It is hard to allow
ourselves to be vulnerable,
even in the embrace of
God.
In the Book of Exodus, the
Israelites grumble in the desert: Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?
they ask God. Was it just to have us die here of thirst? In their vulnerability, they can’t
imagine that God will take care of them; they need water and see none around
them, and so they are ready to wash their hands of God (so to speak), to forget
the God who delivered them out of Egypt.
Their hearts are hardened, not vulnerable; they reject vulnerability in
order to grumble all the louder. But as
Psalm 95 reminds us, If today we hear God’s voice, we must not harden our hearts – our hearts were meant to be receptive, vulnerable to the
God who made us, open to his blessings.
The Samaritan woman in
John’s Gospel is not hard-hearted like the Israelites. Although she is wary of
meeting Jesus – a single man alone at the well – she is open to his offer of
water, living water, water that is
life-giving in ways the Israelites before her could not possibly have dreamed
of. She is herself vulnerable, outcast
by her peers because of her irregular relations with men, but Jesus reassures
her that what she truly needs flows directly from God, thus offering her the
connection, the spiritual intimacy, she lacks in human relations. Jesus is her access to God, if only she will
let herself be vulnerable and allow him in.
This is the access by faith of
which Paul speaks in his Letter to the Romans:
the love of God that has been poured out into our hearts. Like water from a rock, it is a miracle, the gift of God; like the living water of Christ, God’s love will
ensure that we never thirst… if only
we accept his love, and accept to love him from a place of vulnerability, ever
trusting that hope does not disappoint.
This post is based on Fr.
Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: Wordle
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