Wouldn’t it be nice to find the source of something we deem precious, so we could always access it?
A tired woman comes out to a well when the sun is highest, repeating a chore that no doubt has shaped her days most of her life. It is her job to fetch water for the household. It’s not so bad going, but carrying the heavy jars back to town is a burden she’d gladly give up. Why she comes at noon, in the heat of the day, we are not told. Does she want to avoid the stares and murmurs of her community?
A man is there, a Jew. She doubts she has anything to fear, but wishes he were not there to disturb her solitude. Jews are so condescending to her people, as though they weren’t just another branch on the same tree. She nods at him and sets about lowering her jar. He speaks, “Give me a drink.”
She says, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" His answer is puzzling, “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.”
She is in no mood for riddles. Does he not know the holiness of this well, its history? “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?”
He is not done being mysterious: “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.”
A spring of water in us, gushing. Here is an image of life, of movement. If you’ve ever been mesmerized by rushing water in a brook or river, or stared at a waterfall or waves crashing, receding, returning, crashing again, you know how powerful an image this is of abundance. And Jesus locates this gushing spring not outside of us but inside, where we always have access. This spring is God’s life, renewing us.
What do you most wish you’d never run out of? If your answer is something material – food, money – it’s good to name it. If it’s something emotional – love, affirmation, attention – it’s important to be aware of what motivates you. God gives us no guarantees of provision in those areas. But spiritual commodities, like peace, healing, forgiveness, love, these all come with God’s living water in us, and they are always being replenished.
Today in prayer image that river of God-life flowing through you, dislodging all the debris of sin and hurt, and bearing it away, renewing and refreshing everything in its path. You might reflect on areas in which you feel empty or dry, and invite the river to flow to those places. If you feel a need of healing, invite the river to flow into that area. If you’re burdened by anxiety about the world or other people, invite the river to flow through those places, a visual prayer.
As we become more practiced at accessing the living water inside us, the spiritual gifts it brings may just make us more content about those material and emotional areas we worry about. After all, this living water is the river of God, which Jesus likens to the Holy Spirit. Our mouths may thirst, our stomachs may hunger – yet with this spring in us, our spirits need never go dry.
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