Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Satisfaction of the Living Waters

This short reflection is based on the lectionary readings from last Sunday, the 3rd Sunday of Lent.

When the Ancient Israelites wandered in the desert, they complained about and too their leader Moses. They were in dire straights in slavery, God freed them, and yet they complained.

Continuing upon the theme of our baptism, we recognize that these living waters call us to respond to our vocation, our call from God. The Israelites, through Moses, responded to God's call, and then complained that it was not as they thought. The grass was always greener, and God's people felt cheated, betrayed.

We too complain about our religion, our country, our family. If God would just leave it up to us, we could fix things!

Enter the woman of Samaria.

She represents everything undesirable: her religion and politics were wrong. She was morally weak, and to cap it all off, she was a woman. Jesus doesn't complain about her, rather, offers her living water, his Holy Spirit!

Jesus takes people from all different areas and unites them through the power of the Holy Spirit; rather than becoming a leader of a political group, Jesus is a priest, prophet, and king, determined to come as a servant.

Partisan politics have no place in the Kingdom of God. That said, as Christians we have every duty to vote, to serve our country. We do this positively and enthusiastically, not complaining about all the other parties, leaders, etc. Imagine what Canada could do if we united as one people. Not a people that agrees on everything, but a nation that doesn't let disagreement get in the way of cooperation. If the three major parties (and much of Canada) could get past attack adds and quit complaining about everything, what a difference we could make. \

Therefore, let us stop wishing and praying for a society that agrees with everything we believe. Let us not ask God to fulfill our every desire. Rather, let us ask God for the grace to be satisfied with what we have.

5 comments:

DarrylM said...

Cool stuff, Travis. I loved what Rex Murphy had to say last night, too - a possibly way to achieving civility and meaning in the election rhetoric.
http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/indepthanalysis/rexmurphy/story/2011/03/28/thenational-rexmurphy-110328.html

And the CCCB has a handy guide to discernment in our voting:
http://www.cccb.ca/site/images/stories/pdf/2011_Federal_Election_Guide.pdf

Friartuc said...

Darryl your url's didn't turn out so well. I managed to find the Rex Murphy one via your twitter. He has some good points! I still think it is the responsibility of the citizen, however. The comment section had a guy saying it is Election Canada's fault. I don't know much about Election Canada. Could you repost the CCCB link and hopefully it will either be clickable or copy/pasteable?

Vicar said...

oh trav! is it not "/rant" instead of "/". Sorry you know me, have to play devil's advocate. But it is a different way of looking at the text for sure...one that I liked.

Unknown said...

Oops, I should check back more often. Anyway.. here are some smaller versions of the links:
Rex Murphy -
http://tinyurl.com/4fn46lj

CCCB voting discernment -
http://tinyurl.com/4v7dp2a

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Your post helps me to understand what "Satisfaction of the Living Waters" really is, and i will surely recommend it to other people.