Living Water

This past Sunday the gospel reading was about Jesus talking with a Samaritan woman. He tells her He will give her living water (John 4:3-42)

I always wondered what that living water was exactly, or if Jesus was just using a metaphor. I thought maybe He meant something spiritual like the knowledge of eternal life. I confess I often thought the Samaritan woman must have left feeling empty handed, or at least puzzled by a confusing answer.

I realized during Andy's sermon (Andy Andrews is our priest at St. Mary's Cathedral in Memphis) that by speaking to her as a woman, as a Samaritan, Jesus gave her the gift of recognizing her value as a person.
The living water is the gift of being valued
Of being given your dignity
Recognizing you have the freedom to be loved
To hold your head up and thank God you're alive

The Samaritan woman walked away from that conversation with something that couldn't be taken away from her.

This is the gift God gives to the Haitian people, a gift we Americans don't always see at first. We see the devastating poverty most Haitians endure all of their lives, and we ask, How can they love God? Why arent they angry all the time? The Haitians know that God loves them even though the world ignores them most of the time. They have a treasure inside that can't be taken away.