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When we are at the end of our
resources, when all our human buckets have been exhausted and the soul remains empty…
…it is hard to imagine that somebody,
somewhere… anybody, anywhere could have access to a thirst-quenching well… that
there even exists on a map a well of water
that satisfies this soul-craving…
Where do you get that living water?
Where?
Paris? Chicago? Timbuktu? New York City?
Where?
Where?
Isn’t that the question we all ask
when our self-sufficiency is neatly stripped down? When all our gifts and
competencies turn out to be quite inadequate for the immense task of life?
When we feel we wasted our
opportunities and failed miserably? When we become weak and powerless? When we are seen as just useless used-to-be-s?
Of course, some of us are too
terrified to admit weakness and powerlessness.
Some of us can’t accept that we could
be quite useless… so we feel compelled to engage in a little
name-dropping.
To a little one-up-men-ship...
A little added value to my hopeless
predicament… ... my lame claim to fame…
The woman rakes her brain
looking for the greatest man she could think of in that moment… the man who
knew the thirst and who dug this very well…
The patriarch Jacob... whom Angel of
the Lord named
Jacob the father of the nation.
Jacob the liar and the cheater.
Jacob the supplanter.
Jacob the cripple.
Jacob the well-digger.
This is the man she chooses as the highest and the best in her universe.
She drops his name like a trump card, looking square in the eyes of Jesus:
You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You?
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