The slogan was first coined to sell
phonographs in 1925. Since then, it has been used to describe Kodak film, a
subscription to Sports Illustrated, a contribution to the United Way, and organ
donation. Many people remember it from National Lampoon’s “Christmas Vacation,”
when, instead of getting a Christmas bonus from work, Clark Griswold received a
one-year membership in the Jelly-of-the-Month Club. The slogan? “The gift that
keeps on giving.” and it has kept coming to my mind as I have sat and prayed
with this Gospel passage.
Jesus asks this woman for water, but then
suggests that he can give her water, living water. That’s a striking phrase,
and it’s hard to know how the woman interpreted it. She was drawing from a
well, so perhaps she thought Jesus knew of a source of running water somewhere
close by. Certainly she was intrigued by the prospect of an endless water
supply which would save her from constantly drawing water from the well. But
although, from our perspective, we get what Jesus is really talking about and
see that water is just a metaphor for the Holy Spirit, we might still fail to
grasp the wondrous message of this passage. Jesus does not just promise that he
will give her this water, that he will give her the Spirit. He promises
something greater than that: Those who
drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that
I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. It
is the gift that keeps on giving because those who receive the gift become the
gift.
We become the gift. The Spirit of Christ,
the Holy Spirit of God, gushing up in us, gushing up through us forever.
Sometimes we experience that in exhilarating ways. You may remember that scene
in the movie, “Chariots of Fire,” when the Scottish sprinter Eric Liddell says,
“I believe that God made me for a purpose . . . but he also made me fast, and
when I run, I feel his pleasure.” I listen sometimes to people describe moments
in their lives when they know they are doing what God wants them to do and they
can feel the Spirit rushing through them. But we don’t just experience that
gushing Spirit in moments of joy. In fact, the promise is not that we will
never hurt or feel distress: the promise is that the Spirit will never stop
gushing. Again, look at this Gospel. When the woman says she wants this living
water, Jesus immediately asks about her husband, and we find out that she has
had five husbands. Five husbands. It doesn’t really matter whether they
divorced her, or they died naturally, or she killed them off: no matter how you
slice it, her story cannot be a happy one. And yet it is right then and there,
in her broken life, that Jesus gives her the gift and she starts gushing. I
mean literally: she runs into the village and starts telling people about
Jesus. And there may be more to this than we even know. The woman has had five
husbands, after all. She may well be a social pariah. Many commentators note
the significance of this story taking place at noon, in the heat of the day.
Most people drew water in the morning and the evening when it was cooler: there
is an implication that this woman was something of an outcast who came to the well
only when others were not around. If that is true, not only does Jesus show her
love and understanding: he helps bring her back into better relationship with
her neighbors, who come to know and believe in him through her. The water he
gives really does become a spring gushing up in her and through her. She
becomes the gift.
And it is all a gift. The Spirit lives in
us, flows through us, becomes us because that’s what God wants. It has nothing
to do with whether we have earned it or not. It has nothing to do with whether
we are morally perfect or not. It is the nature of Love to give, and God gives
God’s very self–continuously and forever. To believe in Jesus is to believe
this is true. And if this is true, then the real tragedy, the real sin, would
be damming up that Spirit and refusing to let her gush up in us.
So, let me suggest a Lenten approach to
self-examination and repentance in light of this Gospel. The self-examination
part is a simple question: as you go through your day, do you ever remember that
the Spirit of God lives in you and wants to flow through you? Does that ever
cross your mind? So many moments of anger, fear, resentment, dishonesty, and
selfishness may ultimately just be the result of failing to acknowledge the
gift of God within us. If so, the path of repentance is clear: own the gift. We
have been baptized with it. Every moment of every day the Holy Spirit can gush
up within us, an inexhaustible source of love, energy, and strength. Let the
Spirit flow; ask the Spirit to flow; expect the Spirit to flow. I find this to
be life-changing: whether I am visiting someone in the hospital or taking part
in a finance meeting, whether I am preparing a sermon or chatting with a
parishioner in my office: the Spirit is always welling up. And while that may
often happen quietly, sometimes it comes with startling power. I was talking
with a parishioner some time ago and she was describing a conversation she had
had with someone going through a really hard time. All of the sudden, she found
words flowing out of her, seemingly from nowhere. She found herself saying all
the right things to this person, but she said it felt like someone else
speaking through her. She intuited, I think correctly, that the Spirit used her
to bless someone else. In that moment, she became the gift.
In ways great and small, this is our
spiritual birthright. The water that I
will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.
The water will keep on gushing, the gift will keep on giving, as long as we don’t
stop it. So let it flow.
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