SHADYSIDE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

You said this to a Samaritan woman who had burned through five husbands and was now living with someone else.  She may have just been bad at marriage.  But since the Samaritans practiced Levirate marriage, she may have been passed from one deceased kinsman to another – and the last guy may have refused to marry her for fear of his life.  It doesn’t really matter.  This was clearly not the life this woman dreamed about when she was a little girl.  Her soul had been parched for a very long time.

When you tried to offer yourself as the living water that could satisfy her thirst, she thought you were just talking about ordinary well water.  Most people don’t enjoy metaphors as much as you do.  So when Christians read this text, we tend to slap our hands to our foreheads and yell at her: “He’s talking about your soul!  He’s the Savior you have been looking for your whole life.”  Yes, that’s correct.  We get the metaphor.

So why are even Christians still thirsty?  We, too, thirst for more in our relationships, our work, our health, and certainly in our spiritual life.  We may not have had five husbands, but we have had five jobs, weight loss programs, dates, churches…  And with every new one, we thought this would satisfy the thirst. 

There has to be more to true spirituality than just getting the metaphors.