Thirsty enough?

“Thirsty enough?” The Dover Church
March 3, 2013 – Third Sunday in Lent
Scripture: Psalm 63:1-8, Isaiah 55: 1-9      

Dover is not hot and dry like Isaiah's Israel. Our water comes out of our taps clean, fresh and plentiful whenever we want it. We don't have to look for it, test it for potability, carry it long distances, or preserve it against times of scarcity. With bottled water in our fanny or camel packs, we can stay well hydrated even when we go to places like the desert. Nonetheless, we all know what thirst feels like.
Isaiah uses this feeling of thirst, something everyone knows, to open up something that baffles us, our restless longing for something more than who, what, where, and how much we are right now, our endless busy-ness, our racing here and there only to end up at yet another starting line with the gun already having gone off. I know that feeling, although I never likened it to thirst until I read Isaiah and Jesus. I have been that kind of thirsty, dreaming big dreams of different kinds of greatness, running as hard as I can to get to some goal only to find a new goal there waiting for me to start running again. Success? Happiness? Challenge? New and interesting experience? Mountains to climb and fish to catch? Knowledge? Achievement? Oh yeah! I lived like a camel five days in the desert without a drink, forever running to the nearest oasis on the horizon.
The irony is that I grew up in the church and thought my acute thirst was normal until about 20 years ago when I finally stumbled upon a spiritual explanation for this thirst, a window really, which has opened up my outlook on life. Stubborn Yankee Swede that I am it took thirty years to get thirsty enough.
I couldn't believe it, I mean that literally, I couldn't believe it the first time someone explained to me that my thirst for abundant life was neither a character asset or flaw, nor an ambition to be exploited or mitigated, but my thirst was nothing less than God, that all of my restlessness and seeking was God's presence and purpose seeking to be born in me and my life, that all of my reaching out enthusiastically into life was God calling me, my yearning was God's yearning to be in relationship with me, an invitation from God to learn how to love, love God, love my neighbors and love myself.
The Judeo-Christian insight into our human thirst for more is both simple and brilliant. We human are preprogrammed, if you will, to be restless for love. Love is the primary driving force behind our thoughts and our actions. All of our seeking and restlessness is nothing other than God, the universal love behind, in front of, and within all of our billions of individual longings. Love is who God is and love is what God has created us to seek, in God, in our neighbors, and in ourselves. As Isaiah so succinctly points out, my desire was not at fault, only my aim. I had been running in the wrong direction and therefore didn't stand a chance of finding what I really needed and was looking for but couldn't name.
Modern thinking views this interpretation of the human condition as a cop out, a sentimental simplification of our very complex lives, that faith in God is a crutch, a fantasy solution to all our emotional and psychological failures and insufficiencies, that we just want a fantasy parent to come take us away, to kiss us and make us better.
I am as modern as the next person in my outlook and I now see things exactly the opposite. For me, this insight has been a liberating launching pad into a new depth of fullness of life, right in the middle of the hustle and bustle of my life. What I have discovered is that when it was just me on my own striving for more, life was a struggle and burden rather than a joy ride. Alone, I got tired by the amount of life, overwhelmed and frightened by the intensity of life, drawn into boredom and apathy. I find it interesting that studies have shown that modern Americans have never been busier or more productive, and are simultaneously bored and apathetic like never before. We have so much and it comes so easily that we often allow what was our passion for life, our passion for our spouses and families and the things we do and the places we live, to gradually become a burden of responsibility. Our passion for life gradually becomes a job we have to do to pay for what once delighted us, but now burdens us. Occasionally we wake up and notice what has happened and vow to live differently, but then the same old same old creeps up on us again and our lives slip away.
When I came to Dover, I found a community for whom this was truly Good News, but no one wanted to hear it. Folks were dying of thirst everywhere I looked. "Crazy busy" people bragged. A badge of honor in this town to describe the remarkable overbooking, over emphasis on achievement, merit and identity derived from success which everyone in this town guzzles night and day. And the kids? Well, I've never seen anything like it. If we were to back off pushing our kids, they would be academically and athlectically crushed by the kids whose parents think this spirituality stuff is a bunch of baloney, wouldn't get into the college of their choice and would end up living in someplace like Worcester. We're raising a bunch of super achieving sun dried raisins.
Whenever anyone asks me what "this whole religion thing is about" or "why a smart guy like me would fall for that," and I talk about refocusing to some harried, frazzled, unable to unwind and relax soul, it's as if I am recommending brain surgery or moving to Timbuktu as a missionary, that I am suggesting they ruin their lives, through the brass ring on the ash heap. The panic, fear and impossibility is palpable. "Sounds nice, Max, but I don't have time for that." And I think to myself, you have time to work 60 hours a week in four different time zones, drive your kids to three different extra curricular activities, go out socially at least once a week with your spouse, train daily for the next Ironman competition in Kazahkstan, and go away every weekend to play hard, and you don't have time for your soul? For joy? For the only thing that's going to fill you up, love?
I have been thinking about one thing I could teach you this morning that you could practice, because of course, this is all talk. You have to start doing to start knowing. My teacher twenty years ago started me learning and practicing ways to connect and reconnect with God which I have been doing ever since, and you'll have to do the same thing. But one thing you could try today in the middle of all our insanity? One small thing, because we have to start small or we are sure to quit when faced with the enormity of commitment and change. How about this? Sit down someplace quiet and comfortable every day for five minutes with a big glass of cold water, or a cup of hot tea while it's cold outside, and just sip it for those five minutes, slowly, thoughtfully, and with every sip reflect on the love bursting forth in your life, the opportunities for love which are presenting themselves here and there, and allow yourself to see these things as pokes from God. Believe me, it will begin to change your life.
Are you thirsty? Thirsty enough yet? Do you thirst for living water? God is calling. Don't have time? If not now, when?