Food and Water |
John 4:5-42 |
Back at the start of the year, we were talking about new years’ resolutions, and specifically the good old tradition of the new years’ diet. How many of you chose to go on a diet as your new years resolution? Well, I did, and let me tell you, I’ve never thought so much about food in all my life. Every day, I get out of bed hungry and immediately begin thinking about what I’m going to have for breakfast. So I eat my bowl of oatmeal, or half of a bagel and on my way to the door, I grab a banana and an orange to have for a midmorning snack. (Which is sometimes eaten even before I get to church.)Speaking of which, during that drive to work I’m already counting points and weighing my options for lunch, considering not what I want, but what I am allowed to have. And believe you me, those are two very different things. And the distinction between what I want and what I can have, pretty much dictates that my luncheon selection is a choice between salad and salad. And let me tell you, I’ve eaten so much salad in the past few weeks, that I’m starting to think that I’m going to begin growing lettuce leaves out of my ears. After lunch, within 15 minutes of eating that salad that doesn’t even come close to filling me up, I’m already scheming for dinner. Dinner, is of course followed by fighting the urge to eat a bedtime snack, which is in turn followed by lying in bed hungrily obsessing about what I’m going to have for breakfast the next day and so on and so on and so on, day after day for the last month and a half. I may have lost a few pounds, but I also feel like I’m losing my mind. It seems like the harder that I try not to think about food, the more obsessed with food I become. But I guess that it’s pretty understandable when you think about it, because after all, food is a pretty important thing. Like water, food is a basic requirement of human life. The simple truth is that without food and water, we will die. And so we all have a tendency to spend some, or perhaps too much time thinking about food and water. This is why Jesus words from John’s gospel ring so powerfully this morning. Because in this long passage from chapter 4 of that gospel Jesus is also talking about basic human needs. However, unlike me obsessing about how I can work that pepperoni and mushroom pizza into my diet, Jesus is talking about a hunger and thirst not of the stomach, but of the human heart and soul that goes far deeper than the craving for a deep dish pizza with everything on it. And it all begins beside a well in Samaria. As the story goes, Jesus and the disciples were traveling along and at the height of the midday sun on a hot middle eastern afternoon, they arrived at the village of Sychar. Upon their arrival, the disciples went off in search of food, and after their departure Jesus sat down to rest beside the local well, and there he asked a woman for a drink. John picks up the story in verse 9,where in answer to Jesus’ request, the woman replied,“How is it that you a Jew ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” For Jews have no dealings 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.” Jesus is of course talking about something much deeper than the well by which they were sitting. He was in fact referring to a basic human need even more essential than the need for water itself. He was talking about the thirst for God. As William Barclay wrote in his commentary on this passage, “In every man there is this nameless unsatisfied longing; this vague discontent; this something lacking; this frustration.” Jesus knew this unsatisfied longing, as well as the only thing could quench this thirst. And so he said to the woman at the well, “Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst,; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4: 13-14 Like me, I’m sure that you have read the stories and heard the interviews with dozens if not hundreds of the rich and famous members of our society who talk having everything that the world can offer, but still longing for that elusive something more. Well this is exactly the thirst that Jesus is addressing with this unnamed woman by the well. And his statement to her that he could provide her with living water that would cause her to thirst no more is a declaration that no matter how deeply one might drink from the well of earthly delight, you will always be thirsty, your soul will forever be restless until you allow yourself to totally fall in love with, and entirely surrender your life to Christ. You see,there is a thirst in the human heart for something that only Jesus can satisfy. And that brings us to the issue of food. For just as soon as Jesus and the woman are finishing up their little conversation about water, the disciples show up with the food that they went in search of. And when they offeredJesus his lunch, he replied, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, “There are yet four months, then comes the harvest? I tell you, lift up your eyes and see how the fields are already white for harvest.” The same is true today. People around the corner and around the globe are hungry and thirsty for God. The fields are indeed white for harvest, and God has called us to join him in harvesting that field. One of the great distinctives that makes us Baptists who we are is our absolute conviction concerning what we call “the Priesthood of all believers.”Based on a scripture passage from I Peter 2, The Priesthood of all believers is the Baptist tenant that we are all called to some sort of ministry, some unique and individual role to play in the outworking of God’s design for creation. Every single one of us has a job, a ministry a task created specifically for us. At church, at home, at work, we are all called in some way to serve God and spread the good news of His Gospel. For some it might be singing in the choir, or planting flowers outside the church building. For others it could be visiting the sick or listening to the troubles of a friend or neighbor. It might be as complicated as creating a church financial budget, or as simple as setting up tables for a church dinner. For each person the calling is individual and unique, but two things are universally true. One, we all have an essential part to play and two, there will always be a gnawing hunger in our soul until we, as Larry the Cable Guy might say, “Get ‘er done.” You see, there is a direct relationship between food and water. Jesus was telling his disciples that just as a deep and abiding relationship with God satisfies our thirst, doing God’s work and fulfilling God’s will nourishes our soul as well. After all some things just seem to go together. Peanut butter and jelly, bacon and eggs, salt and pepper, spaghetti and meatballs, bread and butter,cookies and milk…Food and water. They are two halves of one whole, they complete one another, and their relationship is so inherent that you can hardly imagine one without the other being present. This is precisely what Jesus meant when he told his disciples, “The true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4: 23-24 But also, we worship God in truth. And the truth is that when we live in this reality, when we so join our spirits to the Spirit of God that we find our thirst quenched, then we also discover a hunger inside as well. A hunger to do the will of God.Just as a child desires to please his or her parents, so do we all have within us the inherent need to please God. We can work hard, we can cure disease, we can solve great problems, we can explain the great mysteries of the universe, however, if we are not doing the thing for which God put us on earth, our soul will starve. Food and water, faithful worship and obedient service to God, these are the basic needs of human life, and they are all that we need to find peace and satisfaction in this world. |