Lent 3

Exodus 17:1-7
God delivers water from the rock to the
grumbling Israelites. 

John 4:5-42
A Samaritan woman and Jesus at Jacob’s well.

John 4 describes a scene where both Jesus and a Samaritan receive living water and have their deepest needs met. Exodus 17 describes the people of God asking for drinking water. Wandering through the desert, the people are thirsty and complaining, they are in desperate need of water. At no point does God reprimand them for their complaints. Instead God provides. God instructs Moses to strike a rock. Moses then provides water for the physical needs of his community by hitting a rock. The need for spiritual living water is as important to the need for safe drinking water. Like the Hebrew people, the poor of today cry out to leaders for water. Without safe drinking water people will ask (Exodus 17.7): “is the Lord with us or not?” In this situation it would be hard to speak of the reality of Jesus as the living water when there is no
drinking water. Unusually, the lucky country Australia, counts itself among the poor crying out for water. There is never an appropriate time to have a water shortage.

However, the bush fires that burnt through Australia for months on end exacerbated the dismay of dry rivers and drought conditions. Like Jesus we too can demand access to water for all. Jesus is at the well but has no access to the water. He says to the Samaritan woman “give me a drink”. With this demand Jesus authorises the poor of the world to demand their right to clean water. Water is a gift from God for us and all creation that all might have life and have life in all its fullness. What is our response to the state of water? Moses´ response was to hit a rock. We too need to hit the “rocks”, such as multinationals and governments that stand as stumbling stones blocking access to water. How do we strike the rock? Dripping water wears away stone, not by force, but by persistence, said the poet Ovid. “Dripping water” is to persistently call for justice. “Dripping water” is to be insistent in water justice for all.