St. Andrew’s April 30^th 2006; Mission Awareness Sunday

 

Quenching Our Thirst

 

Genesis 1:1-12, 26-31

John 4:3-13, 24-29

 

It is the most simple and human of things that after awhile we will experience a dryness in the mouth and throat and wish to have a drink.

 

We will have a craving for a simple drink of water. Not quenched we will have an ardent desire to quench that thirst that we will do anything to satisfy that craving. We are impelled to satisfy that craving for water because our bodies are made up of 65% water and if we don’t get it, we will die, since we can only exist about four days without water.

 

Personal experience, medical science, and anything we read on the subject will verify that this is a simple truth: we need to drink water to satisfy our thirst or we will die.

 

Someone on a satellite circling the earth, perched as an observer would find that humanity seems to have a lot of thirsts to be quenched:

-peasants in desert areas would be searching for water,

-people in Las Vegas and at kiosks in malls would be quenching their thirst for gambling,

-the internet sites are exploding with people thirsting for sex and pornography,

-acres of monster homes, SUV’s and Hummers are signs are visible signs of the thirst for wealth and prestige,

-the accumulation of items that are for sale in stores point to our thirst to accumulate possessions,

-our thirst for travel has spawned cars; millions and millions of cars.

 

Just what is this unending thirst all about?

 

Why are we so thirsty to gamble when it is not like water? We will not die if we don’t gamble or have an SUV, so why are we so thirsty for them?

 

There is one word that we commonly misunderstand in the first chapter of Genesis which has a lot to do with our thirst.

 

As you know and have heard, Genesis is a beautiful description of the world being created. The story flows with harmony and grace about how creation was formed.

 

“And God saw that it was good.”

 

Now in verses 26 and 28 there is a world used that causes some confusion for humanity.

 

That word is “dominion.”

 

We commonly use the word “dominion” in terms of sovereign rule, but that is not what it means in Genesis.

 

We read where it says, in verse 26 “let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,” and in verse 28 that we are to “… fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

 

We are mistaken to believe that this text means that we are to be lord and master over everything on the earth.

 

First of all the word dominion is limited in that this text is written in a way that supposes a vegetarian diet and therefore has the expectation of benevolence and peace. This notion of benevolence and peace is because as God’s supreme creation on earth we human beings are… to be like God in our attitudes and how we conduct ourselves.

 

To have dominion over the earth therefore has the connotation of being in a kind of relationship dialogue with creation. This is not the same thing as being a master who has a slave in leg irons. It does not mean that we are to fish the fish to extinction.

 

We have a stewardship obligation in having the dominion that we were given by God. We are obliged to care for the creation that is under our power.

 

This Creation text has great wisdom: we are supposed to honour the Sabbath every week. The Hebrew verb “Shabat” is where we get the noun “Sabbath” which means “rest.”

 

The world wants 24 hour shopping, sex, and banking. God says we need to rest one full day every week.

 

Maybe we need to think about taking a rest from all of our thirsting; like a fast.

 

When we take a rest from gambling, shopping and TV, we might find a different relationship with all of our thirsting for those things. Maybe they wouldn’t rule our lives like they do if we rested from them. We could turn off our TV for a week and see what it is like!

 

We human beings do have real thirsts that have to be quenched, like the one for water.

 

Even Jesus got thirsty. One blistering hot day around noon, when his disciples were off getting supplies, Jesus sat at a well, hot, tired and thirsty. A Samaritan woman came along to get water. Women didn’t go to the well at high noon because it was too hot, but this woman came because she was considered a woman of low morals; she didn’t want to have to meet the righteous women of the community. She came in shame.

 

In addition to that, good Jews like Jesus didn’t talk to Samaritans because they were really what we might call, “low class Jews;” second rate, racially impure. But Jesus turned history around and was politically incorrect by simply asking for a drink of water.

 

His request shocked the woman. “How is it that you a Jew ask me a woman of Samaria?”

 

Jesus did a double take on the word “Water” and said that he had living water and if she knew who he was she would ask for the “living water” he had so that she wouldn’t ever be thirsty again.

 

We know how the story goes that Jesus told her all about her life. Being astounded that he could do that, she brought the whole village out to see him.

 

There was a great thirst that was quenched by Jesus at this well with the Samaritan woman. Her shame was lifted. Her thirst for acceptance was found at that well, from Jesus himself.

 

She went for water but she was thirsting for forgiveness, love, and acceptance. She was thirsting for freedom from judgment…..and she found it!

 

As this is mission awareness Sunday, then according to Jesus our mission is to quench the thirst of people who are in great need of forgiveness, love, acceptance and peace.

 

We need to be constantly reminded that our mission is to give to others what Jesus gave to that woman at Jacob’s well so many years ago.

 

All the problems of the world are spiritual problems, but sometimes they need, food, water, and shelter first.

 

The local Rotary Club sent thousands of dollars to help the people of Cameroon to get fresh drinking water.

 

Sometimes people need words of encouragement and support, because they are thirsting for affirmation.

 

Sometimes people are desperately thirsty for information, for respect, for honour, for relief.

 

Our children today are desperately thirsty for parenting, and for identity; drugs, tattoos, and hanging out are a poor substitute for their parent’s guidance and direction.

 

Our mission is connection. We need to be connected to each other just as much as propellers, rudders, boats, and fishermen are to grab those buoys that are connected to the lobster traps tomorrow morning on the first day of the season.

 

We have to be that connected, to quench the thirst we each have to feed our souls as well as our stomachs.

 

That is our quest; that is our mission.

 

AMEN              Rev. Alan Stewart