Bottled Water
I’m sitting at my desk right now enjoying a wonderful square bottle of Fiji water. My wife got me hooked on this stuff. They say water should have no taste. But, this is the BEST tasting water I’ve ever had. Enough of my Fiji commercial though.
The reason I enjoy bottled water so much is the stark contrast in taste between the water I receive from the bottle and the water that comes from my tap here in Ashland, Ohio. It tastes like water in Ashland is 5% water and 95% rubber, chlorine, arsenic and bat feces. I’m being a little over-dramatic here but the water tastes horrible to me. I grew up on well water and water that has been overly treated is just flat-out disgusting to me; an insult to my taste buds!
In John 4, there is this story that is absolutely amazing to me. Jesus makes a detour with his posse and visits a region known as Samaria. Samaritans were the half-breeds of the region. During the conquests of the Assyrians, the Northern Kingdom of Israel fell. A rivalry had existed for years between the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Judah was not able to gloat for too long for soon after, a new power arose, the Babylonians. They eventually conquered Judah and captured the golden city of Jerusalem.
During the Babylonian Exile, an emperor named Cyrus allowed some of the dispersed, former inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom [Israel] to return to their lands. When the former tenants returned, they found other people occupying their lands. Over time, both groups of people began to intermarry. For this, Samaritans, as they were called, were looked at as half-breeds. They had married outsiders. They were below good Jews who had maintained ethnic and religious purity. The rivalry became even greater.
So intense was this rivalry that if Jews were traveling north, they would go out of their way to avoid the region of Samaria. So intense was this rivalry that Jesus is quite controversial when, in a parable about great servanthood, he identifies a Samaritan as friendliest to the man in need.
As Jesus is on His way to Galilee, He decides to go right through Samaria. This guy doesn’t avoid the region at all. On His way through Samaria, He encounters a woman drawing water from a well at mid-day and strikes up a conversation with her. PAUSE! Two important things to note about this chunk of the story. 1) Why is this woman drawing water from a well at mid-day? Women customarily drew water in the early morning or late evening. This gal has a story. 2) Why is Jesus talking to a Samaritan [gasp] woman [gasp]? Not only is she Samaritan but she is a she.
In the course of this bizarrely cool conversation, it is discovered that this woman’s story is that she has whored out her life to lots of men. Then Jesus makes this surprise offer…would you like to drink of living water whereby you will never go thirsty? Pretty much He’s saying, “You thought that well water would satisfy your thirst but it leaves a bad taste in your mouth and doesn’t really satisfy your thirst. Let me offer you something a little better [maybe Fiji water]?”
What does the Living Water taste like? We know the water is Jesus but what does Jesus taste like? You and I may not come to worship guilty of adultery but we come to worship with lives that have been whored out to money, video games, the newest and fastest technology, expensive cars, out of control credit card debt, gossip, profanity, anger, depression. We work the “wells” of our lives trying to draw up a bucket of something that will satisfy the deepest groanings. In the end, all we got was another bucket of hard work with a little payoff that will leave us thirsty again.
Bottled water may be a great gimmick. The labels all tell you the cool ways in which that water has been filtered over volcanic rock or triple-layer filtration systems. Heck, you’d think you were drinking God’s urine the way some of these labels advertise. Some would say I’m wasting my money on bottled water. “Just deal with tap water’s taste and stop whining,” they may say.
When you have tasted water without the chemicals, there is no going back. You will ALWAYS taste the chemicals because you have experienced an alternative.
We attempt to cram so much into a Sunday morning. People think that one hour a week will satisfy all their deepest groanings. Worship has been reduced to a few songs. But please, oh please, don’t cut into my teaching time. The sermon is everything to so many.
What if we’re missing Jesus in all of this. What if you and I have been drawing from the wrong well. Trying to cram worship into 25 minutes is like trying to mix a little bit of Fiji water with a full glass of tap water. The chemicals take over and we lose the alternative experience that is water without chemicals.
So, I ask you again, what does this living water taste like? Do you want this water? Are you tasting Jesus?
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