John 4:5-42
Exodus 17:1-7
“Will You Give Me A Drink?”
Preached Sunday, March 12, 2023
How are you?
Good! And you?
Oh, I’m doing alright!
How many of us have interactions like this every day? In the midwest we use “How are you?” as interchangeable with “hello!” And often, we don’t expect an honest answer, we keep it surface level to be socially acceptable. Common and acceptable answers are:
Good.
I’m well!
Fine.
And even, hanging in there.
Oh, you know…
Or the ever acceptable: Keepin’ busy!
Now, I once heard of a clergy colleague who, for Lent, decided to practice vulnerability. So every time the question was asked, “How are you?” She would answer honestly. And it was hard. People were often so surprised and taken aback and they didn’t know how to respond. Can you imagine when the grocery cashier asked you how you were and you said “Overwhelmed.” Uhhh… how are they going to reply? “Paper or plastic?” There were times where she really didn’t want to answer honestly. When a parishioner asked her how she was doing and it would be so much easier and quicker to say “Fine!” when she was anything but… Of course, I would imagine there were moments where, when she said “Great!” “Grateful.” “Feeling loved.” - the words had more meaning because for her, she knew it was true. And, she found, it gave her a better self awareness of how she was doing. To be able to stop and check in with herself before answering - and it opened up doors for people to be vulnerable and open in return.
Of course, there are times when the reverse is true as well. Just as when we ask “How are you?” and expect a non-vulnerable, surface level answer…there are times we want to ask someone a deeply personal question but are afraid to do so - so we ask them another question that is a softer blow or easier ask.
Can you think of examples from your own personal life?
Perhaps you’ve asked a spouse if they took out the trash when you really want to ask, “Are you still mad at me?” Or asked them if they vacuumed or picked up like you asked them to but really wanted to know if they see how hard you work. Or, “Will you eat dinner with me?” instead of, “Do you still love me?”
Or for parents of teenagers, asking them how their school day was when you really want to ask them if they are depressed and suicidal. “Do you make any new friends today?” when you really want to ask “Are you gay?”
Or for parents of adult children, “What are you doing tonight?” instead of “Is your partner abusive?” Or “How’s the job going?” instead of “Are you really happy?”
Or for those who have older parents - we may ask “How are you?” but unlike when we expect a shallow answer we really want to know, “Are you forgetting things?” “How is your heart?” “How much time do I have left with you?”
I think you get that point and you probably have examples running through your minds - questions you’ve been asked, questions you want to ask, questions you’re too afraid to ask. We ask the easier question because we’re afraid of the real answers, the vulnerable answers. We want to know but we also don’t want to know…and so we ask…without really asking. We skirt around the questions, skirt around being vulnerable with each other.
Let’s take this concept from our lives and look at how it plays out in our Scriptures from this morning. In our reading from Exodus, the Israelites ask for a drink, they ask for water. They even become defensive against Moses - getting angry at him saying he brought them out of Egypt to kill them. But their anger is a shield for asking the question they’re too afraid to ask. They ask for water…because what they really want to ask is, “God, have you abandoned us?” “God, do you still love us? Will you still care for us?” “Are you still our God even now?”
Rev. Danielle Shroyer says this about this Scripture passage in our Seeking Lenten Devotional: “What would it have looked like, I wonder, if the Israelites had instead cried out for God’s assurance? ‘Show us you’re still with us, God,’ they could have prayed with open hearts. ‘We feel alone and unmoored.’ Where could the water have come from, if the question had come from a softer place than the rock of our human defenses?”
God still gave them water - and through the gift of water answered the question they were really asking, “God, do you still love us? Will you still care for us?” And God answers with water: Yes. And still, what could this exchange have looked like if the Israelites were open and honest, vulnerable with God, if they poured their hearts out and God was able to meet them tenderly and lovingly in that desert space…
The Israelites' words are mirrored in Jesus’s words to the Samaritan woman at the well. “Give me a drink.” Unlike the Israelites, who ask for a drink as a way to avoid the questions they really want to ask, when Jesus is asking for a drink, it is an invitation to the Samaritan woman to enter deeper into the conversation, to practice vulnerability, as she draws a drink from the deep well.
Rev. Shroyer continues in our Lenten devotional by saying, “Everything he risks by speaking with her—crossing cultural, religious, and social lines—demonstrates his willingness to be vulnerable. When he asks for what he needs, he shows that even he cannot make it alone. What a risk for the Son of God to be so openly human. And yet, it is this question—and his willingness—that leads to this woman’s transformation. Despite a long list of good reasons why she shouldn’t be vulnerable to anyone, she boldly asks Jesus for living water instead. And she did so fully trusting he would give it.”
Indeed, everything about Jesus’s interaction with this woman exposed vulnerability, his willingness to be open and honest with her, and in doing so, extending an invitation to be real and honest with him.
Jesus offers the same opportunity for us today - for us to meet Jesus in his vulnerability.
Let me say that again: Jesus offers the same opportunity for us today - for us to meet Jesus in his vulnerability.
How does that sentence sit with you? How does the idea of Jesus being vulnerable make you feel? Of God being vulnerable? I think many of us may be initially uncomfortable with this idea of God being vulnerable - we do so much to shore ourselves up from vulnerability - and to shore up our God from vulnerability. Well thought up arguments and comebacks to justify our theology, our participation in church and religion… Not to mention the physical and emotional walls we put up around ourselves. What do you mean that God invites us to meet Jesus in his vulnerability?
That God is vulnerable is the Scandal of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
That God came in the form of a baby, a vulnerable tiny baby. That God submitted to a human woman: for her to say yes to grow the child of God in her womb, and for that child - for God - to be nurtured, fed, cared for and taught about love - by humans.
And then that vulnerable God child would grow into a God man - who was still vulnerable. Who had vulnerable flesh that could bleed. Vulnerable breath that could stop. A vulnerable body that could be tortured and killed.
Jesus is the essence of God’s vulnerability - that God fully submitted God’s self to our human vulnerability - for God to place the whole life of God’s self in Jesus into the hands of humanity - there is nothing more vulnerable than God in Jesus.
This is the scandal of the Good News - as Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman was a scandal - vulnerability often is scandalous. We want our God to be a strong tower, a fortress, unbreakable… But God in Jesus invites us to be fully human with God, and to be fully human means to be vulnerable with each other.
The God who made God’s self vulnerable with us and for us, *wants* our vulnerability, our openness, our whole messy human selves in return. I am going to say that sentence one more time too: The God who made God’s self vulnerable with us and for us, *wants* our vulnerability, our openness, our whole messy human selves in return.
And, God’s omniscience, that’s the idea that God already knows everything about me - is not an excuse to not be vulnerable with God. God wants us to talk to God. To ask our questions - our real questions. To open our hearts to God, to pour our hearts out, to give God every bit of ourselves - messy vulnerability and all.
As Christians who follow Jesus, we are called to vulnerable lives. To be vulnerable with God, that is, to give our whole selves to God, to hold nothing back from God - and to be vulnerable with each other - and that is, place our lives in each other’s hands. To ask questions that show care and love for another. To allow others into your life, to allow yourself to ask for help and to be helped. To realize that our mutual thriving is in the hands of our neighbor….
The work of vulnerability is hard. Let’s start this practice by focusing our attention onto our vulnerable God and starting there, asking God our questions, the real questions, the ones we’ve been too afraid to ask, even of God. Ask those questions because our God can handle them - and God will meet us in our vulnerability.
May it be so.
Amen.
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