June TrinityJohn 4, 1-26
At this time the Lord became aware that it was rumored among
the Pharisees that Jesus was finding and baptizing more disciples than John
(although Jesus himself did not baptize, though his disciples did.) Therefore
he left Judea and went back again to Galilee.
Now he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a
Samaritan town called Sychar, near the plot of land Jacob had given
to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was also there. Jesus was weary with the
journey, and he sat down by the well. It was about midday, the sixth hour.
Then a Samaritan woman came to draw water. And Jesus said to
her, “Give me to drink.” For his disciples had gone into town to buy bread.
Then the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you, a Jew,
ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman?” For the Jews avoided all contact with
the Samaritans.
Jesus answered her, “If you knew how the divine world now
draws near to men, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me to drink’, you would
ask him, and he would give you the water of life [the living water].
“Sir,” the woman said to him, “you have nothing to draw
with, and the well is deep. From where will you draw the living water? Are you
greater than our Father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself,
as did his sons and his flocks and herds?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be
thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water that I will give him, his thirst
will be quenched for all time. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him
a spring of water welling up as true life for eternity.”
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may
never be thirsty again, and need never come here again to draw.”
He said to her, “Go call your husband and show him to me.”
“I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You
have well said that you have no husband. Five husbands you have had, and he
whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews say that only in Jerusalem is the place where one should worship.”
Jesus answered, “Believe me, o woman, the hour is coming
when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You
worship a being you do not know; we worship what we do know. That is why
salvation had to be prepared for among the Jews. But the hour is coming and has
now come, when the true worshippers will worship the Father with the power of
the spirit and in awareness [knowledge] of the truth.”
Then the woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is
coming who is called Christ. When he comes, he will teach us all things.”
Jesus said to her, “I AM he who stands before you and speaks
to you.”
June
Trinity
June
7, 2015
John
4, 1-26
If
someone were to ask us for a drink of water we would happily oblige. All of us
share the basic experience of thirst, thirst for water, that most precious of
life sustaining substances.
In
life we also further thirst for more than just water; we thirst for knowledge;
we thirst for love and relationship; we thirst for change and effectiveness.
Christ
says to the woman at the well – I thirst. He, the God of Human Beings,
empathizes with all our human thirsts, for He experiences them himself. And at
the same time, his thirst is a request for something from us. I thirst – he says-
for knowledge of you, for a relationship of love with you, to be an effective
presence and power in your life. In exchange I will satisfy your thirst for eternal
knowledge, for everlasting love and for the effectiveness of the divine in your
life. Then you can become a fountain for your fellow human beings.
…Standing
by your Beloved's side
Reaching
out to comfort this world
With
your cup of solace
Drawn
from your vast reservoir of Truth.
….
Where
there are bleeding men
Who
are calling for a sacred drink,
A
gentle word or touch from man
or
God. [1]
[1]
Hafiz, ”Not With Wings”, in The Subject
Tonight is Love - versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky
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