hunger and thirst, day 1

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:
You called, You cried, you shattered my deafness.  You sparkled, you blazed, You drove away my blindness.  You shed your fragrance, and I drew in my breath, and I pant for You.  I tasted and now I hunger and thirst.  You touched me, and now I burn with longing for your peace. (Confessions by St. Augustine)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 81

Scripture for the Day: John 4:1-26

Reading for Reflection:

Unlike the Samaritan woman, most of us do know who Jesus is.  We know all about the cross and the resurrection.  We have accepted his gift of forgiveness for our sins, been baptized, and joined the church.  We may even serve on a committee or volunteer in church missions.  We, at least, are not Samaritans.  We even love the temple.  But we still yearn for something more.  We yearn for something more in our relationships and families.  We yearn for something more in our jobs and sense of purpose.  We yearn, most of all, for something more in our experience of God.

     George Barna, one of the leading researchers on church and religious issues, recently published statistics showing that seventy-five million people attend church every Sunday.  But less than one-third of these people believe that they interacted with God during the worship service, and over one-third say they have never experienced God’s presence.  That is amazing.  But one statistic Barna didn’t cite is even more striking: one hundred percent of us thirst for more of God than we now have.

     Like the woman at the well, sooner or later, perhaps in a quiet, reflective moment, we must all come to terms with the honest truth that we were looking for more than we’ve found thus far.  We certainly don’t resemble the Samaritan woman.  We keep our marriages to a minimum, and we hold down respectable jobs and pay our bills on time.  We may look pretty respectable and orthodox.  But still our souls are very thirsty.

     Perhaps your prayer life has dried up, or in spite of your best efforts you still are not making much of a difference in anyone’s life, or maybe you’ve lost all the joy, all the passion, in your life.  You have the same sadness buried in your soul as all those Samaritans had.  You may have a head full of knowledge about God, but you still yearn to experience something sacred, something that will at long last calm the ache from deep within.  As this story unfolds, take your place next to this Samaritan woman.

     It’s part of my pastoral calling to look closely at the lives of those who go to church.  They all clean up pretty nicely on Sunday morning.  But just below the surface of their navy-blue suits and colorful dresses lie souls that are not nearly so tidy.  On a typical Sunday in our church, I sit facing the congregation while the choir sings the anthem before the sermon.  I gaze into the faces of people I know and love.  I see the elder whose marriage is hanging on by a thread.  Next to him is the Sunday school teacher whose daughter was arrested last week for driving under the influence of alcohol.  Two pews behind them is the church’s newest widow, who is wondering how she will survive sitting in church alone for the first time in forty years.  She happens to be sitting next to a young couple who desperately want to be parents, but not a single one of the fertility treatments seem to be helping.  The details may change as I look from face to face, but the essential story remains the same.  They are all thirsty.

     My job is to remember that what we are struggling with is not just our families and jobs.  No, the stakes are much higher than that.  The real struggle is with our parched souls.  We were created with a need to satisfy our physical thirst, and every morning of our lives we are reminded of this thirst.  But this physical thirst is a symbol, maybe even a sacrament, that points to the deeper spiritual thirst of the soul.  So also is our longing for better families and more satisfying jobs a symbol of our deeper yearning to be a part of the family and mission of God.  We simply cannot satisfy the thirst of our souls by pouring on new relationships, experience, achievements, or careers.

     As the Samaritan woman discovered, it doesn’t matter how many times we may try to rearrange our relationships and reorder our lives.  Until we find relief for the soul, everything else will be nothing more than a distraction—a very temporary one at that—from our fundamental craving for living water.

     Most of us haven’t gone through five spouses, but we have gone through jobs, five moves, five weight-loss programs, or five churches—and still the insatiable thirst continues.  We will never find what we are looking for in the things we pick up along the way.  Not even the religious things.  Not even important things like relationships.  All of these things will leave our souls empty if we try to force them to satisfy our thirst.  The true object of our search is nothing less than an encounter with the Holy One. (Sacred Thirst by M. Craig Barnes)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: All Who are Thirsty

All who are weak
Come to the fountain
Dip your heart in the stream of life
Let the pain and the sorrow
Be washed away
In the waves of his mercy
As deep cries out to deep (we sing)

Come Lord Jesus come (3x)
 
Holy Spirit come (3x)

Closing Prayer:
O God of tender mercies, I know I’ve kept you at arms length.  I’ve kept you safe in heaven.  But heaven has leaned down to the earth and I’ve been touched anew.  Like thirsty ground I long for you.  Forgive my casualness about your Love.  Forgive my shallow life.  I am finished with shallowness.  I used to pray that I be saved from eternal death, but now I pray to be saved from shallow living.  Eternal death?  Shallow living?  Is there a difference?  O God, deliver me from shallow living! (A Tree Full of Angels  by Macrina Wiederkehr)