With Open Hearts
John 7:37-39
Rev. Randy Quinn

We take water for granted. Even when we go through dry spells and droughts, we assume there will be water available. None of us – not a one of us – have experienced life without water. (I know that, because we can’t live without water, and we’re all alive – we may be sleeping, but we’re still breathing.)

How many of you can remember drinking out of a cistern, though? (I’m sure some of the older people will remember that.) It was before my time, but I know there was a day – before deep drilling wells and before rural water districts – when the primary sources for water were rainfall and rivers. Rainwater was collected – in barrels or cisterns – and used for most daily functions. Farm ponds were created to collect rainwater in areas where there was no river.

But river water is what most of the settlers looked for. The earliest and largest settlements were along the banks of rivers. New York City was founded on the Hudson River. Washington, DC, is along the Potomac. Closer to home, we know Kansas City, St. Joseph, and White Cloud are on the banks of the Missouri. The older the city, the more likely it is to be near water.

Wells provide a substitute source of water, but we don’t often think about the difficulty entailed in digging wells prior to the development of more modern engineering equipment. We now use all kinds of test equipment to determine the best place to drill, and then use power equipment to push a pipe to the source of the water so we can pump it up to the surface.

But what if you weren’t sure where the water was?
What if you had to dig the well by hand?
How deep would you dig before you gave up?

As often as we hear stories in the scriptures about people meeting at town wells, it’s easy to forget that in much of the ancient world they were really quite remarkable. They reflected a combination of careful observation and determination to locate and then dig a well in the arid environment of the Middle East.

Rivers are easy to find. Wells are not so obvious. So imagine the surprise when Moses simply struck a rock and water flowed out of it (Ex. 17:6)!

Partially in commemoration of that story, the people of Israel gathered in tents during the festival of Succoth. A part of their celebration included bringing water from the wells and pools and cisterns and splashing it at the base of the altar. It was an offering of a precious commodity, but it was also a reminder of the time when God was able to cause water to flow out of the rock.

Every day, for seven days, they repeated the ritual. And on the last day, “the great day,” they splashed two buckets of water on the altar instead of one. Seeing that event, remembering the stories that were being commemorated that week, Jesus offers an invitation. In words reminiscent of Isaiah, he says, “Come to me you who are thirsty, and I will quench your thirst” (Jn. 7:37; see Is. 55:1).

He turns the imagery around. Rather than thinking about water being splashed on the rock, Jesus reminds them of the water that flows from the rock. Rather than seeing the people making an offering to God, he speaks of a gift God is making to us!

I have to confess to you, that this is the way I see and experience the work of our Annual Conference. I know some pastors who dread our time together; I also know some lay folks who think of it as a burden. They see it as a time and a place when our precious commodities of time and money are thrown against an altar in a different city.

But I have long seen it in terms Bishop Jones referred to when we began this year, as a spiritual discipline, an exercise in holy conferencing as we listen and learn and discern what God is doing in our midst. When I go, I find myself receiving blessings when we meet together.

For me, it’s a time of refreshment – especially through the worship services and conversations taking place during the sessions of Annual Conference. Often those conversations take place “at the edges” of the conference during meals and in the parking lots. This year was no exception to that – even though I spent most of Friday running to Topeka for hospital visits.

Maybe it’s because I was looking for it, but I saw again how God’s Spirit is at work among our churches throughout the Kansas East Annual Conference.

Like you’ll hear our Lay Member tell you, I heard it in the tone of the conversation; it was a civil debate, in which we often disagreed, but never put one another down.
I also heard it in the reports of the new churches that are taking root and sprouting. It was exciting to hear the story of people who have never known the love of God finding it in the company of people who call themselves United Methodist.
I recognized it in the sermons I heard and in the offerings we shared during our time together. I saw it as one of the “preacher’s kids” was baptized by the bishop in our closing worship service.

I don’t know if you know it or not, but in Israel, there are two major lakes – both of which are fed by the same river. One is called the Sea of Galilee; the other is the Dead Sea. (In today’s Israel, the Sea of Galilee is drying up as farmers use the water for their irrigation systems while the water of the Dead Sea is being reclaimed for drinking with the remaining salts harvested and sold.) But in the days of Jesus they were very different bodies of water; one was filled with life. There were fish to be caught and water to quench their thirst. The other, was filled with salt. Nothing grew there.

They are both fed by the same river. The only difference between the two is that the Sea of Galilee allows water to flow in and out, while the Dead Sea only receives water from the river. In much the same way, we receive the love and the grace and the power of God. But if we never let it flow out to bless those around us, we become stagnant and stale and deadly.

Our keynote speaker at conference this year, Gil Rendle, told us about a small town diner he once visited. It was like many small town diners, like Gus’ here in Hiawatha. There are menus that clearly have been used more than once. The plastic on some of them is starting to crack. And clipped inside the menu, there is a sheet promoting the daily special.

What he noticed about the daily special page was that it was also well worn. It even had some coffee stains on it. The daily special was meatloaf with mashed potatoes and a side of peas. Below that brief description was a scripture verse, Hebrews 13:8b: “The same yesterday, and today, and forever.” 

When Jesus offers to quench our thirst, he says that “out of the believer’s heart will flow rivers of living water” (Jn. 7:38). To keep the water fresh, it must be able to flow. It’s why river water was more appealing to the pioneers than cistern water. It’s also why many of us prefer to take a shower rather than a bath.

Too often, however, we try to keep the goodness of God to ourselves. We tend to live as if there is a limited amount of grace; we tend to live with a scarcity mentality, rather than an attitude of sufficiency.

Jesus offers us a different image, though. He suggests we can take risks and both receive and share water – life giving water. He invites us to receive the Holy Spirit so that we can bless others with the gift we have received.

But that involves risk – the risk that the source of water will eventually fail as well as the risk that the river flowing out of us will be neglected or ignored and rather than adding value to life will only make a muddy mess.

The temptation is to keep the water for ourselves. But doing so is no different than receiving the water of the River Jordan and never letting any flow out again – a process that results in a Dead Sea.

Jesus invites us to drink from the well that will never run dry. He invites us to share what we receive so others may taste its sweetness. And like every other invitation, we cannot control it. This is God’s gift. It is for us to receive and for us to share – but not necessarily for us to direct.

We may want to put a dam in the river; we may want to collect the runoff in a cistern. But the only way to experience the blessings God has in mind is to receive the gift of God the way the Sea of Galilee receives water from the Jordan River – and that is to let the overflow go back into the river.

In other words, we receive God’s love with open hearts; then we keep our hearts open as we find ways to share that same gift with others.

The water of life comes from the rock of our salvation, the one who gives freely so we can live life abundantly (Ps. 95:1, Jn. 10:10).

Thanks be to God.

Amen.