithfulness. "Why do you test the Lord?" (Exodus 17:2b).
Church coaches and consultants wonder if groaning and conflict in the churches today would turn 180 degrees around if the issues were seen as "testing the faithfulness of the Lord" rather than in "seeing things my way" or "doing things my way." Congregational conflicts have no limit of possibilities. They range from worship wars, to the U.S. flag in the sanctuary, to the hot issue of homosexuality. Conflict is normal and often offers opportunity for change and growth. It is also risky and can lead to negative results. Disagreements, quarreling, pettiness, failure to listen, pumping up minor issues into major concerns could be neutralized and channeled into constructive, positive changes if they were seen as "a test of the Lord's faithfulness."
"Give us water to drink or else ..." - the Israelites are ready to stone their CEO Moses! Like road rage, which boils over when a driver is provoked, the anger, blame, and disgust for suffering thirst threatens to end in the ultimate act of capital punishment - stoning. There are no weapons more handy than stones. Stones and rocks were the Colt 45s of the day, just as handguns and assault weapons, and their insane proliferation, are the weapons of choice in America today.
As this ill wind of discontent begins to blow, there is a wondrous intervention from the Lord. The Lord said to Moses, "Go ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile and go. I will be there standing in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink" (Exodus 17:5--6a).
Now was this "rod" of Moses a witching tool, a dowser's staff? Was it a divining rod or a mysterious ploy - a bit of both?
An elderly man by the name of Fred was engaged by the leaders of the city of Custer, South Dakota, some years ago. Fred was a witcher. So, with copper wires bent a certain way and held tightly in his hands, he traversed a designated area and determined, to the chagrin of everyone, a spot where he predicted the precise number of feet needed to dig down for a city well and where he predicted the precise number of gallons per minute the well would produce. When the well was dug, it was over 200--feet deep, just as he said, and it produced the exact gallons per minute that he said it would. Magic, science, miracle?
After Moses petitions Yahweh for his own safety, lest he be assaulted, he uses the staff as the Lord instructs and strikes the rock at Horeb with great force. Water gushes forth and the people of Israel, at last, are able to quench their thirst.
Free gushing water is grace. It is a sign of the soul of God. This pure, cold liquid, as a gift from God, brings doom and deadness to life, transforms discontent and grumbling into satisfaction, and brings back hope to a joyless fledgling nation.
In another time and in another setting, God's grace is expressed through the prophet Isaiah. "Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters: And you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come buy wine and milk without money and without price" (Isaiah 55:1).
Surely the soul of humanity does not cry out for new and more laws, rules, and restrictions, but deep down experiences an enduring thirst for grace. God's love and forgiveness through the cross of Christ as an unconditional gift assuages the most desperate thirst. No wonder John Fort Newton, old slave trader that he was, marveled that God's grace could extend even to a "wretch" like himself. "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me."
Steven L. McKinley, pastor of House and Prayer Lutheran Church, Richfield, Minnesota, writes in an article, "Knowing Laughter," in the denominational magazine, "Grace, after all, is good news. The best news there ever was. We are saved by God's grace active in Jesus. It's a done deal. Our sin has been put away, wiped out of the books ... time to have the biggest party there ever was ... I like the suggestion made by author Garrison Keillor that we sing 'Amazing Grace' to the tune of the old Mickey Mouse Club theme song. A church that knows God's grace ought to know how to laugh."1
No wonder Glen Campbell, whose multiple marriages, dizzying success, and drug and alcohol abuse were sending him down a one--way street, should one day be freed by the amazing grace of the living waters of God in Jesus Christ. Glen sings as before, but now his church, family, and gospel music have a prominent place in his life.
Isaiah continues to describe God's grace in a moisture metaphor in chapter 55:
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
- Isaiah 55:10--11
The burning question of the Israelites, "Is the Lord among us or not?" is answered in the gushing, flowing water. "Is the Lord among us or not?" is the contemporary question, too, when we are in dilemmas beyond our power and our control. When sickness, death, forest fires, divorce, floods, and tornadoes invade and disrupt our lives, we wonder where God is in all of this.
The theology of the cross assures us that God is wherever there is human suffering and tragedy. God suffers, too, and God cares about our dilemmas. We find consolation and strength in word and sacrament, prayer and praise, community and purpose.
One day when Jesus travels through Samaria and stops by Jacob's well near Sychar, he meets a woman from Samaria. Jesus is tired and thirsty. He asks the Samaritan woman for a drink and engages her in conversation. The woman is puzzled because Jesus, a Jew, asks her for a drink, an unthinkable act. Jesus answers 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 Samaritan woman asks for this living water. Jesus tells her he is the living water.
The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:2--4 allegorizes the Israelite story and sees Jesus as the "spiritual rock": "... and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ."
Dr. Jess Moody, in his book, A Drink At Joel's Place, calls for a church that must provide the Big Miracle if it deserves to be heard. Moody describes the miracle that the world is thirsty for in this way. "The miracle that will cause the world to sit up and take notice will be where a group of people gathers where there's more enjoyment, a better fellowship, a listening ear, and a place and a people who provide the intoxication it advertises."
He says, "If there is a balm in Gilead, if there's health at Jacob's well, an army of sinners will battle down the church's front door - if it becomes a house where love lives."2
Mr. and Mrs. Thirsty have the haunting suspicion that if they brought their troubles to the church, their sins would be frowned on and gossiped about. But "Secret Keepers" offer "Mr. Guilt--spiller" tons of understanding and acceptance.
Jesus knew that the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well had five husbands, but it was she who spilled the beans. Jesus accepted her by dealing with her with respect and honesty. Jesus Christ is the Living Water. Living means something that is moving, fresh, wholesome, health--giving, and winsome.
If Joe's Saloon has become the place of fellowship in this post--Christian era, let us reclaim and renew our place as the body of Christ. Let us offer the drink from the well that is deep and pure and life--giving.
Jess Moody says, "The church, that's you and me, must provide more enjoyment, better fellowship, listening ears, and the intoxication it advertises ... or start packing."3
Long, long ago the prophet Joel predicted a drink and a baptism into the Spirit of Spirits .... "then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh" ... which was fulfilled at Pentecost. Yet in every generation and in every life this drink, this outpouring comes by the gushing grace of God and waters the earth. Thanks be to God.
____________
1. Steven L. McKinley, The Lutheran (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, August, 2003), p. 6.
2. Jess Moody, A Drink At Joel's Place (Dallas: Word Books, 1968).
3. Ibid.
