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No Thanks, I’m not Thirsty
A
sermon by Rev. Phil Mitchell
First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, August 12, 2007
There
is nothing like cold Ukrop’s spring water. Cold, clear, icy, inviting water.
You’ve been working outside, you have dug a French drain around your house,
you’ve been jogging, or if you were like me when you grew up in Tennessee, it
was a long night of cow tipping. It was a long night. You’re thirsty and
there’s nothing like water that quenches your thirst. Not Diet Coke, not a
Slurpee, not iced coffee (who came up with that, iced coffee, yuck), not Diet
Mountain Dew, well maybe Diet Mountain Dew might do it. But there is nothing
like water that replenishes the fluid that you lose. Water has a way of going
directly to the place that it needs to go. Water can do what only water can
do…substitutes don’t work.
Just
a few months ago, our family was moving from one part of Richmond into another
part of Richmond and I needed some help one afternoon. And so a couple of days
earlier, I asked Louis Figguroa if he would come over and help us move some of
the heavier stuff. Now you all know Lewis if you have been around the church
much. He’s that real strong looking, bald headed, New Jersey guy that can move
anything. And so Lewis helped me move some of the heavier stuff from out to the
pod that we had, up the steps into the master bedroom, and back and forth and
back and forth and back and forth. And after a few trips upstairs, he said,
“Come on old man, its not that bad!”
Well,
after a few minutes, I thought Lewis looked really tired so I think it would be
a good idea if we took a rest for a few minutes so we offered him something to
drink, and Libby said, “Would like a Coke or a diet Coke.” And he said, “No
thanks, just water would be fine.” Now I am over here in the corner, I am
gulping down diet Mountain Dews by the gallon and I have that really odd
combination of being really hyper and really tired because I have all of this
caffeine inside of me. Then Lewis said just as an aside, “Now, old man”
(that’s the second time he had said old man) – he said “Old man, you know if you
would quit drinking all that diet stuff and drink water, then you would lose
that…” well, I am going to paraphrase just a little bit, “then you would lose
that generous portion of flesh between your belt and your sternum.” Lewis had
kind of a six-pack going you know, he was really slim. I look like I am going
into the second trimester, you know. Well, once Lewis got off the floor, I said,
“You know you are right. You are absolutely right.” You drink water, cold,
clear, inviting, water. We had worked up a thirst and my friend knew exactly how
to quench a thirst. It was all about the water. Are you thirsty yet?
Let’s
look at a passage from John, Chapter 4, which is a very familiar story. There
are a lot of water stories in the book of John. There’s John baptizing, there’s
Jesus turning the water into wine at the wedding at Cana of Galilee, and then
there’s this story in Chapter 4 about this Samaritan woman.
This
scene was early in Jesus’ ministry, and it’s a perfect example of how he used
ordinary things to make an extraordinary point. In the first part of the
narrative, John goes into some detail about the travel route of Jesus in that he
was in Judea, in the south and that he was traveling to Galilee in the north,
and in order to get there he had to pass through Samaria. Now most of us know
that Samaritans were not looked upon favorably by the Jews and racially and
religiously the tensions were really tight. So Jesus goes into this relational
tension, sits by Jacob’s famous well and asked a woman for a drink of water.
That’s no big deal. It’s a huge deal! Jesus was worn out from his journey, he
sits down, he asks a Samaritan for a drink. A Samaritan, and a woman at that!
Now, in that day, men were not allowed to speak to women in public at all –
their daughter, their mother, or even their wife, they could not speak to in
public. So that’s the backdrop in which Jesus is relating to this lady. Not
only is she a lady, but she is from an area in which he not from. Two strikes
against her right there. She’s a Samaritan and she’s a woman. And lastly, well,
let me just say that she’s had a lot of experience at weddings. It’s not clear
about the fifth person - what his relationship is to her, but here she is: a
Samaritan, a woman, and a veteran bride. And she says, “Give me this water.”
Why would Jesus talk to her? It doesn’t make sense.
There
is a discussion about water, how is Jesus going to get this water from the
bottom of this well which is a hundred feet deep from the bottom all the way up
to the top with nothing to draw it out with. “How are you going to get it?” she
says. And he doesn’t even answer the question. He takes the high road and he
says, “You know, once you drink of this living water that I offer, then this
will impact your life and quench all the desires you have, and you will never
have to come back to this well again.” And she says, “O, give me some of this
water because I am tired of coming back to the well.” She doesn’t get it.
Then
there’s the conversation about the woman’s husband. Jesus sees right through her
attempt to deceive him about the number of husbands that she has had. And she
realizes pretty quickly on that she’s not dealing with any ordinary man. She
says she doesn’t have a husband, and Jesus says, “You’re right. You don’t have
a husband. You’ve had 5 husbands…gotcha!
So
then the conversation goes to worship and talks about worship and geography. You
see, Samaritans claimed that Mt. Gerizim is the place to worship, and several
centuries before the birth of Christ, the Samaritans built this temple on this
mountain to rival the temple in Jerusalem. So the woman begins to enter a
discussion about worship. And Jesus, again he steers away from the question and
he says, “You know, it’s really not about “where”. It’s not about logistics.
It’s not about whether or not you sing this song or that song. It’s not about
whether or not you pray this prayer or that prayer. It’s not about this place or
that place. It’s about
participation.
Its not about the externals, it’s about the internals. It’s about your spirit
connecting with God’s spirit. That’s what worship’s about.
Jesus
said, “A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship
the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers that God
seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship him in spirit and truth."
You
see it’s living water. It lasts eternally. And the kind of worshippers
that the Father seeks are those that would have the same kind of encounter with
Christ that that woman had on that hot day. And he will satisfy you and impact
your world and he will turn your world upside down.
Jesus
makes it clear he’s not so much about meeting our needs as he is about
rearranging our needs. Because you see, with an encounter with Jesus Christ, he
gives us needs that we could never even imagine that we have. And in that close
encounter on the well that day, Jesus provides the initiative, and in the course
of the conversation, he moves from stranger to Jewish rival to prophet to a
life-changing, heart-altering presence. What a journey that was in just a few
minutes.
Now
in a congregation this size, or in any group of Christians, there would be a
continuum from those who are like the ones who were baptized this morning who
are encountering Christ in a fresh and new way through their baptism. And then
there are lots of other places on this continuum. And at the other end would be
those who are thirsty and maybe even those who are not even thirsty at all. And
there’s no doubt that even in this room this morning, and those who were here
earlier, that we are all over the page when it comes to that continuum of “Ah,
yeah!” to “I don’t really care” to somewhere in between. And there’s some that
come to this hour of worship and say, “You know, I am trying to … hopefully, I
will get enough holy water today to carry me through the week.” And some people
are here and you are not really sure why you are here. You get in your car on
Sunday morning and you put it in reverse and you come out of your driveway and
you start down the street, and Jen-Jen or Tom-Tom takes you right to First
Baptist Church. You don’t even have to think about it because it’s Sunday and
that’s just what you do. You go to church at First Baptist. And I am really
glad that you do that! You look good, you smell good, well, most of you smell
good, you’re friendly, you’re involved, you’re a leader. Could there possibly be
anything else?
You’re in the eleventh grade or you’ve been in church all your life, or you’re
an 80-year-old veteran Christian. You’re a 35-year-old single mom who’s juggling
teenagers. You are a 60-year-old successful businessman, you are a strung out
mother trying to juggle out all the things that you’ve got to do during the week
and you’ve got a mostly-cooperative husband at home. You’re a minister, you’re a
Pastor Search Committee member and you’re burdened trying to look past the
brothers and find the right fit. You are whatever you are and you are dying of
thirst. Maybe you’re stuck in a pattern of problem solving and agenda tweaking
and you’re thirsty and you know you’re thirsty. You are hoping that this hour
will do it for you. You look on the Internet and you see, “Oh, gosh, he’s
speaking – that ought to be great.” You look another week and you say, “Oh,
it’s him again.” Or you got the reptile “ Dr. Phil.” Jesus says, “Let me give
the living water of my spirit that will quench this longing that you just can’t
seem to satisfy.” You say deep down in your soul, “I need a miracle in my
worship life. I need a water into wine experience.”
A
Priest was driving from Connecticut to New York to see a play. And along
the way, he was going a little faster than he probably should have, and he
was driving a little bit erratically, changing lanes a lot, trying to get
to the play on time, and he got pulled over by a State Trooper. And the
State Trooper, in the process of talking to this Priest, smells
alcohol on his breath and then he notices that there is a wine bottle in the
floorboard of the passenger side. And the State Trooper says the logical
question, "Sir, have you been drinking?" And the Priest stammers a little
bit and he says, “Well, uh, uh, I’ve been drinking water." And the sheriff
says, "Well, why do I smell wine on your breath?" And he thinks a minute, he
looks down and he picks up the bottle out of the floorboard and looks at it
and sits it down, and looks at it again, and he says "Good Lord, He's done
it again!" That was terrible! Well, you see worship is not just another
event.
If you are looking for the water into wine thing, it’s our daily calling.
It’s figuring out what God is doing and placing yourself so that he might
use you. Now I want to be really clear, because I have been planning
worship services for a long time – “old man” - and I have just begun to
realize it doesn’t matter how pretty the music, or how good the sermon, or
whether or not we sing your top favorite ten hymns. Worship won’t do it for
you! It’s the one that you worship who will do it. Now you say, “Phil, that
is the most obvious thing that you could ever say.” Yes, it is. Question
is, is it being actualized in your life. Is the living water making a
difference, or are you just staring at the cup? Only you can answer that.
I
have been asking all the wrong questions about worship for a long time. And
one time, I thought if we could just get the theme right. Like this
morning, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out worthy of worship,
glorious is thy name, as the deer, Psalm 42, there was a theme going on
there if you are just now awakening. If I could just get the theme right,
then this thing would just jump off the platform. And effective worship
will take place. And then sometimes I think, well, you know if we can get
the right pattern right. We’ve got to get the right pattern right. You
know, hymns, scripture, it’s kinda like a sandwich. You know you got the
cheese of the scripture and you got the ham of the hymns and the bologna of
the sermon, and it’s all just kinda mixed up together on a nice sandwich and
if you get it just right, it tastes wonderful, and the flow is … ah, it’s
worship.
And then I have wrestled with the style question. And I think anybody who’s
been doing what I’ve been doing for a long time has been struggling with the
style question. Is it King James Version or is it the MESSAGE? Is it the
guitar or is it the organ? Is it the handbells or is it the praise team?
Is it the bulletin or is it screen? Is it music written last week or music
written by some guy wearing a powdered wig? You know, where … what’s
right? I’ve struggled with that a lot. And I’ve been looking in all the
wrong places.
Because the answer to the question, “How shall we worship?” The question is
not how, the question is who, forget the how.
“Our fathers worshipped on Mt. Gerezim and you worship in Jerusalem. Which
one is right, Lord? Well, Jesus says, “Worship in spirit and truth.
Surrender your heart.” That’s the kind of worship that the Lord desires.
It’s real clear in this passage. And in that kind of worship, invisible
worship, you sing because you can’t help it, you give because you can’t hold
it back, and you worship intimately because you have been walking with that
same God the other six days of the week. It’s a whole different ballgame.
Now my good friend Ralph Starling would say that it’s not about the answer,
it’s about the right question. And the big question of the day for me and
for you is “What do I do if I am not thirsty? What do I do if I am not
thirsty?” Do you find yourself right now, this minute, frankly looking
inside your heart and just saying, “You know, you talked about the continuum
of being filled up with water and being thirsty, man, I am not even thirsty
at all. I have been floating in another dimension.” We’ve all been there.
I’ve been there.
You‘ve heard a bad soprano sing “Fill My Cup, Lord” five hundred times. You
say, “That’s a great story, you know, nice story, good for the Samaritan
woman. I’m glad that her life was changed. But I come to church just as I
am, and I leave just as I was. And I’ve been doing that for a long time and
I comfortable and that’s why I come here.
You know, apathy is such a low and lonely place. It’s where our
relationship with God turns into religion. Listen to the language of
someone who is stuck in this land of “I am not thirsty.” The sentences of
the “not thirsty” (and we’ve all been there or are there) start like:
“We could never do that, because…”
“Well, I don’t see what difference that’s going to make…”
“I’ve got too much church and just enough Jesus to get me through the week.
I am not thirsty. “
That is a dark and lonely place to be.
I
mentioned earlier a phrase, “Dying of thirst.” And I don’t believe that. I
don’t believe we die from thirst. In fact, we die if we don’t have thirst.
It’s clear in this story.
A
traveler was traveling through the Sahara desert and realizing that his only
chance of survival to find civilization, he began walking and as time
passed, he walked and the heat was bearing down on him and he was so thirsty
and he thought he was going to die. He began to feel a little faint and he
wasn’t sure whether it was a mirage or not, but he saw on the right a tent
about 500 yards ahead. And barely conscious, he reached to the tent and
said, "Water... Water.”
Well, an Arabian businessman appeared at the tent door and said, "You know,
I am sorry, sir, but I have no water. However, would you like to buy a
tie?" And he had all of these really nice ties.
And the guy says, "You fool, I’m thirsty. I don’t need a tie. I need a
drink of water.” And he says, “Well, I am sorry we don’t have that here. If
you want it, you can go about two miles that direction and you can get some
water.” Well, he thought. “Well, that’s the only way that I am going to
survive.” So he took out on the journey and before he did the guy gave him
some instructions and he said, “Well, you go about a half mile on this road;
you get to Camels R Us, you take a right and go about another mile or so and
you’ll see this other tent on the left hand side. So he started his journey
again and he made it and he collapsed at the tent and he got right to the
opening of the door and this man appears at the door in this Beecroft and
Bull suit (how it got there I don’t know) but he said, "May I help you?"
And by then it was all he could do to get out, “Water… water.” And the guy
says, “Oh, sir, I'm sorry, you can't come in here without a tie!"
All of us remember our first girlfriend or our first boyfriend. And I had a
crush on Teresa Gillespie in the third grade. She was one hot, smoking
eight-year-old. If she was third in line I was going to figure out a way to
be fourth in line. And I worked through some other people to try to get her
attention. So I asked Pam if she would check with Tom if he would ask Scott
if she liked me. And I gave her one of those notes with the boxes on it:
check here Do you like me Yes __ No __. I dropped things in front of her.
I dropped .. do you remember those gigantic pencils that you used to have –
looked like a PCV pipe? I used to drop those, and hoping that she would
pick it up, and as she did, our hands would graze as she gave it back to me.
Oh! And then I tried accidents. Some of them were intentional and some of
them were not. I remember walking out into the front of the school one day
and she was getting on the bus and I was a car rider so I was walking over
to my mom who was sitting there in the car and I am just staring at her
walking and bam I ran into a column right in front of the school. This
gigantic watermelon size knot was on my head. And everybody was laughing
and she never turned around. Well, almost 2 weeks later to the day I was
standing near the Christmas tree that was in the classroom and back then
all the classrooms had a Christmas tree. And this was one of those
beautiful aluminum Christmas trees. Six foot tall sitting on top of a
table. I got too close to it and before you knew it, I was under an aluminum
Christmas tree. And right next to it was one of those color wheels that had
fallen over and went uhr, uhr, uhr. She turned around. She turned around.
She rolled her eyes, she had the most disgusting look on her face. I
remember it to this day, forty-two years later. I was crushed by a tree,
and smashed by a girl and she stiff-armed every attempt I made to get close
to her. Now, it could have been the pocket protector that I had on. It
could have been the penny loafers- with the pennies in them. Or the big
giant white socks, I am not sure, but I had no chance of getting close to
Teresa Gillespie and she had absolutely no interest in me whatsoever. I had
been stiff-armed. She was too busy, too pretty, and totally indifferent …and
there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.
Jesus stood at the well that day in Samaria and in your mind’s heart, you
can see yourself standing next to him and stiff-arming him and saying, “You
know, just stay right there. This is about all that I can handle.” There
is nothing that he can do about your stiff-arm. He says, “I’m interested in
you. I am going to make the first move. And whether you are 80 years old,
or a mom, or a minister, or an indifferent high schooler, quit stiff-arming
me.” We’ve all been there. If the truth be told, many of us are there right
this minute. You know, the best news is the same water for the thirsty
applies to those people who say, “I’m not thirsty.” Jesus is offering that
same water to you and me today.
So what do you do? Well, you admit you are thirsty, you admit you are NOT
thirsty, and that is the first gigantic step. Being transparent, and just
saying, “Man, I don’t care.”
Second thing is to surround yourself with thirsty people. Get near people
who seem to have a longing. And you know, then maybe realize that not
having a thirst could be a gift. Because it could be the beginning of a
journey in which you will find the depth and the pureness of water that you
have never found before. Could it be that your numbness is a journey that
is buried in a pile of self-reliance and busy-ness and success? You know, a
nice smooth life can obscure a whole lot of stuff. So why not start the
journey to living water which passes from the desolate land of
self-sufficiency through the transforming region of rediscovering your
thirst to the living water of Christ. Bubbling up in you and
through you. You know, I really believe that my friend Louis had it right.
I think water will do the trick. Let’s pray.
Lord, if we are honest before you in our hearts, we are different in our
relationship with you almost every moment. Because our will changes and our
circumstances change and our commitment wanes and we find ourselves not even
thirsty, and you say, “You’ll never thirst. You just need to discover that
that thirst is buried under so much stuff.” I pray for the folks that are in
this room, for all of us who really need a fresh cup of the living water.
Bless us as we seek to find our thirst again and then to rediscover
freshness of Christ. In His name. AMEN
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