“Give me a drink:” Longing for the Presence of Christ – Part 3

—a Meditation by Naomi Wenger, Lent 3, 2020

This meditation is based on the Lenten Retreat given at The Hermitage on March 7, using the scriptures for the third Sunday in Lent for 2020. It will be posted over four days this week, Monday (3/16), Tuesday (3/17), Thursday, (3/19), and Friday (3/20). Each day includes a meditation and suggestions for practice. In this time when the whole world is focused on a virus, my hope is that you will be encouraged to keep thirsting for Christ.

Drink

How much water do you need to drink in a day? Since we know that water is necessary for life, how much is enough? There are several formulas for calculating this amount. One that is easy to remember is to take your weight in pounds and halve it. Then, drink that amount in ounces of water each day. For example, If someone weighed 150 pounds, they should drink 75 ounces of water each day. One thing is certain, we have to drink. It is our action that makes drinking possible. This may seem fairly obvious, we all drink every day. But I wonder if we realize that spiritual drinking also requires our action. Leonhard Schiemer, an early Anabaptist martyr puts it this way:

“For as the water does not quench my thirst unless I drink it, and as the bread does not drive away my hunger unless I eat it, even so Christ’s suffering does not prevent me from sinning until he suffers in me.”

We can be thirsty, we can be near water, but unless we drink, we cannot be satisfied. Just so, our spiritual drinking is necessary to imbibe the living water. Jesus asks the Samaritan to drink of the living water. Read John 4:16-26.

Jesus asks the woman to own her deepest need. That is, he points to her failure in relationships—in loving. Perhaps, we can imagine a woman who is widowed once or twice. Perhaps we can imagine a woman scorned by a man, but this detail of going through five husbands and then giving up on marriage altogether and just living with the next man is evidence of disordered relationships. So, Jesus, in offering her living water shows her that to drink, she has to own her failure, she has to take off her masks and her self-pity, she must become just who she is “warts and all.” There is no other condition in which we can drink the living water. 

The funny thing about drinking the living water is that sometimes it seems as if we are being poured out, or that we are emptying ourselves. The psalmist, too, knows this feeling:

Ps 42:4–6
4     These things I remember, 
as I pour out my soul: 
how I went with the throng,
and led them in procession to the house of God, 
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, 
a multitude keeping festival. 
5     Why are you cast down, O my soul, 
and why are you disquieted within me? 
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, 
my help and my God. 
  My soul is cast down within me; 
therefore I remember you
  from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, 
from Mount Mizar. 

My soul is cast down, therefore I remember you! What is remembered as the soul is poured out? The memory is of companionship, of joy, of glad shout and songs of thanksgiving of feasting with the throng. So, we learn with the Psalmist that as he is being poured out, he remembers God. The God who is with him in the plains of Jordan, the high mountains of Hermon and the “little hill” (the meaning of the word, “Mizar”). In short, the God who never forsakes, whether in joyous assembly or depressed and alone. 

Meister Eckhart, the 14th century mystic, philosopher, friar, priest, and theologian taught about this kind of “emptying to be filled” with these words:

Become Empty
So you want to find God?
Empty yourself of everything—
 
your worries and your hopes,
your wishes and your fears.
 
For when you are finally 
empty, God will find you,
 
because God cannot tolerate
emptiness and will come
 
to fill you with himself.

(from Jon M. Sweeney & Mark S. Burrows, Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart: Meditations for the Restless Soul)

The story of the woman at the well does not end here, there are two more movements for her to perform. Read John 4:27-30.

Did you notice what she did? She left her water jar. She came for water, found Jesus, and left her jar. This is probably a very significant line in the story, placed for our understanding. She has discovered the inner spring and no longer needs the well water. Then, she tells her true story to her people, inviting them to come to the man who invited her to own it in the first place.

In another Psalm (51), we hear David saying, “you desire truth in the inward parts.” I think this is what Jesus is demanding of the woman and what it means to drink of the living water. We have to tell the truth—to ourselves and to others and to God. Jesus will meet us with the forgiveness we seek for that which we hide from ourselves and others.

It is Christ in us the hope of glory. No longer I live, but Christ lives in me. This is not unity but union. As Schiemer said it, “Christ’s suffering does not prevent me from sinning until he suffers in me.”

Practice: 

Read John 4:16-30. Now that she has abandoned her water jar, what would you say that the woman is “drinking?” Is that a drink you need or want, too? How is this message of universal hope relevant to this time in history? Can you receive the living water that is offered? Write your reflections in your journal.

Read the poem, “Pregnant with God.” What do you think Meister Eckhart means when he uses the phrase, “pregnant with God?” How do the words of the poem speak to your desire for God? You might want to write about your union with God or draw a symbol or picture of what that means to you.

Pregnant with God
You are either
with or
wihtout.
I tell you
there
is
no other

(from Jon M. Sweeney & Mark S. Burrows, Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart: Meditations for the Restless Soul)

Pray with the prophet (below). Feel your bones being made strong. In your imagination, be a beautiful garden or a never-failing spring.

Isaiah 58:11, alt.
  The Lord will guide me continually, 
and satisfy my needs in parched places, 
and make my bones strong; 
and I shall be like a watered garden, 
like a spring of water, 
whose waters never fail.