March 8, 2010 — 11:11 AM
Quench that thirst!
Texts: Isaiah 55:1-9, Psalm 63
Thirst.
Deep thirst.
A thirst that yearns for a long, cool drink. A thirst so profound that one’s entire body aches for relief. A thirst that goes to the very core of one’s being.
Have you ever known such a thirst?
This is a thirst that the Hebrew people knew all too well as they wandered in the dessert for forty years. It is a thirst that the Israelite people knew as they were sent into exile after the fall of their kingdom to larger empires. It is a thirst that Jesus knew as he was tempted in the dessert for forty days following his baptism. It is a thirst that is not only physical but also mental and spiritual. It is a thirst that mere water cannot satisfy.
Today is the third Sunday of the Christian season of Lent – a time when we journey with Christ in his dessert experience. A time when we stop to examine how we are tempted to remove God from the center of our being. A time to reflect on how we have tried to quench this deep thirst within ourselves: Have we turned to God to have this deep need met? Or have we turned to other things or people instead?
Tonight I invite us to spend some time thinking about our deep thirsts and how to quench those thirsts. What deep thirsts do you have in your life? What do you need for your own survival as a person – not only physically but mentally and spiritually as well? What sustains you and makes it possible for you to face each new day?
Let’s take a moment to think about these questions in silence before we share our thoughts together.
[moment of silence + get feedback]
What are deep thirsts or needs that we humans have?
- love
- respect
- shelter
- food
- water
- dignity
- sense of worth
We may say that we “need” a lot of things – especially in America where our advertising companies and our culture encourage us to think such things. But when it comes down to it, I think our true needs are quite simple really. There are the basics for our physical survival: food, water, and shelter. And then there are the basics for our mental and spiritual survival: love, respect, and dignity or sense of worth. We may name many more things that seem necessary, but I would offer that they all point back to one of these basic needs.
I have had the chance to see the contrast between what we say we need and what we truly need come alive in very real ways several times in my life.
Two such times came through my former role as a Spanish teacher in a private school in Marin – one of the richest counties in the United States. While I was a teacher there, I had the privilege of traveling with two groups of students to Central America to help small communities build classrooms for their children to use. The first trip took us to the country of Nicaragua and the second to El Salvador.
In each location, we worked alongside the people of the communities being served to help build simple two-roomed classrooms. These classrooms would allow the children of the communities to receive education near their homes instead of having to travel many miles. Often times, this was a trip that was so far that it ended up being out of reach of most the families in these communities. The national governments did not fund the building of new classrooms. But if classrooms existed, the governments would supply teachers to teach in them.
Both trips were profound experiences for those of us who went on them. The students were coming from a culture of having everything they could ever want, and so much more, handed to them on a daily basis. Theirs was a setting where going to a good school that would lead to going to a great university was expected. For these students, seeing small communities struggling to provide even a basic education through the eighth grade for their young children was quite a shock.
Students remarked over and over again how amazing it was to see these people so happy in spite of not having all of the comforts that the students were used to in their daily lives. By the end of both trips the students were vowing to cut back on how much stuff they owned and wanted. They truly wanted to live more simplistic lives that valued relationships and connections more than owning the newest, best thing. But they also knew that once they got back into the context of Marin County, it would be hard to hold onto this newly learned value. They knew that it was counter-cultural for their own setting.
How does our context color our understanding of what we have and what we need?
Think back to those things that we listed as the deep thirsts that we have. What are ways that we are told to try to quench those thirsts? Ways that are ultimately unsuccessful? Ways that we are urged to “spend money on what is not bread, and labor on what does not satisfy” as Isaiah puts it? What does our culture push at us to help us feel loved, respected, or having a sense of worth?
[get feedback]
- seeking the love of others – maybe even to our own detriment
- getting the title that will get us respect (like Rev. or Dr. or even Rev. Dr.)
- owning the right stuff – the right car, house, clothes, music
This is obviously not a problem that is unique to us living in North America. Isaiah’s quotes from God to God’s people in Isaiah’s time show us that we are in good company on this account. God’s admonishments to the people show us that it is part of our human condition to seek fulfillment in things that ultimately will not fulfill us. We are prone to chasing after that which is ephemeral; that which will not last.
But that is not what God desires for us.
God desires to make an ever-lasting covenant with us. God desires to give us water that will quench our deep thirsts and food that will sate our deep hungers. God offers us food, water, milk, and wine freely. All we have to do is turn to God and accept these gifts.
All we have to do is acknowledge, as the psalmist does, that it is God, and only God, who will satisfy our deepest longings. When we cry out to God, “You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you…,” then we will be ready to accept these gifts that God offers. Then our deep hunger and thirst will be satisfied.
As I returned to the private school with the students that I traveled with, I believed that these students carried with them the valuable lessons that they had learned through their work and their interactions with the people in Nicaragua and El Salvador. But they were right to acknowledge the difficulty that their context presented to living out those lessons in their daily lives. Our culture tells us we have to have certain things or we have to behave in certain ways. And if we don’t, well, then people look at us askance or disregard us as out-of-touch.
Now, is that such a bad thing?
Not completely.
We as Christians strive to be more like God. And Isaiah’s text reminds us that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and God’s ways are not our ways. So, we really should be striving to be different from the culture that surrounds us.
But, if we want people to see our lives as good examples of what it means to be Christ’s followers, then we certainly don’t want them to disregard us as irrelevant or as something that they would never want to emulate. Right?
So what are we to do? How can we be counter-cultural in seeking God to fulfill our deepest hunger and thirst without turning those around us off to the message of God’s amazing love?
What do you make of this dilemma? Is it a dilemma? Am I off-base on this?
[get feedback]
This is a real dilemma for me. I grew up in a faith tradition that demanded I be very counter-cultural. I wasn’t allowed to watch most television shows. I couldn’t go to dances or to the movies. I couldn’t wear the fashions of the day. I was only allowed to wear pants to school one day a week and skirts or dresses for the rest. I find this last bit truly funny because now I feel most comfortable wearing skirts or dresses and only occasionally pants (as you might have noticed).
As an adult I have chosen not to follow those same counter-cultural ways forced upon me in my youth. And yet, I realize that the messages that our culture gives me about what is of value are not all healthy or correct. I am left wondering how to balance God’s call for me to seek fulfillment only in God and God’s desire for my happiness with my desire to own nice or cool things.
I think it all boils down to attitude.
How do we regard the people and stuff in our lives? Do we value them more than we value God? If so, then our values are out of whack. Only when God is our center are we in the right balance. Could we give up all that we have and still find joy and delight in God? If we can say yes, then we have the right balance in our lives: we own stuff but that stuff does not own us.
God brings people and things into our lives to help us experience God in new and different ways. But when these people or things take on more importance to us than God, well, then they have become our gods. They have become idols.
We are on a journey with Christ during these forty days of Lent, exploring how we are tempted to make idols out of the people and the things around us. God is calling to us to resist idol-making. God wants us to join with the psalmist in saying:
You, God, are my God,earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you….
Is there anything getting in the way of you saying that to God? Is there something that you need to give up so that God can truly be the center of your life? Is there a practice that you need to take on during this journey to help you put God at the center of your life?
God says:
Come, all you who are thirsty,come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Amen!
