Holy Spirit. Christ is risen. Before I forget,
a very happy Mother's Day to all mothers and
godmothers and matushki. I just learned that
word yesterday, the plural. And, of course, the
grandmothers and the great -grandmothers and
however many other generations there might be
here. Have you ever truly been thirsty? Have
you been really thirsty? You know, totally dehydrated.
Perhaps you were working on a hot day out in
the field or in the yard, or perhaps you were
hiking. But when you are really dehydrated, when
you are thirsty, you truly know the importance
of water. And how wonderful it is to raise that
glass of crystal clear water to your lips and
pour it into your parched mouth and realize that
life -giving nature of water and how essential
it is for life. And in today's gospel reading,
it's all about water. And it starts at a well,
Jacob's well. Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son
of Abraham. This well is located in Samaria,
and if you so desired, you could go there this
very day. You could go to the foot of Mount Gerizim,
and you could be on a pilgrimage, and you could
go up to that well, and you could drink from
the water that is in Jacob's well. Well, Jesus
arrives. at Jacob's well at noon. And being wearied
from his journey, he is thirsty and desires a
drink of water. And there is a Samaritan woman
there. And Jesus says to her, give me a drink.
And a dialogue, a conversation begins between
the woman whose name is Fotini, or perhaps Svetlana,
depending on your point of view. And Jesus, talks
to Svetlana and asks her for this water, and
she brings him water, but first they talk about
the difference between living water and physical
water. And Jesus says of this difference, whoever
drinks of this water, meaning the physical water,
will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the
water that I shall give him will never thirst,
but the water that I shall give him will become
in him a fountain of water springing up into
everlasting life. And Jesus is talking about
spiritual water. And just as our bodies need
physical water, so too our souls need spiritual
water. thirst for God. David speaks of this in
Psalm 42, saying, as the deer pants for the water
brooks, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul
pants for God, for the living God. Blaise Pascal
said that there is a God -shaped vacuum in the
heart of every man which cannot be filled by
any created thing, but only by God the Creator,
made known through Jesus Christ. Our souls long
for this living water. We need this living water.
We need the Holy Spirit. And just as the holy
apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit and
walked in God's will, so we too are to be are
to take that area, that vacuum in our hearts,
and to fill it, to ask God to fill it, to have
the Holy Spirit dwell in our hearts, to drink
from that well that has living water and be filled
with the Holy Spirit. And Jesus says to Fotini,
but the hour is coming and now is. When the true
worshipers will worship the Father in spirit
and in truth, for the Father is seeking such
to worship him. God is spirit, and those who
worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
So just as our bodies need physical water, so
our souls need to be filled with living water.
So why are they sometimes not? What happens?
Because all of us choose to drink from other
wells at times in our life. We don't go to God
in prayer when we really need to. We get distracted.
There are entertainments. There are wells that
fill us with that temporarily fill our thirst.
But they will not fill it eternally. And yet,
somehow, we still go back to those wells. It's
good for us to ask ourselves, what wells are
we drinking from? There is a well that we can
drink from that is from God. And there is a well
that we can drink from which is all about me.
It is about... and my life and my feelings and
my thoughts. It has to do with what I want. And
sometimes we even tell God what he should do
because we think we know better than he does.
And these are wells that will not spring up to
eternity. And then there are these wells of thought
that are in the world, ways of thinking, if you
will. As a teenager, I drank from such a well,
a group that I affiliated with at that time taught
about reincarnation. Perhaps you know what reincarnation
is, the believing that a soul could come back
in various bodies in various lifetimes, living
many lives as different people. And let me be
clear that we all have one life, we have one
soul, we have one body that's given to us from
God, and we live that life, and that reincarnation
does not happen. But at that time, I chose to
drink from that well of thought. And I was encouraged
to go inward and to seek out those past lives
that were inside me. And I convinced myself,
that I was the reincarnated soul of Captain James
Cook. And I really believed it. And I thought,
yes, I could see myself on the stern of the ship
with the wind blowing through my hair. And I
walked around and told people that I was the
reincarnation of James Cook. Well, I don't believe
that any longer. in case you were wondering.
But drinking from different wells sometimes can
lead us to self -delusion, where we trick ourselves,
or perhaps others tricked us, or perhaps it's
a combination of all the above, maybe even some
darkness involved in it. It tricks us into this
delusion where we choose to believe something
that is not true. And we really believe it, but
it is not true. And I call this well the all
about me well because it's usually focused on
something about you that gets you to think about
just you. And it could be even physical heritage.
It doesn't have to be spiritual heritage, but
it's all about me. And our eyes are not placed
on God. And so ultimately, since our eyes are
not placed on God, we go thirsty again. But there
is only one well that will give you living water,
and that is the church. The church founded by
our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, established
by the holy apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit
on Pentecost, which we very soon will celebrate
here. your eyes on you. But that well, the well
that we come to today, the well where we enter
into worship of the one true God, this will focus
our eyes on God. And how much better that we
would find God's will for our life. What a better
place we'll end up in if we listen to God's will
and go where he would direct us than to trust
in ourselves. So don't settle for this water
of the world in the many temporary wells, the
ones that only quench your thirst today. Instead,
we can go to the well of living water, which
will bring us into God's presence now as well
as for eternity. It will lead us away from pride
and self -will. and lead us to humility and seeking
God's will for our life. And instead of a self
-directed life, we will learn step by step to
lead a God -directed life. So let us follow the
example of Saint Fotini, who chose to follow
Christ and to drink this living water. May we
determine to strive more and more to drink from
that well. Christ is risen.