Jesus is journeying and thirsty, in need of water. He sits down at a well where a “woman of Samaria came to draw water.” He asks for and she provides him with water to quench his thirst. She asks for and he provides her with water to quench her thirst. They drink up water that is real and water that is meaning. Real is to survive, to sustain our lives. Meaning is to thrive, to sustain our spirit. In the journey to the Well at Samaria and the journey beyond, they are One.
Deep down water runs in the earth as deep down meaning runs through our lives. We bring the water to the surface to survive as we bring our meaning to the surface to thrive. If the water is gone from the well, what will become of us? We will die for lack of sustenance as well-springs of the earth are being extracted, taken, and wasted. If the meaning is gone from our own well what will become of us? We will wither away knowing our meaning too is being extracted, taken, and wasted. Across our world fresh and renewing resources of surviving and thriving are being destroyed. Wars ravage the entirety of our ecosystems, physical and spiritual, vital to our health, to our life and our meaning. Elite owners of carbonated drink corporations wage war on our brothers and sisters who are poor to steal water rights and they rely on the military of the U.S. demon/adversarial kingdom to do so. Elite owners of deep-water oil rigs wage war on our global indigenous brothers and sisters fracking their oceans, dumping pollutants that kill sea life, and poisoning water used for drinking while they too rely on the same demon kingdom and its military to do so. So too elite owners of deep land drilling rigs wage war on indigenous people fracking their lands, killing their animals, and poisoning their water also relying on that same demon kingdom and military. Always they rely on coercing some meaningfulness of the military for us and so we are compliant, silent. As they kill a precious resource to survive, water, so they kill a precious resource to thrive, meaning. Who orders such sickening wars to be waged, such life to be killed? Who coerces us that there is any meaning in it? It is a demon kingdom that does so. As it wages its wars abroad and coerces meaning from them, so it wages its wars at home and coerces meaning from them. It sickens and it kills the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria and so too of Standing Rock, Wind River, and Flint. It will sicken and kill so many more. It will do so because it takes for its wars our resources and our meaning. Thus we we will be taken ill and we will die with few resources to water our basic health care, certainly any pandemic health care. Again and again this demon kingdom demonstrates it will kill people. It will kill people and what the people need to survive, and it will kill people and what the people need to thrive. Under militarism, we are not One; we never will be. We are not surviving nor are we thriving. We are called to be One. One with the Samaritan woman, surviving and thriving together with water that quenches our bodies and meaning that quenches our soul; “whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
“Sinking down, deeper down, Oh, we’re going deeper down: If we fail to get the water, then it’s ruin to the squatter, … But we’re bound to get the water deeper down. Sinking down, deeper down, Oh, we’re going deeper down … But we’ll get artesian water … Oh! we’ll get artesian water deeper down. And it’s down, deeper down — Oh, it comes from deeper down; It is flowing, ever flowing, in a free, unstinted measure From the silent hidden places where the old earth hides her treasure — Where the old ‘heart’ hides her treasures deeper down.” (Song of the Artesian Water – Andrew Barton Paterson)
Prayer: Flowing Spirit, help us live as well-springs of meaning.
Question: What is the meaning of my life for the world and how am I watering it?
March 15, 2020 Gospel John 4:5-42 Third Sunday of Lent