People Grumbling for Water

Photo by Samad Deldar from Pexels

A couple of days ago I went to a discount wholesaler to stock up on food and supplies. Me and the other 24 million people in Southern California.  They were limiting people to one package of toilet paper, and one package of water. They say people in Southern California just love waiting in long lines on the freeways, at amusement parks, at the airport, and at stores. But I’d be the first to line up and tell you that isn’t true! In reality plenty of people were grumbling and complaining. 

This isn’t the first time people have grumbled for water. The whole congregation of Israelites complained against Moses and God in the wilderness of Sin. They had left Egypt and were camping in the desert. They ran out of water. They accused Moses of leading them out of Egypt to kill them and all the livestock in the wilderness. 

Christ and the Samaritan at the Fountain" by Angelika Kauffmann

Even Jesus knew what it was like to be thirsty and to grumble for water. One day he and the disciples arrived in a town called Sychar in Samaria. It was a place where Jacob, their ancestor had been given a well of water by God. It was noon when Jesus sat there. A Samaritan woman came walking up to the well and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” Just like that. So abrupt! 

Social Distancing from Sin

This was socially taboo. It would be like a black man asking a white woman for a drink of water in the Jim Crow segregated south. That is, it was socially bizarre and extremely awkward.The Samaritan woman calls Jesus out on this. Why would a Jew ask for a drink from a Samaritan? They go back and forth a little bit. Then Jesus calls her out. 

She has been married and divorced five times. She is currently living with a man who isn’t her husband. She is a social outcast who goes all alone to the well in the middle of the day. Most women would go in the cool of the evening to socialize in comfort.

The Samaritan Woman is socially distant from her village. Jews and Samaritans are socially distant from one another. The Israelites in the wilderness are socially distant from Moses and God. The 24 million people in Southern California are asked to be socially distant during the COVID-19 pandemic, as are the 327 million people in the United States, and possibly the entire 8 billion people on earth. 

But that’s nothing. The real number of people who have experienced social distance is closer to 100 billion. That’s the estimate of the total number of people who have ever lived in the history of the world. Each and every person who has ever lived, has lived in social distance and isolation from God. We complain and hoard water and toilet paper because we are trying to compensate for a much deeper problem. We have rebelled and sinned against the one true living God. 

Social Reconciliation through Christ