Knee Deep in a River and Dying of Thirst

That’s the title of a country song originally recorded by Don Williams and made popular by Kathy Matea in 1992. It’s a haunting tune about how we let divides to come in between friends and lovers over time. The closing verse includes these striking words:

So the side walk is crowded the city goes by,
I just rushed through another day
And a world full of strangers turn their eyes to me,
But I just look the other way.

Chorus: They roll by just like water,
And I guess we never learn,
Go through life parched and empty
Standing knee deep in a river, dying of thirst.

In contemporary culture the song is poetic commentary on the divides that were surrounding Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, as accounted in the fourth chapter of John’s gospel. Tired and thirsty by the well in the middle of the day Jesus asks this woman for a drink of water. But this is no common request.

Why not? Well, there are two reasons.

First, Jews didn’t speak to Samaritans – there was an open wound between Israelites and Samaritans, a sort of north versus south thing that compares well to the Civil War wounds in our own country nearly 150 years ago.

Second, righteous Jewish men didn’t talk to women alone at the well in the middle of the day. It was about the same as seeing your senator slip into a hotel room with a good looking woman who isn’t his wife. You somehow know that they’re not working on legislation.

Jesus exploded two taboos in his request for water and in the end gives living water to a woman who was dry and parched by life. After five husbands, this woman probably had no one to count on and was likely the object of derision in her community. In other words, she was one of those strangers in the country song, turning her eyes to others, but they just look the other way.

But Jesus chose not to look the other way, he chose to engage her. He treated her as a full human being and later did the same with her entire town. In the season of Lent – when we focus on confessing our failures – we have a great opportunity to confess the sinful ways we have treated others with disdain and exclusion. This Sunday I’ll be preaching a sermon called Knee Deep in A River and Dying of Thirst and I’m hoping to convince you that Jesus’ acts at the well give Christians a model of dignity and respect for those in the world outside our community of faith. This is “Track 3” in the sermon series The Dusty Road Sessions – one more of the lessons Jesus’ disciples can learn from Jesus’ journeys on the dusty roads of Israel.

I’ve included the full lyrics to Knee Deep in a River below the passage from John 4. Why not take a few minutes on Saturday or Sunday morning to enjoy a cup of coffee and reflect on this passage? I hope you enjoy a wonderful weekend of rest!

Shabbat Shalom,
Pastor Gary

Not a Sermon – Just a Thought is a weekly column written by me, Gary Long. I’m the pastor of Willow Meadows Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. To subscribe or unsubscribe contact me at glong@wmbc.org.

John 4.1-42
Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman
1The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, 2although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4Now he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
11"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
13Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
15The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
16He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."
17"I have no husband," she replied.
Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. 18The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."
19"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
21Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
25The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
26Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."
The Disciples Rejoin Jesus
27Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with her?"
28Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29"Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" 30They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
31Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something."
32But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about."
33Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?"
34"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true. 38I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor."
Many Samaritans Believe
39Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." 40So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41And because of his words many more became believers.
42They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."


Lyrics to Knee Deep in a River (and Dying of Thirst)

Friends I could count on I could count on one hand
With a left over finger or two.
I took them for granted, let them all slip away,
Now where they are I wish I knew.

(Chorus) They roll by just like water & I guess we never learn,
Go through life parched and empty,
Standing knee deep in a river, dying of thirst.

Sometimes I remember the good people I've known,
Some I've forgotten I suppose.
One or two still linger,
Oh I wonder now why I ever let them go.

(Chorus) They roll by just like water & I guess we never learn,
Go through life parched and empty,
Standing knee deep in a river, dying of thirst.

So the side walk is crowded the city goes by,
I just rushed through another day
And a world full of strangers turn their eyes to me,
But I just look the other way.

(Chorus) They roll by just like water & I guess we never learn,
Go through life parched and empty,
Standing knee deep in a river, dying of thirst.