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"Thirsting For The Spirit" - Greg Briggs, Preacher
Thirsting for the Spirit  
Preached by Member-In-Discernment Greg Briggs

    Good morning!  The peace and joy of Jesus Christ be with you!  And
thanks for not sneaking out the back when you remembered that Pastor
Kevin was on vacation for this Sunday and next Sunday.  Since this is the
first time that you are hearing me preach, I thought I'd give you a little
insight into how I preach.  I really like to keep things a bit more informal.  I
appreciate feedback during the sermon.  If I say something that is funny, I
encourage you to laugh. Even if it wasn't supposed to be funny, that's ok.  If
I say something you agree with, I encourage you to say “amen” or just grunt
in agreement.  If I say something that you disagree with, I encourage you to
keep quiet.  Just kidding.  We are gathered together to share God's good
word, and I'd like you to add your voice.
    As many of you know, the book that is the focus of this Lenten Sermon
series, “The Spirituality of Imperfection,” by Kurtz and Ketcham is based on
the reflections and growth of spirituality that was found in Alcoholic
Anonymous.  Alcohol abuse is a serious subject and one that I want to give a
lot of careful reflection and respect.  Given the statistics, it is likely many of
us here have been affected either directly or indirectly by alcohol abuse.  I
recognize that preaching on this subject can be controversial, and may bring
up some painful experiences.  If it does, I am here to help you in whatever
way I can and please see me after the service.  
    So, today's scripture lesson had Jesus going on a journey, and when he
arrived, he thought to himself, “I could really use a drink...”  How often have
we heard that phrase?  Many of us have said it when we came home at the
end of a long day.  We've heard it in the movies just after the main character
survived something awful.  Or, thought it might be hard to imagine right
now, we might hear our spouse say it when they come in from doing yard
work on a hot summer's day.  That longing for a drink, something that
quenches our thirst, provides us relief, and satisfies one of our basic needs.  
“I could really use a drink...”
    Sometimes that drink is a quenching glass of water.  Other times it is a
cold glass of lemonade.  Sometimes, that drink might be a beer, a glass of
wine or something stronger.  Though it might be scandalous to say from up
here, I do enjoy a beer now and again and I imagine that many of you do as
well.  But, perhaps, there are those of us who don't just desire a drink, they
need a drink.  And not just one drink, but many.  And often.  
    When talking about alcoholism and spirituality, I don't think you could find
a word that is more loaded down with double meanings and baggage as
drinking.  As Christians we are encouraged to drink deep of the water of life.  
Drinking is the metaphor to bring things inside ourselves, to make it part of
ourselves.  Drinking is an essential bodily function.  We need to drink to live.  
Yet, many alcoholics make that same claim about alcohol.  They drink to cope
to get through the day.  Once they admit they need help, they struggle
against their urge to drink on a daily basis.  
    Actually, there is a second loaded word when we talk about spirituality
and alcoholism.  The word spirit itself. Or, when we are talking about liquor,
spirits.  These two words, drinking and spirit, can mean so much and take us
in such different directions.  A simple definition of alcoholism is the need to
drink spirits.  A simple definition of spirituality is the need to drink of the
Spirit.  The need to drink spirits and the need to drink of the spirit.  There
really isn't much different in those two sentences, but they can lead us in
such different directions.  Both spirituality and alcoholism deal with an
overwhelming need, one is for God, the other is for the bottle.  
    However, as Kurtz and Ketcham point out, they aren't actually as far
apart as one might imagine.  One of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous,
in his ongoing quest to be cured of his alcoholism, spent time in the 1930's
with the famous psychiatrists Karl Jung.  This time together gave him one of
the insights that has driven AA ever since.  Jung told him that while there
may not be a medical or a psychiatric cure, there may be a spiritual recovery,
a way to cope with the alcoholism.  Many years later, one of the other
founders of AA wrote to Jung to thank him for this insight.  Months before
his death, Jung wrote a reply that made the link between alcoholism and
spirituality more explicit.  It was Jung's belief that the craving for alcohol was
an expression of “the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in
medieval language [as] the union with God...  You see, “alcohol” in Latin is
'spiritus' and you use the same word for the highest religious experience as
well as for the most depraving poison.”  He later describes a helpful phrase
for alcoholics: “spiritus contra spiritum."
A loose translation would be, "a spiritual experience to counter addiction to
the spirits."  To make this connection even closer, another word for alcohol is
aqua vitae, the water of life, which was offered by Jesus in today's scripture.  
This link between alcohol and spirituality keeps cropping up.
    Jung's linking of the craving an alcoholic feels and spiritual desires isn't
just some idea that he had, it's something that's been born out by many
individuals who have gone through AA.  When they first started AA
meetings, different groups in different cities would try different ideas and
approaches, to see what would work.  They repeatedly found that those
groups who ignored the spiritual component of the AA program had a much
higher rate of people that would go back to drinking.  This is one of the
spiritual gifts given to us from the experiences in Alcoholics Anonymous,
spirituality is essential.  
    However, though spirituality is essential, it is not necessarily what we
would expect or recognize.  In fact, it is all together different than what we
as church goers might acknowledge as being spiritual.  It is not a lofty
spirituality that focuses on perfection or becoming holy and leaving addiction
behind.  It is an earthy, salty sort of spirituality, this spirituality of
imperfection; one that daily wrestles with addiction and life's other problems.  
This spirituality that focuses on living into who you are, faults and blemishes
and all, and not what outside expectations say you should be.  As Kurtz and
Ketcham  described it, “it's not a room full of saints, but a fellowship of
sinners.”  
    I find it ironic and telling that recovering alcoholics are often more
comfortable exploring their faith in their AA meetings than in church.  Before
AA was formed, it's founders tried to follow a more church centered model of
recovery called the Oxford Group.  They did not stay as they found that
there were high expectations of perfection and holiness put upon them and
little room for grace and forgiveness if they relapsed.  The pressure to live up
to such high expectations was overwhelming and frankly driving them back to
drink.  Instead, they found they craved a spirituality that met them where
they were.  A common phrase in AA circles is that “God comes through the
wound.”  They are looking for a connection to that which can give them
“release, gratitude, humility, tolerance, and forgiveness.”  
    It saddens me that there is this distinction between spirituality and
religion in AA and in society in general.  I believe that as followers of Jesus,
we should embody that which we receive from Jesus: welcoming everyone,
sharing the peace of Christ just like we did today, and forgiving each other
of  our sins.  When we receive this grace from Jesus, we should not turn
around and deny it to others.  I am not trying to accuse any one specific
person or one specific congregation, but remind us all of what we are called
to do as Christians, as followers of Jesus.  So let us now look back at today's
scripture reading to help us remember what we are called to do.  
    Today's Gospel reading describes Jesus talking to the woman at the well.  
Throughout this story, Jesus breaks many rules of the day.  First, religious
leaders would avoid speaking to women in public.  Secondly, she is a
Samaritan, who were deeply disliked by the Jews.  And lastly, Jesus is aware
that this woman has had a number of husbands and is currently with a man
who is not her husband.  All of these are compelling societal reasons why
Jesus should not talk to this woman.  And yet, despite of all of this, he
speaks with her.  He doesn't just ask her for water, but he witnesses to her,
he speaks to her of the world to come.  He offers her, the one he should not
speak to, the water of everlasting life, the same water he offers to all of us.  
His actions are so scandalous that it even shocks his disciples.  If we had
kept reading, we would have read that the disciples asked him why he was
speaking with that woman.  So, perhaps I should not be so hard on the
church for not being more welcoming to alcoholics.  Even the disciples had
trouble understanding the way that Jesus worked.  Indeed, forgiving the
church would be embodying the same spirituality of imperfection that I hope
we can better foster in ourselves and in the church.
    Before we leave the Gospel story behind, I want to add to it a reflection
from the centering story that was read earlier in the service. But before I talk
about the story, I want to talk a bit more about Abba Moses, the monk in
the story.  He is also known as Moses the Black or Moses the Robber, and
was an Ethiopian living in Egypt from 330 to 405 AD.  He was originally a
thief and a vicious one.  He came to the monastery to hide from his pursuers
and chose to become a monk after witnessing the peacefulness of their lives.  
That said, he did not easily adapt to the monastic life.  Initially, he was very
judgmental of himself and felt he was not perfect enough.  Eventually the
abbot of the monastery took him to the roof to watch the first rays of dawn
come over the horizon.  Then the abbot said "Only slowly do the rays of the
sun drive away the night and usher in a new day, and thus, only slowly does
one become a perfect contemplative." In many ways, Moses the Black is a
good model of the spirituality of imperfection.  He found it hard giving up his
adventurous life and would sometimes disagree with the abbot.  He had
committed many sins.  And despite his many sins, or maybe because of his
many sins, he had great compassion for others.  And this brings us back to
our story.   Here it is again:
A brother at Scetis (a monastery) committed a fault.  A council was called to
which Abba Moses was invited, but he refused to go.  Then the priest sent
someone to say to him "Come, for everyone is waiting for you."  So he got
up and went, taking a leaking jug filled with water and carrying it with him.  
The other monks came out to meet him and said, "What is this, Father?"  
The old man replied:  "My sins run out behind me and I do not see them, and
today I am coming to judge the faults of another."  When they heard that,
they said no more to the brother but forgave him."
I imagine Moses the Black, older, wizened, in rough homespun monastic
robes, carrying this tall, leaking jug to remind us of our own flaws.  The
water drips onto the ground and soaks his robes.  Being a monk in the
desert, this water must be extra precious.  The water in the jug represents
his sins, but also represents life giving water;  both the water that Jesus
promised us, but also the normal, every day water that we drink every day to
survive and the water that was shared between the monks.    
    Now I picture that jug as the jug carried by the woman at the well,
serving Jesus.  As the story goes, she leaves her conversation with Jesus
and begins to testify to the people of the city converting many people.  All
the while, she carries this leaky jug, leaving a trail behind her while she
crosses the city, bringing that life giving water.   
    These stories remind me of the broken vessels that we are and that we
are still used to do God's work and spread the news of Christ's liberation
from sin.  The spiritual leaders from Alcoholics Anonymous and Moses the
Black remind us that we are not to wait until we are perfect before we start
doing what Jesus asks of us, but that we are to do what Jesus ask of us and
through that work we will become closer to God.  We are to share that life
giving water amongst one another, even as it also shows our own
imperfections.  
    One of the founders of AA said, “The spiritual approach was as useless as
any other if you soaked it up like a sponge and kept it to yourself.”  I like the
contrast between the sponge and the jug; one soaking up and having to be
squeezed to let anything out, and the other leaky but holding water but is
made to pour out and to share with others.  It is the sharing of what people
have learned in AA that is the secret to it's success, and the secret to our
own spiritual growth.  The sharing of water which quenches our thirst is what
we should be all about.  For alcoholics, it's about sating that thirst for booze,
hopefully with the Spirit that fills the deep need of their souls.  For the rest
of us, we need that same thirst quenching Spirit, and we are better able to
receive it by helping others quench their thirst.