Biblical Connection: One of my favorite passages in Scripture is found in John’s gospel where Jesus tells a woman that He is the water of life. It’s a long conversation Jesus has with a quite fallen Samaritan woman. She was a sinner. Maybe you, too, can identify:

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he” (John 4:7-26 ESV).

Daily Life: The point that Jesus was making, of course, was that He was the promised Messiah and that she should believe upon Him because He was her only hope. He could forgive sins because He was and is God. She went and told others about Him. Verse 39 of the same chapter, for example, says, “Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony . . .” (John 4:39 ESV).

Recently I was hit with news that really put me back on my heels. I found out that funding was not available for military training for which I have been planning. The politicians in D.C. find funds to send billions of taxpayer-funded arms to Ukraine, and we have funds for countless story hours of abomination in our taxpayer-funded public libraries, but when it comes to professional development for American soldiers, nope, sorry, fresh out of funds. Interesting. It’s cliche to say, “Follow the money,” to find out what’s really important to the folks in D.C. but it bears repeating.

The Connection: What does a slice from my daily life have to do with Jesus’s conversation with the Samaritan woman in John 4, and with you? Simple: The woman was a sinner and I am a sinner. The woman did not deserve the offer of the water of life and forgiveness. Nor do I. But grace was granted her and she was faithful to bear witness to her encounter with the Creator of the water, the Creator of all things under heaven. The woman had gone to the well for her immediate needs and she was met by the Giver of eternal life.

Back in Iraq: When I was deployed to Iraq, there was a spring-fed pool of water on the border between Iraq and Syria that the locals called “Abraham’s Well.” I used to escort soldiers and contractors and civilians out there regularly, offer a short homily and the Lord’s Supper. Why? Because amidst all that sand, all that stone, all that carnage, there was this little spring-fed pool of water in the middle of the desert. Palm trees and green shrubs grew up around it. Goats came regularly to drink from it, their shepherds standing overwatch with their staffs. And it is a place I will never forget because God, even in the desert moments, remains. And maybe I am to learn that I was too enamored of my career and not enough consumed by the Shepherd.

*And no, the picture above is not from Iraq. For security reasons, I will not share pictures of that place. This creek is simply one I walk regularly each week back in the States. I just thought the water metaphor would be more obvious.