I did something this week I’ve been meaning to do for a while:  I made toilet tank filler bottles so every time we flush one of the parsonage toilets, we use less water.  This is a very simple project—no plumbing skills required!  Just take an empty one liter club soda bottle, put some sand and stones in there to weigh the bottle down, fill it with water, put the cap on tight, and voila!  Now every time we flush, the tank fills back up with one liter less water.  They say the average person flushes five times a day, so if there are two people in your household, that’s almost 20 gallons of water a week, saved!

We don’t talk much about toilets in church, but we for sure should be talking about saving water.  Our United Methodist theology is grounded in three simple rules:  1) do no harm, 2) do good and 3) stay in love with God.  By using more water than necessary, we are doing harm.  Harm to our earth, and harm to people.  Our world’s supply of drinking water is finite, and we know that the amount of available water is shrinking.  This week I spent some time reading a study done by the Pew Charitable Trust, which is known for being fairly conservative.  They are not an overly alarmist source of information.  They report that over half of the world’s aquifers are beyond the sustainability tipping point—meaning more fresh water is being drawn from them than is being replaced.  They predict that, by 2025, half of the world’s population will reside in water stressed areas.  Including people in the US.  According to National Geographic, 40 out of our 50 states expect to experience water shortages this year!

We need to change the way we think about water.  It is a commodity that is much more prone to scarcity than we realize.  Of course, in parts of the world, water scarcity is an issue that has been a top priority for decades.  When Phil and I visited the Holy Land a few years ago, there was a lot of talk about fresh water supplies, and who has water rights.  Figuring out who can irrigate their crops is a matter of international negotiations!  Many buildings have cisterns on the roof to collect rainwater.  A cup of cold water in a restaurant there is rarely free.  We take for granted that all the water we need will be available to us with the turn of the tap, as long as we pay our water bill on time.  But for many people in the world, access to water requires a lot of thought and planning.

In our gospel lesson today, Jesus was tired from travelling.  No doubt it was hot, and he was thirsty.  Luckily, he could sit down right by the well!  But he should have done a little more planning.  Sources tell us the well was 138 feet deep!  It wasn’t like a pond or stream, where you could reach in with your own hands to get a drink.  To avail yourself of the water, you had to bring your own bucket.  BYOB!  Jesus had neglected to BYOB, or more likely, his disciples who had gone into town to buy food had taken their well bucket with them.  He did not have what he needed to get a drink of water.

I like this picture of Jesus, because it reminds me of us.  We get tired, too, don’t we?  This week I heard people praising Linda Youngstrom and her team for the amazing work they did on our rummage sale.  I have never seen so much rummage!  It was a heroic effort, setting all of that up, running the sale, and then cleaning up afterwards.  Linda was there for all of it, like a Lima Energizer Bunny, and she never once seemed tired.  When we asked her about that she said, “We don’t get tired when we’re doing the Lord’s work.”  And I think there’s a truth to that—it is energizing to be doing the things God wants us to do.  But eventually all of us get tired.  Even when we are doing the Lord’s work.  Even Jesus got tired from doing the Lord’s work!  Personally, I find that very encouraging!

Jesus was not only tired, he was unprepared.  He did not have the equipment he needed to solve his problem.  I’m sure he could have worked a miracle and brought water up from the well like a super strong drinking fountain, but in the conventional sense, he was in a jam.  Personally, I find this encouraging, too!  Jesus had problems.  He had frustrations.  Every day life was a grind for him from time to time, just like it is for us.  And as a pastor, this passage really speaks to me.  The last two years of ministry have been very tiring.  My clergy colleagues and I felt unprepared for the shifts the pandemic would force upon our churches.  I know it’s been tiring for laity, too.  We’ve all had to do a lot of changing, re-thinking, adapting, re-adapting, changing again, waiting, hoping, praying.  We are tired.  We know the stream of God’s loving energy is ever abundant and always as close as our next breath in.  But I have felt at times like I didn’t have the bucket I needed to draw from that well.  I know many of you have felt that way, too.

So.  If you are tired, you’re in good company.  If you are weary, you are in good company.  If you feel like you don’t have everything you need to navigate the current and coming challenges in your life, you are in good company!  Even Jesus got tired.  Even Jesus got weary.  Even Jesus lacked the tools he needed to solve his own problems on occasion!

So let’s take a look at what Jesus did next.  He was tired and thirsty.  He was sitting right by the well.  But he didn’t have a bucket with which to draw water.  So what did he do?  HE ASKED FOR HELP!  Now, when John wrote his gospel, he wanted us to see that Jesus asked for help from a very unlikely source:  a Samaritan woman.  There was a lot of tension in Jesus’ day between the Israelites and the Samaritans.  They tried to avoid each other, they certainly didn’t share drinking glasses, and there was also the idea of Jesus talking in public to a woman not in his family.  Jesus was not worried about those conventions.  He needed help, and he asked for it, knowing that by giving the Samaritan woman the opportunity to help him, he was helping her, too.

John told this story, a story that would have shocked his first century audience, because he wanted everyone to see that Jesus’ love is so universal, so unconditional, so wide open and inclusive of everyone that it encompassed even this Samaritan woman with a storied past.  That is certainly a great gospel message right there!  But what stands out most to me when I read this story this week is that Jesus asked for help, period.  He was in need, and he asked for help.  Can I get an Amen for that?

Since we are focusing during this Easter season on creation, I want to make the obvious connection, that our planet Earth is in need.  It’s thirsty.  It’s suffering.  Its water reserves are being depleted.  Earth needs help, and it is asking for help from an unlikely source:  us.  The famous ocean explorer, Jacques Cousteau wrote, “People protect what they love.”  Do you love having clean water available?  Then do what you can to protect the water supply!  Do you love all your neighbors as yourself, even the ones who live in water stressed parts of the world?  Then do your part to conserve water!  Do you love God?  Then do what you can to protect God’s beloved and beautiful creation!  Our Earth and its Creator are in need of our help.  A cup of cold water saved in Jesus’ name is just as holy as a cup of cold water given in Jesus’ name!

I like that sentence so much, I’m going to say it again:  a cup of cold water saved in Jesus’ name is just as holy as a cup of cold water given in Jesus’ name!  In the gospel of John, it seems like there is always more than one conversation happening at a time.  Jesus and the Samaritan woman are talking about water drawn from Jacob’s well, water that will quench physical thirst.  But they are also talking about “living water”—water drawn from a spiritual stream that quenches our souls.  One of the things I love about the spiritual life is how God uses ordinary things to help us learn spiritual truths.  Pastor Karen talked about that last week.  Moses was told to take off his sandals because he was standing on holy ground.  It was a burning bush that got his attention.  But maybe God is speaking to us through the singing of birds, or the beauty of the sunset, or the flowering trees. Ordinary miracles are all around!  Will we notice?

The existence of clean drinking water is something of a miracle if you ask me.  In the parsonage, there is a bathroom on the first floor, and the cold water tap in the sink isn’t working right now.  It’s no problem—I just wash my hands with the hot water.  But when my mom came to visit for Easter, I realized, not having the cold water is a problem.  How will she brush her teeth?  Or get a drink of water to take her medicine?  We take it for granted, but it is holy ground wherever fresh water is available.  If you’ve ever been in a situation where you were thirsty and didn’t have access to water, you know what sufferable situation that is!  God’s provision and grace are shown to us in every drop of drinkable water.  When we take steps to protect that supply and conserve it so its available to everyone who needs it, we honor God.  We show reverence.  We can take off our shoes, because we are on holy ground.

And when we show love to the things God loves—even by doing something as simple as making a toilet tank displacement device—we open ourselves to receiving God’s love.  I do not know the technical, theological term for this truth, but I have experienced it time and time again.  When I do something practical to show love for God, or God’s people, or God’s creation, I get energized.  Like Linda Youngstrom said about the rummage sale, “We don’t get tired when we do the Lord’s work.”  The rummage sale is a way to show love to God’s people and God’s creation.  It keeps items out of landfills, it provides clothing and household goods at a very low cost for people who need them, and it generates money for mission projects!  I can see why the rummage sale excites and energizes Linda so much!

But I don’t think anyone wants to have the rummage sale six times a year, because on another level, it is really tiring.  Could it be that both things are true?  We know that doing the Lord’s work is tiring, even Jesus got tired.  But doing the Lord’s work is also energizing.  It’s empowering.  It gives our souls a boost!

So if you’ve been feeling a little run down and tired lately, I have a suggestion:  go to your rest room, and put a water displacer device inside your toilet tank.  Do this one practical thing as a sign of love for God and God’s creation, and see what happens.  Every time you flush from here on out, I bet your faith gets a little boost!

I can see you might be skeptical about this claim.  But I’m telling you:  if your faith feels a little crappy, go into your bathroom, take off the lid of your toilet, see how much room is in there, and then make a device to displace and save some water every time you flush.  I’m not saying this is a cure for depression and anxiety!  But I am saying that every time we do something concrete and specific to express love for God and God’s creation and God’s people, we not only help someone else, we help ourselves.  But don’t stop with saving water in the bathroom.  It’s do no harm, do all the good you can, and stay in love with God.  The thing is, we have to keep doing those good things.  One act of care if great.  But soon your soul will be thirsty again.  It is by cultivating the habit of doing good that we stay connected to the stream of living water, the stream that supplies us with everlasting life in Christ.

When John wrote this passage, he wanted us to see that Jesus’ love is so universal, so inclusive, that it encompasses even Samaritans, even sinners, even people who the dominant culture excluded.  His love is so universal, it encompasses sinners of all kinds.  There is no better news than that.  But today I hope we can also notice that Jesus not only asked for help from a Samaritan woman—he asked for help, period.  If you’re tired, if you’re weary, if your faith tank is running dry, ask for help!  Even Jesus got tired and asked for help.  Asking for help is a very Christ-like thing to do.

And giving help is also a very Christ-like thing today.  Each of us is like the Samaritan woman.  We probably don’t think we have anything special to offer.  But we do!  We each have a bucket, a tool, a gift, a skill that can be used to help someone else.  We each have the power to give a cup of cold water to someone who is thirsty.  And we each have the power to conserve a cup of water for a world that is thirsty.  When we do the good we can, we receiving a blessing in return.  We strengthen our own faith and well-being.  All of this is holy work.  Asking for help, offering to help, receiving help, extending care—all of this is holy work.  As Jacques Cousteau said, people protect what they love.  May the world be blessed by the love of Christ flowing in and through us.  Amen.