John 4:5-29 John 4:31-42
As many of you know, I had a 6 day trip
this past week. I drove from Morgantown
to N. Manchester Indiana with Patrick, dropped him off with the grandparents,
and continued on to the COB General Offices in Elgin Illinois. While I was there I participated in the
Mission and Ministry board meetings. I
also had the chance to get away and spend the night with my brother in Chicago
[and let me tell you, Chicago on St. Patrick’s Day weekend is an experienced to
savored or avoided, depending on your perspective]. There is a lot of drinking going on. A lot.
I of course was not nearly so liberal in my libations, as Chris and I
enjoyed a quiet dinner in an Indian restaurant.
But I’ll tell you, when I travel and
have meetings, I do drink a
lot. And before you make assumptions,
what I mean is I drink a lot of coffee.
Maybe soda. Lots of cups of tea. Generally this is to help me “wake up” from
long hours in the car, or long meetings that are perhaps less than
thrilling. And I realize, on these
trips, while I drink a lot of things, I rarely drink water.
Oh sure, I have a bottle, but it’s never
feels like “what I need.” I need
caffeine! I need something more
interesting! But by the end of my trip,
or maybe even in the middle, I recognize the foolishness of my choices. I begin feeling dry, tired. So I drink more coffee to help me feel less
tired.
As I’m sure you know, caffeinated drinks
are not good substitutes for pure water when one is dehydrated. In fact, caffeinated drinks dehydrate you and
dehydration makes one lethargic and then it becomes a vicious dry cycle of
drink caffeine to wake up but ultimately just feeling more and more run down.
It’s about this time…two or three days
into the trip, when I drink some water and realize how this is what I really need.
Not milky sweet coffee. Not
acai-berry flavored vitamin water sweetened with organic cane sugar. Not even a soothing cup of chamomile. What I need is water. Real water.
And you know that feeling…when I don’t even know I’m thirsty but I take
a cup of water and I wonder why I’ve been depriving myself of this for so long.
The other stuff is just masking my real
thirst. My real need. Masking what my body needs. The West Virginia born country star Kathy
Mattea wrote a song called “Standing Knee Deep in a River (Dying of
Thirst).” She talks about good friends
she could count on, sweethearts she let go, how they all roll by like
water. We go through life parched and
empty, standing knee deep in a river, dying of thirst.
The monologue about the beloved woman in
the mask was presented to those of us at the Sister Care seminar this past
fall, a seminar hosted by Mennonite Women USA.
It was a powerful weekend of Mennonite and ecumenical sisters
discovering how not only to support other sisters, but discovering our own
needs for self-care, honesty, and to claim our own identity as God’s beloved.
We were reminded that as we grow in this
life, we forget our original identity as a beloved woman or man of God. Culture tells us we are not good enough,
beautiful enough, talented enough, smart enough. People or experiences in our lives may have
told us the same thing, and added the shame of sexual abuse, emotional and physicalabuse,
spiritual neglect, bullying, and other forms of shaming. It doesn’t take very long for those little
girls and boys, fresh faced and shining with God’s love, to grow into
self-protecting men and women who wear a variety of masks.
We wear masks to hide things we may be
ashamed of. We wear masks because we
think those in the church might not approve of our past stories, our present
circumstances, or even our future endeavors.
We wear masks because our thirst for a unified life, is masked by drinking
the lie that it is simply easier to put on false airs. To wear a mask. To show one face to someone when what is in
your heart and soul is completely different.
Now, as the monologue makes obvious, God
sees beyond this mask. God knows the
woman behind it. God knows the man
behind the mask. And God loves her. God
loves him. We must claim that mercy and
grace in each part of our lives. We
claim our identity as beloved daughters and sons.
And yet, I wonder…what would it look
like if you gave someone else permission to take off their masks, not only in
front of God, but in front of you. Could
you handle that? What spiritual depth
does that take? What needs to be
released in you in order for you to
tell someone: God loves the person behind the mask, and so do I.
You’re saying, I know you’re thirsty and
I won’t give you a can of Coke. I won’t
give you a cup of coffee. Something that
will not satisfy, and maybe even make you thirstier. I know you are thirsty, and I will give you
water. Living water. I will show you
what it means to be loved unconditionally.
I will physically manifest with it is that God proclaims.
What will it take for you to do that?
Standing here this moment, I can say
that I don’t know what it will take for you to get there, because I don’t know
the mask you are wearing. I don’t know
how far you need to go before claiming your identity as God’s beloved. I don’t know what blocks you from being willing
to see behind the mask of someone else.
Only you know that.
Drink of the living water. The living water. Water that quenches all thirst. Drink in God’s unconditional love for
you. And suddenly, you will feel
it. That welling spring. Joy bubbling up, beginning to spill over
until it’s running like rivers all over the ground.
And you will find,
it’s too much for one person to drink alone. 
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