6/13/10 Running on Empty

No audio or video for this one either, but enjoy!

I was coming back from a long car ride, and just as I pulled into my driveway, the “low fuel” light came on. Ding! Now, I had just spent an hour in the car, and was in no mood to turn around and go to the gas station. “I’ll just go next time I go out,” I said to myself. Well, the next day I had to go to the grocery store, and sure enough, about halfway there the warning dinged again. But there was no gas station close to the grocery store, and I was in a hurry, so I said to myself, “I’ll do it next time.” Long story short, four days go by, and I realize I’m still running with the little needle on E, and I now have no idea how far I’ve gone since that light first came on. So as I realize how close I am to being out of gas, I start trying to do things to save gas. Like coast down hills instead of touching the gas, or turning off the air conditioner - does that even work? Either way, the feeling of not knowing how much farther I was going to make it was quite disconcerting. I made it to the gas station that time luckily.

Have you ever felt like that in life? Like you’re getting really close to the end of your fuel, and you’re not sure if you’re going to be able to make it? In life, we encounter situations where we’d better have our tanks filled. Unexpected hills where if we’re running on empty we won’t make it all the way up; unexpected valleys where we need all the fuel we can get to make it back out again. Of course, we are, obviously, far more complicated than cars.

For example, we need physical fuel to make it through the day - food, water, sleep, exercise. If we put junk into our bodies, then they won’t perform as well when we encounter the need to pull an all nighter (to finish a paper or maybe a sermon); if we forget to eat, well, we eventually stop moving; if we don’t get good sleep, we get sick and run down. We need to make sure we keep our physical tanks full, and we’re usually pretty good at that. We notice when we’re hungry or tired, that warning light comes on and we know just what to do to fill them back up again.

But we’re more than just physical bodies. We need to keep our intellectual tanks full as well. We need our brains, our intellect, our intelligence to make it through life too. We can fill up on reality television and gossip magazines, or we can read a book or paint a picture or listen to music that moves us. We get stuck when our intellectual tanks are running on empty; we feel stagnant, bored. We need to keep filling our intellectual tanks as well.

We’re more than our intellect too, though, and that’s what I want to talk about today. When we talk about hills and valleys in life, the tank we most often forget to fill is our spiritual tank. Often we’re not as in touch with our spiritual selves, and we may not notice when we start to run low on fuel. But the spiritual tank is the one that’s going to get us through those hard times, those unexpected events where no matter how well fed or intellectually stimulated we are, we need to dig for something deeper to get us through. As Christians, where do we stop for gas when our spiritual tanks start to run dry?

When Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman at the well, he gives us an idea about how we can keep our spiritual tanks full. Let’s listen to the story from John 4.

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

The fuel that keeps our spiritual tanks full is the good news of Jesus. Jesus is using the metaphor of living water to talk about this good news, the gospel message that he preached and taught, the message that he exemplified in his life, death and resurrection. The gospel, the living water that he’s talking about here, the good news is that God loves us, all of us, and that God wants a relationship with us. The good news is that we can share that same love with all those that we meet, a love that does not judge, a love that is with us through all of life’s journeys, a love that will sustain us when we reach those high mountains and low valleys.

The story itself exemplifies the radical nature of the gospel. Jesus is talking to a Samaritan woman; the Biblical writer says it rather politely, that Jews don’t share things in common with Samaritans. But this is a much deeper rivalry. Jews and Samaritans did not get along, we’re talking beyond Red Sox/Yankees here. And not only is she a Samaritan, but she’s a woman who’s living with a man who’s not her husband (we find that out later in the chapter), and who’s had five husbands before. This woman was a social outcast, someone on the periphery, someone with no power. By sharing the message of the gospel, Jesus is not only telling the gospel, he’s living the gospel.

The Samaritan woman had a lot of ups and downs in her life as well. She was surprised when this stranger, a Jew, started talking to her. And the message that he offers her is that there is a source of life that will never run dry, a source of hope, a source of peace and joy and wholeness. The gospel message that Jesus shared with the Samaritan woman is the same message that Jesus shares with us. The good news of Jesus Christ is that all of us, every one, is a loved creation of a loving creator, and we all have access to the living water of God’s love.

So how do we refill our spiritual gas tanks? How do keep our spirits full with the knowledge of the gospel message of love and hope that sustains us through life’s journeys? Just living day to day uses up spiritual fuel, maintaining relationships, holding onto hope in a chaotic, troublesome world. But we need that living water, we need those tanks to be full, because when we run into hills and valleys, we hope that the low fuel light doesn’t come on. We need to constantly replenish our spiritual tanks with the good news.

One way that Christians fill their tanks is by participating in worship. Getting together once a week (or more or less) with other people who share the same story, the same language, remembering the great things that God has done and recognizing the great things that God continues to do, is a way that we refill our spiritual tanks. Different kinds of worship work better for different people, but attending worship regularly is one of the most fundamental ways that we can refill our spiritual tanks.

But our relationship to God is not just through other people. Spending time alone with God, spending time working on our relationship with God is another way we can fill our tanks. Time spent in prayer, whether it be spontaneous or scheduled, keeps us connected to the source of living water, helps us to remember and to be aware of the ways God has acted and continues to act in our lives.

Reading the Bible, learning about the ways in which God has revealed Godself, is a way we can stay connected to God, a way we can refill our tanks; learning about how others have experienced God throughout the centuries, in the Biblical witness and in the writings of our faith. Reading the medieval mystics, or the church fathers, or taking a Sunday school class, all these are ways in which we learn more about the God who loves us and how God loves us.

And then there is the way that we experience God in our own lives, the moments when we feel a breath of wind and know that God is with us. One of the things I love about New Hampshire is how close I am at all times to trees and water and mountains, how quickly I can be somewhere where I encounter God in nature. This time of year especially, seeing a pair of cardinals flying through the trees together, or experiencing the beauty of flowers in full bloom, all remind me of how God’s majesty is present in all of creation.

We all need different things to keep our various tanks full, because we’re all unique. Worship may be of crucial importance for some; for others, daily prayer and meditation are a necessity. Some experience more God in the presence of others, some experience it more in solitude. We may stop at different gas stations, but we’re all in need of the same fuel. The good news, that God loves us unconditionally, that we are God’s children, that we are each loved fully and intimately by a loving God - that is what will sustain us when we reach mountains and valleys. The living water will refill our tanks, but we have to take the time to fill her up. We need to pay attention when our low fuel indicators go off, and not put off filling up, because that living water is what is gonna get us over the next hill. But better yet, let us never let our tanks get so empty that we have to wonder if we’re going to make it to the next gas station.