I was so intrigued when I first discovered the passage of the Gospel we have this year for Pentecost, so intrigued that I almost thought there must have been a mistake and I went to double check if it was the right reading (It is!). But this is indeed, a surprising choice: First of all, it is very short, only two verses, not even five lines taken from John’s Gospel where there are so many other great passages about the Holy Spirit, and then this image about the Spirit: A flowing of “Rivers of living water” when we’re so used to compare the Holy Spirit with fire. I mean, most regular church goers know quite well the story of Acts, we read it each year, the disciples all “gathered in one place” and then they hear “the rush of a violent wind” and suddenly tongues of fire come to rest on them. We usually symbolize that by wearing red on Pentecost, and we’re used to this image of the Spirit of God being like fire, the prophets on fire with God’s word and passion for justice, the early church like fire propagating from on place to the other, the fire in the believer’s hearts: “Were not our hearts burning within us?” ask the disciples in another passage of Luke (Luke 24: 32). I used to work in a church where they had a hot chili contest on Pentecost Day, because they said it’s “the festival of the tongues on fire”. And it certainly made an impact! But not today. Today, John leaves us with this image that is quite the opposite of a burning fire, the Spirit being for John like water, and you know not the little sprinkling we get on the day of our baptism (at least in the Episcopal church) but full immersion: Again, the Spirit is said to be like “rivers of living water”.
So what are we to do with that, and what can we learn from it?
First of all, this is certainly a refreshing image and it draws our attention on the fact that there are many different images for the Spirit, which help us to understand better what the Spirit is all about. In John’s, the Spirit is already associated with living waters when Jesus meets with the Samaritan at the well (Chapter 4, We talked about that during Lent), the Spirit is also compared to the mother’s womb (3:5), and the Spirit is like a dove at Jesus’s baptism (1:32). I like it that we have a multiplicity of images because I think that it can be limiting to talk about the Holy Spirit being the fire. First, it’s an image that makes me nervous late Spring in the middle of a drought, and then, well I don’t know how you all feel on Sunday morning, but we’re not necessarily all fired up – not when we go to church, and not even necessarily when we come back. But drinking from a source of living water, this I think we can relate to. Our time with Jesus, when he communicates his Spirit to us, is meant to bring us some refreshment, relief, cleansing and renewal. Jesus extends the invitation he did to the Samaritan woman (John 4: 14) to all in Jerusalem and to all of us: “Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Now, I also think its very interesting that John says in our little passage that Jesus was talking about the Spirit, “which believers in him were to receive for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified”. John must have been a teacher, because his Gospel is always interrupted by explanatory notes, like he wants to make sure we get it right. Of course, chronologically there was a Spirit before Jesus, over the waters of Creation, in the heart of the prophets and so on. But John wants us to understand that this Spirit is the presence of Christ, the Christ who was revealed in Jesus’s life, death and Resurrection. And it’s very beautiful and helpful for us because most of the time we don’t what or who the Spirit is, but John makes it clear: The Spirit is Jesus’s presence among us beyond time and space, we see that in John 16: 7 “It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate [Spirit] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” When we come to church, because of the Spirit that comes when we share the word and bless the bread and wine, Jesus himself is made present among us, and as he does so, so he claims today, he brings us flow of living waters: Refreshment, relief, cleansing, renewal. It does not happen at church only, but each time we ask the Spirit in prayer: How much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who keep asking him!” (Luke 11:13).
It doesn’t stop there though. If we keep digging a little more in those two verses, we’ll realize soon that the Spirit is not given to our own benefit only. Interestingly Jesus gives us to drink, but it’s “Out of the believer’s heart” that “shall flow rivers of living waters”. It’s actually a quotation of the prophet Ezekiel (36: 25-26) “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” By saying this, not only does Jesus confirm he is the new Messiah, but he makes it clear that the invitation to drink water from him, even if it brings refreshment, relief and renewal, this water is not just to help us “feel better”, it is made so our hearts are changed, we are cleansed from sins and then we can bring the same refreshment, relief and renewal. Once the Spirit is in us, we become embodiment for the Spirit wherever we are: Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? (1 Corinthians 6:19). It is a very ancient idea in the Scriptures, since its starts in Genesis, that we are blessed to be in our turn a blessing. God says to Abraham: “In you shall all the nations be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). The water Jesus gives us is not stagnant water, it is meant to keep flowing to bless the whole world (Read Ezekiel 47: The water flowing from the Temple waters the whole land). We are blessed to become a blessing, to carry the Spirit into the world. The Apostles on that day they received the tongues of fire didn’t open the doors hoping people would join them in worship, they went outside to share the good news with them. Our call as Christians, individually, and collectively, as a church, is to bless our community, to bring them God’s love in words and actions. Stagnant water is often contaminated water, rather the water God gives us is so beneficial because it keeps flowing.
Now I know it’s not that easy…It’s not like well, we’re going to show up at church or say a prayer to the Holy Spirit and then everything will change in us and around us. But Jesus does not give us his Spirit so we have it all figured out and can start saving the world according to the program he gives us, Jesus gives us his Spirit so our hearts are plugged in his heart, and our faith and churches become alive, seeking him more passionately and discerning his will for us more intentionally. To understand more deeply Jesus’s invitation, I think it’s important to have a little bit of context. John tells us that Jesus is making this proclamation during the “festival”, the “great day”. It was actually the festival of the booths, one of the biggest and most joyful festival for the Jews. For eight days they went to Jerusalem and lived in tents that reminded them of their time in the wilderness, and each day they would go in procession to the pools, sing psalms, light giants lamps at night in the Temple. On the last day, the priest would lift the pitcher full of water from the pool and pour it on the altar that was covered with palms and branches by the people. It was a ceremonial made to celebrate God’s provision for the people, especially since water is such a precious resource in the middle East, especially in Jerusalem where there is no main river. And so when John tells us that Jesus was standing there, crying out on that day, it meant that he interrupted this most solemn moment to draw all the attention to him. He wasn’t preaching on the side to a few disciples, he shout out while the priest was officiating. It was very disruptive, and actually there are several passages in this very chapter of John that Jesus gets in trouble with the Temple police. But if someone started shouting during the prayer of consecration in our churches, the ushers would probably drag them out, or at least invite them to go get some fresh air, right?
And yet, this is our Jesus, crying out to get all the attention on him during people’s ceremonies and priestly rites, because he is the only one who can give us what we long for. He does not want people to come to the Temple to enjoy the show or even to run the show, he wants people to give their hearts. I think this is still true. I think Jesus is still crying out. In the 17th century there was a nun named Margaret Mary and she said that this is what she heard Jesus tell her: “My Divine Heart is so passionately in love with humanity that it can no longer contain within itself the flames of its burning charity and must spread them abroad by your means.” The problem? Most of the time, we stay at a distance. We think we act reverently by not asking God for too much, by not making waves or really wrestling with our faith, but maybe we only suffer from spiritual shyness or even spiritual dryness. Like the Jews in Jesus’s time, we love our places of worship, but is it because we seek God or because we enjoy the comfort and the predictability of the rituals? How many churches run into conflicts when we start making a few changes in the sanctuary? Certainly we want people to be blessed by God, but are we waiting for them to show up and join us where we are or rather willing to meet them where they are, both geographically and spiritually? And yet the question remains: How can we let the waters of the Holy Spirit move through us if we don’t keep moving?