Our readings this week are Exodus 17.1–7 and John 4.5–42.  Both readings are about people asking for a drink.  In Exodus, 'The people quarrelled with Moses, and said, ‘Give us water to drink.'  In John, 'A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink'.

In both we find the same action - asking for water - but very different attitudes.  The people in Exodus are quarrelling.  They are openly combative towards Moses, their request is hostile.  It's born, you could say, from a sense of entitlement, a feeling that they are owed something.  Moses - and via him, God - has brought them out into the desert, and provided nothing to drink.  That is, frankly, not on.  They are thirsty, they are afraid, they've lost their trust in God - so somebody better do something about it for them!  

Jesus, on the other hand, in this moment from John is anything but quarrelsome and adversarial.  He might sound quite demanding in his blunt request as we encounter it, but really what is going on here is quite the opposite.  Her response, 'How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?' tells us his request is surprising; and countless commentaries have unpacked the boundaries he is not just overstepping but erasing here - boundaries of ethnicity, social standing, and gender.  He is not setting up conflict, but laying a blueprint for resolving it by establishing not his importance, but his reliance.

Imagine a world for a moment in which everyone acted in that way - demanding not what they were 'owed', but recognising what others were worth.

That big picture thinking is invited here.  Both of these stories remind us that these attitudes we live by, and behaviours we exhibit, don't just influence us.  How, and who, we are has implications for those around us, and carries consequences. 

In the version of this same story found in Numbers, Moses and Aaron are ultimately told they will not see the Promised Land because they did not trust God enough to honour him as holy before the people. Psalm 106 puts it rather succinctly: 'They angered the Lord at the waters of Meribah, and it went ill with Moses on their account.'

By contrast, the outworking of Jesus' encounter, beginning in humility, with the woman at the well is that, 'Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony'.

I don't want to lay on you responsibility for everyone around you, of course I don't - none of us can bear that.  I just wanted to re-open the door to our awareness that what we ask of others, and how we ask them, carries power.  It can tear down, or it can lift up; it can prevent people from seeing the promised land, or it can draw them into the kingdom of God; it can inflate our ego, or it can encourage another.  

And I guess on top of that I would add two questions: are there people upon whom you are placing unfair expectations and demands right now, or anyone who would benefit from your asking them for help?  And, you couldn't grab me a glass of water, could you?