Water Is Life

John 4:5-42

March 19, 2017

Every once and a while serving on the board of a nonprofit has some perks. Last week I received one related to my work with People of Faith for Equality in Virginia: I had the distinct privilege and pleasure of having lunch with Bishop Gene Robinson.

I asked him what connections he saw between the reformation-type shifts in the global church that we’ve been talking about this year and his work for GLBTQ justice – in the church and the wider world. He said, “you know, David, people come to church looking for God and we give them religion instead. But that’s changing in a lot of places these days.”

I don’t think that disconnect is anything new under the sun, and it may be the root cause of all of the great religious upheavals throughout history. People are parched for a sip of living water, and the religious establishment says, “first let’s see if you’re after Lutheran water or Presbyterian water or some other weird flavor,” or “first, learn this 2,000 year-old-creed that in no way speaks to your thirst, but learn it first anyway,” or “tell me about your gender and your sexual orientation, first.”

In Martin Luther’s time, it would have been, “let’s talk about the matter of a small indulgence, and then we’ll get to the God-talk.” In Jesus’ time, as the reading from John’s gospel surely indicates, it would have been, “the temple is no place for a woman” or “let’s judge your marital status first” or “you are a Samaritan, you have no business in this conversation in the first place.”

There is and always has been a religious establishment who perceive as their first charge protecting the institution and guarding its gates. People come to those gates seeking God, thirsting for something to quench a thirst that they can barely name, and we say, “let me tell you the history of this lovely stained-glass gate. You know, my great-grandfather helped pay for the gate.”

And we wonder why the institutional church is collapsing all around us. Oh, and it is collapsing. Make no mistake about that. It matters not whether we are talking the Mainline or the old line or the out-of-line, the liberal or the conservative, the northern or the southern – the institutional church in North America is collapsing. Every single denomination that is older than a decade is experiencing membership decline. Mainline Protestant churches – Lutherans, Presbyterians, UCC, Methodists, Episcopalians, and so on – have seen total membership decline by more than 10 percent over the past decade. Since 2005, our denomination has lost about one quarter of its members – a decline of more than a half million. Heck, the percentage of white Republicans with no religious affiliation has tripled since 1990. And so it goes.

So Jesus and a woman of questionable reputation meet at the local watering hole. “Pour me a drink?” Jesus asks.

“I am so tired,” the woman probably thinks to herself. “I am tired of carrying this water; I am tired of the midday heat; I am tired of men.”

But she says, “You’re not from around here.”

“Why do you say that?” Jesus asks.

“Well, first off, if you were from around here you would know that men do not speak to women. Indeed, you’d know that a man should never be alone with a woman unless they’re married.”

“Hm,” says Jesus, “Well, in that case, call for your husband and I’ll speak with him.”

“I’m not married,” she replies.

“Yes, but you have been. And more than once. Quite a few times, I’m thinking.”

“Ugh. Men,” she probably thinks to herself. “Is that all they care about? Ever?” But aloud she asks, “how do you know?”

And he tells her, “I can see the sorrow and the pain in the lines around your eyes; I can hear the longing and the thirst in your words and in your voice. You come out here at midday to get away from the gossip and the talk, and you are looking for something that you can’t even name. I can give you water; water that fills you down to the souls of your feet and up as high as your spirit can reach.”

“Sir, give me a drink. Please. I am so tired and so thirsty.”

This is the word of the Lord to the church in our time.

The people are parched; let’s give them something to drink.

The challenge, of course, is that, as an institution, we have lost most of our credibility because we, too, are parched. We are too much like the dry bones to which Ezekiel preached, and the boneyard is the last place people come looking for a drink.

So, what good news can we possibly hear in this? After lunch last week, Bishop Robinson spoke to an interfaith group of several dozen NoVA clergy. He was encouraging us to continue the work for LGBTQ justice. He reminded us that it is still possible in about half the states in the Union – including ours – for a gay or lesbian couple to get married on a Saturday, get evicted from their apartment on Sunday when the landlord reads about the wedding in the lovely write-up in the local paper, and lose their jobs on Monday because management saw the story, too. And they have no legal recourse because such discrimination in housing and employment remains perfectly legal.

That doesn’t sound like good news at all! In fact, I think the woman at the well would understand such a story perfectly well, and could probably see herself in it, too.

Here’s the good news: just as Jesus met the woman at the well right where she was, and loved her just as she was, God is right there in the midst of not only the beautiful wedding but present, heart broken open in anguish, in solidarity with those who suffer discrimination.

That is good news for all who suffer, for all who thirst, for all who will be hurt by the policies coming out of the White House and the Congress these days. None of us suffer alone. God is there, in the midst of the down-trodden, the broken-hearted, the poor, the outcast, the prisoners and the oppressed, the children who will go to school hungry because there is no “demonstrable evidence” that feeding children produces results and the elderly who will no longer receive meals on wheels because “reasons,” the children of Flint drinking contaminated water because they are poor, and the water protectors of Standing Rock who remind us of the same deep truth that Jesus spoke: water is life.

The challenge to the church is as clear as clean water drawn from a deep well not contaminated by lead or by oil or by fracking. If we want to be where God is then we need to get ourselves to the places where we can stand in solidarity with the broken-hearted children of a broken-hearted God.

As Bishop Robinson said to us, “when the church goes out to do justice we find that God is already there.”

If people come to church looking for God, maybe the best thing they could find is a sign in the window that says, “gone fishing … for justice” and a note that invites them to join us – join us walking on the picket line, join us serving in the soup line, join us in crossing every line that would divide the people from one another.

Drink deeply from the wellspring for it overflows with living water, then rushes down in a mighty stream of justice and righteousness. In that water we will find life. In that water we will find the God for whom our parched souls thirst. May it be so. Amen.