Existential Choices
“Existential Choices”
Psalm 95 John 4:5-42
Third Sunday in Lent, Year A
March 15, 2020
First Presbyterian Church of Sandpoint, Idaho
Andrew Kennaly, Pastor
Psalm 95 mentions, “In [God’s] hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed.” Anything wet, anything dry, anything low, anything high; in other words, everything is made by God and belongs to God. These are also loaded images, such as the sea, water, meaning chaos, death; and mountains are the places of theophany, of spiritual encounters with God, usually in the cloud of mystery. Like the sphere of the earth held in space, everything, from what we may call ‘mountaintop experiences’, to the most tragic, painful, death-filled events, are all held in the hands of God. This truth presented in the Psalm is followed immediately by the only appropriate response: “O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, the sheep of his hand.” That would be the most appropriate response! For sure! But even though this is true, the very next line in the Psalm shows us that it’s not the reality, not the actual practice people choose.
“O that today you would listen to his voice!” Even though we hear about God’s sovereignty and goodness, something within us rebels against this. The biblical story that’s mentioned is from Exodus 17 where we hear the literary story showing mythical characters representing all of us as this dynamic is played out. God leads the people, the people rebel, and the world is affected, yet God is faithful to the longer view. The Psalmist sums it all up, quoting God, saying, “Forty years I loathed that generation and said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they do not regard my ways.’”
Our generation is facing a climate crises that is of existential proportions as the Sixth Mass Extinction is picking up steam. Global Warming is a fact, and yet, for example, in Florida it’s against the law to use that term, Global Warming, in any official State communications. As our culture is bent by a spreading virus that has affected global markets, transportation, trade, social gatherings, sports, and other entire industries, clear down to interpersonal interaction, like visiting your mother at a nursing home, we see how our society can take quick action toward a threat, but for Climate Change, culture is choosing a slow response, if not flat out ignoring it. It may be, down the road, that people look back on our generation with the same contempt that God has toward the people who scorned Moses in the wilderness, so much so that they named the place Meribah, and Masah, because the people complained about being thirsty but ignored that which truly satisfies their thirst.
This virus is just one of the latest threats to humanity. There are others, but whether it’s a virus or nuclear holocaust or catastrophic climate disruption or the sixth mass extinction, we get to the same question. Are you afraid of oblivion? Of life as you, and we, know it, coming to an end? Of your assumptions on what you want life to be like to actually not be the case? Are you afraid of oblivion? If so, “at what point will the knowledge of eternal lovingness overcome our fear of oblivion?” (Daniel Wolpert, “Discovering Elemental Spirituality,” an article in Thin Places, March/April/May 2020, Year Twenty-One, Issue 3, Number 102, page 1-2, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Minneapolis, MN)
As Pastor Daniel Wolpert of the Minnesota Institute of Contemplation and Healing reminds us, “nothing is lost. Rather, everything we do continues to be a part of ourselves, informing how our life moves forward.” That kind of statement hovers in the background of the woman at the well talking with Jesus as she has a mystical encounter that takes her deeper, step by step, into the mystery of being known, in Christ. No wonder they are at a well; their conversation goes deeper and deeper, going beyond the literal into the figurative and the symbolic and the mythical and the existential. As Daniel Wolpert puts it in talking about The Five Wisdoms, water being one of them, “The Element of Water is the element of clarity and insight. Water is indeed life, for without it, and without vision, the people perish. I wonder” he asks, “when will we learn from the water we pollute? What does it mean that we can blow up the world but not provide our own citizens with clean drinking water? Where is the flow of our way of life taking us?”
This experience at the water well is pivotal in the life of this Samaritan woman, and drawing from the Living Water changes everything, putting what she has done and known into a new perspective, re-defining who she is in the moment, and giving qualitative insights into how she will to live into the future, based on who she is, in Christ.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross puts it like this: “People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” (Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a quote borrowed from a webpage for Sacred Ground Center for Spirituality, St. Paul MN, sacredgroundspirit.org/about/mission). This story of the woman at the well is where Jesus helps this Samaritan woman discover the Living Christ within her, shining brightly through her life. She finds clarity and insight, what Jesus calls, “Living Water.”
There are traditional aspects of this story we could focus on if you really want to, and they have their place of importance, such as the genders involved. She is a woman, Jesus is a man. Culturally, they are not to be talking to each other at all. That’s one of the reasons the disciples are astonished when they come back and see her and Jesus talking together. Even she calls Jesus on violating religious law, the fact that they are different, in this case not just male and female, but she says, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” The Jerusalem Jews and the Samaritan Jews hated each other, so strict boundaries in geography and behavior were erected between them. Jesus ignore all of it and engages a conversation.
Another aspect that shows she’s on the margins of society even within her own systems is the hour of the day. Jesus was tired by his journey, sitting by the well at about noon. This is when the woman comes to draw water, long after her counterparts from the village would have come. She was not welcome to join the other woman at the earlier time frame. This clues us in before the story even starts that she’s got a history, baggage, complications, pain. Jesus chooses to engage, nurture, and restore. This is archetypal to the Presence of the Living Christ in, among, and within us, as God seeks to give us healing and help us experience life’s fullness. Like this woman, we are not perfect at this, and it takes discipline, practice, and humility to admit that God knows everything about us even better than we know ourselves, and to choose to trust God, to have basic trust in the world as God’s creation that is ultimately good, and lean into the benevolence of the universe. Sometimes that all we have, no proof, not even a feeling of confidence in this, only trust.
Won’t it be nice, someday in the future? The world will have figured out Climate Change, adjusting to a new normal of some sort; war will be seen as obsolete; collaboration will replace competition; justice and righteousness shall kiss, as it says someplace in the Bible. That’ll be really nice! Someday. Future. Like the woman says, “I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ. ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’” We do the same thing. Christians tend to look to the future, longing for Jesus to come back. It’s in our liturgy, our doctrines, our creeds. The Second Coming of Christ shall take place, someday. Jesus coming on a cloud is one biblical image, riding a horse in that dreamy vision. It will be nice! That’s at the root of some people not wanting to care for the earth. If we trash it, or if we bring on world war, especially in the Middle East, God will send Jesus back sooner. This theology is more prominent than you’d think, a strong source of funding for political purposes and military hardware with hard-line stances. It’s similar to ISIS, the Islamic State idea, bring on the end of the world and God comes to save our particular group, put us in charge, and everything’s good for the rest of eternity.
One thing catches us, though, at the side of the well of clarity as the woman shares her vision, her belief about the future. Jesus says, “I am.” “I am.” “I am, the one who is speaking to you.” “I am” is the name of God. Jesus is saying he is God, telling the woman, flat out, that he is Christ, and this is the pivotal moment. “Just then, his disciples came. They were astonished…” and it goes on. “Just then” is placed in a key spot in this story, as it emphasizes the “right now” of what Jesus proclaims. No future needed. The past is what it is. Right now Christ is with you. As the New Interpreter’s Bible puts it, “I AM…when Jesus speaks this way, he is making a direct connection with the divine name in order to identify himself as the one in whom God is visible and made known.”
You can look to the environmental movement. You can look to political revolutions. You can look at wars and rumors of wars, major arms deals, peace treaties and trade agreements. You can look at health and disease, or follow the stock market to get a pulse of what’s the latest threat. You can resign yourself to think we’re all blowing up at some point anyway once people start pushing big buttons. Or you can just futurize your hope, faithfully believing that when Jesus comes back it’s all going to work out fine. All of these have intriguing aspects. All of them carry truth and give a picture of reality from certain perspectives. But when Jesus says, “I am, the one who is [speaking with you],” he brings us back to John’s prologue which over arches, transcends and includes all of these. He shares the Ultimate that qualifies everything else as pen-ultimate. He ushers in the Eternal, incarnationally, so we aren’t limited by the ways we distort the finite. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Jesus shares the fullness of the Living Christ, in the moment, in every moment, in this moment now.
I don’t know why people settle for less. I don’t know why people look elsewhere when it’s all here. I don’t know why we rebel and struggle and resist, but we do. We all get caught up in fears of one sort or another, and we all need to deal with making existential choices as we draw near the deep wells of life. If we’re too comfortable, benefiting too much from the inside crowd and the mainstream, like those other women going out at the right time, we may miss the invitation. Thankfully, we’re invited to pay attention, especially when things get out of sorts, askew, derailed, and uncomfortable, to have honest conversation about real purpose, sacred space, and being touched deep enough that we can question where the flow of our way of life is taking us.
“The hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” May we come alongside the other villagers, who say “we have heard ourselves, and we know this is truly the Savior of the world.” Blessings to you on this elemental journey of choosing to give room in your heart, mind, and soul, to the one who shares Living Water.
And may God’s humble and loving Presence, who protects from nothing yet sustains through all things, be with us, NOW, even as forever. Amen.