Third Sunday of Lent

Exodus 17.1-7; Romans 5.1-11; John 4.5-12

By next Sunday we will be half way through Lent. I wonder if you are letting the season work its magic on you? I have to confess that in past years I've not given the season really serious thought. I've entered into bible studies and done extra reading and tried to treat it as a season of reflection. But I think this year is the first time I've taken it seriously from the point of view of using one of the disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving and looking at how that challenges me.

Before Lent began I read quite a bit about the Christian understanding of fasting and listened, by way of the internet, to a number of clergy speaking on the subject. From that I began to understand in a better way how we depend for everything upon God, for our food and everything else that we need to sustain a healthy body, mind and spirit. And so I decided that this Lent I would fast from meat. Not that I've been a huge meat eater. But it seemed to me that if we are going to understand what fasting is all about for a Christian then it would be a good idea to do it in the way that the ancient Church did it and still does it in this day and age. Meat is one of the essentials in the not very long list of foods that are fasted from during this season. And the advice is that if you haven't fasted before then you should go easy at first and gradually build up to what is right for you. And what is right for you, you are advised to discuss with a spiritual director or priest, someone who knows you from a spiritual point of view. So, I've given up meat; and through that I'm learning quite a bit, in different ways about my relationship with God and of God's way of doing things. Which brings me to what we've read this morning from His word.

In the Old Testament reading today we meet the Hebrews wandering about in the desert without water. And so in their deprivation they complain to Moses in the strongest terms 'Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?' Moses, in his usual state of panic when met with a challenge cries out to God 'What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.' Notice he's more concerned with his own safety than with the people's problem. Quite a human response. But, sadly for Moses and sadly for the people in their plight, not a response out of faith. It's a response from faith's opposite - fear, to the situation they both find themselves in. Both Moses and the people are afraid of dying, for different reasons, one from thirst, the other from stoning. In fearing for their lives, they lose their faith in God. And faith in God is the heart, the essential of their relationship with Him, as it is for us. Faith, hope and love are the great trinity of relationship with God. And all three have disappeared from these people as we meet them in the desert.

And the test of their relationship has come through the lack of something essential to their life. And if they'd understood that all their needs come from and are met by God then they would most certainly have responded differently to their deprivation. And that's why the Church, in her wisdom gives us this season of fasting from what we see as staples in our diet, essential foods, to test out our relationship with God; to test our faith and to help us work on that relationship, to find faith, hope and love in God again. And I'd like to skip here to the gospel reading because I think that this faith, this hope and love are the living water that Jesus talks to the Samaritan woman about.

The Hebrews lacked water, the water that gives life to their bodies. The Samaritan woman had lots, buckets full. What she lacked, Jesus told her was the 'water of life', water that was available from and through Him. But the woman misunderstood, as we all do one way or another, because we are all fixated on our own needs, wants and desires; without the satisfaction of which and even with a surfeit of which, we become filled with fear and forget God and faith in Him. 'Give me this water so that I don't need to keep coming back here to fill my bucket' she says to Jesus. Total confusion. But Jesus helps her see, as He helps all of us to see. He talks about her life, past and present and it gets her thinking. The woman probably has lots of questions about her life, whether or not it's a good and right and proper life before God, as we all do. She's probably taken up with rules and regulations about religion; as the disciples are when they meet up with Jesus. He's talking to a Samaritan woman, horror of horrors! But Jesus speaks through and beyond the rules and regulations. The woman recognises that Jesus sees beyond the outward appearance and what impression it gives. Jesus is speaking from faith and hope and love.

Not that the rules of religion aren't important. Remember what Jesus said about coming not to do away with the law but to fulfil it. The law is, if you like, the skeleton, the bones and Jesus is the flesh upon the bones and the breath in the lungs. And this all takes us back to those Old Testament people who had the law, given by God to Moses for himself and the people. But the law wasn't the life. It was the means to life. In that same Old Testament God gave the people a choice - life or death. Go His way and it would lead to life. Go their own way and it would lead to death. And the framework for God's way was the law. The law was the map. But the journey could be made, the life could only be lived through faith, in hope, with love. Lose one of those and you lose the life even though you might keep the law.

And that's why St. Paul could say that we are justified, made right with God, through faith and through that comes peace with God. In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul talks a lot about the law and sin and their relationship with one another. He struggled very badly with the whole thing about keeping the law and not keeping the law and of falling into sin through not keeping the law. He felt that as soon as we try to keep the law, keep to the rules we are bound to fail because we can't help but fail and therefore in a moral and juridical sense fall into sin. And we can't put ourselves right. The more we try, the more we fail. That was St. Paul's experience. Until he realised that because of God's love for us and through our love for Him, through God's grace and our faith in God, our relationship is put right with God. And all of this is beyond the law.

So what this boils down to is that our religion isn't in the end about keeping to rules, it's about faith. Yes, the rules, the commandments of God are an expression of God's love, they are a way in to a relationship with God but it's only through faith that we can come into the fullest knowledge of and right standing and right relationship with God. When we keep the Lenten fast we keep to the rules and that just for a short time in the year, because the rules help us be more aware of God and our need for faith, so that our relationship with God might blossom. Without faith, we forget God, we fall into fear and we lose the context for and the meaning from which God's laws derive their relevance. That's what happened to the Hebrews in their wandering in the desert. And that's what happens to us as we wander through the deserts of this life.

As we make our way through Lent, there's still time to take the season seriously. There's still at this stage, lots of time for us to look again at our life, our needs in this life and who meets them, through faith; and to let the season work its magic, so that we might come at Easter time with a new faith, new hope and new love for the Christ who raises us from death and gives us streams of living water, the living water of faith, gushing up, as He says, to eternal life.