What are the common elements of home? It is our theme for Lent, and I think our story from John this weekend gives us insight like no other story does. Jesus meets a woman while he rests near Jacob’s Well at midday. A woman comes to draw water up from the well at the same time. Jesus asks her for a drink of water. She is surprised and suspicious, and their conversation is off to the races. For the record, the Orthodox Christians call her Photine.
As so many of the stories in the Bible do, this one is a story that happens outside. They are not in anyone’s home. Yet, the very land they stand on and the well they will drink from have been the home of people who worship the Lord for generations. Photine reminds Jesus of their ancestor Jacob, who had given them the well and who had indulged in the water from it and watered his flocks.
Water is one of these common elements. Without it we cannot make a home anywhere. We cannot live where there is not enough water or clean water. With it, we can settle down and rest and eat and drink and gather with friends and family and a home is made.
Water is such a common occurrence in this land of 10,000 lakes, that we hardly pay much attention to it, and yet the quality of it is so easily destroyed. Many parts of the world struggle mightily with having enough clean enough water for our growing population. Corporations have tried to commodify it, and in many places, water by the gallon is more expensive than gasoline by the gallon. Artificial Intelligence needs large data centers to process information, and one of those can use up to 5 million gallons per day of that precious water.
Jesus promises Photine living water and that she will never be thirsty again. It is that living water that gives us the strength and commitment to protect these common elements, so that generations from now we can continue to make Earth our home.
Shalom,
Pastor Melissa