"Where the Water Come From"--August 27, 2019
"Jesus said to [the woman at the well], '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'." [John 4:13-14]
If you would have asked me as a kid where my water comes from, I would have shrugged and said, "I dunno--pipes?"
I grew up with the uniformity of suburban planning, municipal water, and chemical treatment of my drinking water that happened at a treatment plant somewhere on the outskirts of town (going there was actually a school field trip one year). I grew up thinking of water as a commercial commodity--something you paid for with a monthly bill, like electricity, cable television, or phone service.
So it still feels like a miracle to me every time I get to visit someone's home who has a spring at their house. Wells are pretty cool to me, too, but you just can't beat the visual of a spring, especially if the set-up allows for the overflow to come up out of the ground right where you can see it somewhere. It feels to me like being on holy ground just watching water coming up out of the ground. I can still remember the first time I went to visit someone's house on a pastoral visit and saw their spring gushing with water and thinking to myself, "You mean it's free? It's really free? Just coming out of the ground like that? But how do you pay your bill then?" And it occured to me then that God has built the world on an economy of grace, and it's only we commodifying humans who have taught ourselves to think of the free gift of water as a product to be bought rather than a sign of grace.
That's one of the reasons I have to stop and pause every time I page through the fourth chapter of John's gospel. Jesus himself compares himself to a spring of water--a sure sign of grace if ever there were one. Of course, a spring gives its abundance away--its power and wonder are inescapably tied to its ability to give itself away for the sake of those whose thirst is quenched by drinking what it gives. That's powerful to me--it is exactly what the Christian faith is all about, isn't it? A God whose supreme power is seen in God's own self-giving, and for free at that. And like an artist leaving a signature on a masterpiece, this same self-giving God has left a divine initial on creation itself, dotting the landscape with springs that flow with water freely for all. It shouldn't surprise us, then, that God's way of dealing with humanity is along the same lines--free gifts all around, like "water, without money and without price," as the old line from the book of Isaiah puts it.
We are the ones who keep looking for ways to commodify God's goodness, and to turn Christ himself into a consumer product--available only to those who pay the admission fee, pray the proper prayer, make certain moral improvements in their lives as a prerequisite, or become dues-paying members of their local franchise--er, congregation. We have a way of treating the grace of God like it is "city water" that you pay to have delivered underground through pipes and faucets, when Jesus himself sees himself as a spring flowing freely for any and all.
It has taken me an embarrassingly long time in my life to actually listen to Jesus, throughout the gospels, as he points out that the created world runs on the logic of grace just as surely as the spiritual realities of our faith do. Jesus keeps calling our attention to the way that God has graciously and gracefully designed a universe where gifts are constantly being given to us beyond our earning, regardless of our worthiness, and without catches or strings. It is there in every spring bubbling up out of the ground. It is there, for that matter, in the gift of each day's new sunlight, or the freely given rain that waters the earth and brings forth life. It is there in the comb dripping with honey, or the self-sacrificial gesture of the killdeer offering her life to predators as bait to protect her young, or of the mother spider who feeds her own body to her brood when other food is scarce. The world is full of glimpses of grace, and yet we have been taught to accept that it's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and that there will not be enough for all, so you have to grasp your own and hoard your own piles. We have been taught to think of God's self-giving abundance like it is scarce and only to be parceled out stingily to the "worthy."
And yet, Jesus keeps insisting that his way of giving us life doesn't come with a catch or a cost--it is as freely given as water babbling out of a brook and bubbling up from the ground.
Open your eyes, dear friends, and look around at the world God has made. Jesus keeps calling our attention to all the divine signatures all over this beautiful blue and green ball in space, in the hopes that we will see that God really does run the universe on the basis of grace and generosity, rather than fear, greed, and scarcity. And Jesus teaches us to understand that the true greatness of God is not how much God owns and stockpiles and hoards (the way we think of "greatness" so often in terms of wealth and coercive power), but rather God's greatness is most clearly seen in the reckless way God gives away the farm. The direction of the arrow, so to speak, is always flowing out from God, rather than God sucking in the goodness of the universe for God's sole benefit.
And if we are going to take that seriously--if we dare to believe Jesus when he says that his presence power in the world are like a spring of water gushing forth with life-giving sustenance for all--then it will change the direction of the arrows in our lives, too. It will mean we dare, more and more perhaps as we mature in faith, to live our lives giving ourselves away, rather than constantly seeking to acquire more for ourselves--more money, more stuff, more fun, more attention, more whatever. We will dare to let the arrows turn outward, so that we become channels for God's goodness to flow out through out and beyond to the world around. We will be able to leave behind the fear that makes our fists clench, and instead we ourselves will become conduits for grace. Because the whole creation itself is made to be such a conduit for God's generosity.
So on this day, will we dare to believe Jesus? Not merely will we believe certain facts about Jesus and recite them in a creed--but will we take Jesus seriously when he insists that the Reign of God always flows outward--not just from God to a hungry and thirst world, but also flowing through me and beyond out into the needs of my neighbor, my friend, my family, my strangers, and my enemies.
Will we, in other words, let Jesus turn the direction of our arrows, so that we are no longer driven by consuming, acquiring, and getting for ourselves... and instead flowing, surrendering, and giving away the abundance put in our hands with our time, our resources, our love, and our attention?
The more I listen to Jesus' words here about being a spring of water, the more I want to be that kind or person, who is so secure in the abundance of God's grace that I can live each day giving myself away as fully as possible.
Living a life like that just might make every square inch you walk on into holy ground.
Lord Jesus, teach us how to read your signature of grace the created world, and to trust your invitation to sustain us with your outpoured abundance.
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