“Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty,” Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well one hot afternoon. “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman is surprised by Jesus’ offer. After all, she is a Samaritan, a woman, and has a less-than-stellar reputation in her community. But she soon realizes that Jesus is talking about more than just ordinary water and somehow he also knows all about her personal life, so she runs back to town and tells everyone what has happened to her. People listen, and they value the good news about Jesus that she shares with them. Because of her witness the whole town winds up believing in Jesus (John 4:5-32).

We are all the Samaritan woman at the well today – overly confident, caught up in our deceptions and our own sinful choices, cast out from where we could be in good, loving joyful relationships with God and each other, and desperately thirsting for what Jesus offers us. And we are all offered this “living water” and the loving invitation to come home and live a new life.

All of our lives are complicated and messy – often as a result of our own attitudes and choices. We somehow manage to move away from living in full, personal relationships with God; we focus a lot of attention on our concrete needs and wants. We tend to look for happiness and fulfillment in the physical world around us – in our relationships, our jobs, our accomplishments and our “stuff,” and we forget where our true joy and peace come from. We may wind up desperate and angry with God for not seeming to give us what we want or need, or decide that we are not good enough or not worthy of God’s love and care.

So many things happen, and we do so many things, that leave us “exiled” from God to some degree – not because God has pushed us away, but because we ourselves have moved away. It is our human nature to wander away from God, to sin, to cut ourselves off from the “living water” that Jesus offers us – the new life that he freely gives us through our faith in him. We forget how precious that life is. But we always, always have the freedom to accept that life back again – that’s what grace and forgiveness are about. Jesus’ own death and Resurrection make that possible for us.

We come to the well and are astounded that Christ finds us worthy and that we are loved, invited and included in this new life he offers – knowing we’ve done nothing to earn or deserve it! And we are so very grateful. We do not have to stay in exile, dying from thirst, away from our God who loves us!

During this time when many of us may be away from our church homes for several weeks, it is especially important to remember that Jesus meets us wherever we are and calls us to be the Body of Christ wherever we find ourselves at any given time. We don’t need to be perfect, or have our lives perfectly put together or understand everything there is to know about Jesus in order to be effective disciples. However strong or weak, confused or partial, new or old or even uncertain our faith is – Christ offers to fill us with his “living water” and enables us (commands us, actually) to share this “living water” with everyone we know – so that none of us ever need to go thirsty again.

Trinity’s public worship services are currently suspended in our effort to help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus (all Episcopal churches in the Diocese of Oklahoma are closed as of March 13th). We invite you to join us in prayer during this holy season of Lent, praying especially for those whose lives are already impacted by this illness. We hope to resume our regular Sunday services on Palm Sunday, April 5th. 918-689-2369.