Thirst is Everything
Water – it is such a basic human need. We need it to survive, and we need it to thrive. Likewise, whether it is thirst affecting only one person or a drought afflicting an entire region, we cannot help but notice a lack of water. Like our appointed texts for this Sunday, we may imagine ourselves in a “dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1). We might picture an endless desert with nothing but arid landscape as far as the eye can see. This is a place where thirst is an everyday reality. In fact, thirst is something of a universal experience; everyone has encountered it at one time or another.
In the 1990s, the soft drink Sprite released a series of commercials with the tag line, “Image is Nothing. Thirst is Everything. Obey Your Thirst.” These advertisements usually involved an athlete like Kobe Bryant or Grant Hill drinking Sprite while telling you that it doesn’t matter whether they like Sprite or not (but of course, they do like it). The final part of the slogan was intended to imply that everyone has a thirst for Sprite, whether they are famous or not. All they need to do is give their thirst what it wants.
The ad designers for Sprite certainly are right; thirst is everything, but they forgot that satisfying one’s thirst is about more than simply drinking something. It also involves seeking the right things to drink. Some drinks won’t quench your thirst. Some will temporarily ease your desire for drink, but others may actually increase it. To truly satisfy a thirst requires the ability to recognize the right kind of drink.
Our biblical passages acknowledge this fact. The oracle from Isaiah asks, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” (Isaiah 55:2). The psalmist clearly states that God is the one to be sought (63:1). Even in 1 Corinthians, the Israelites in the wilderness (and by extension, the Corinthians themselves) “ate the same spiritual food” and “drank the same spiritual drink” (10:3-4).
In a well-known passage in his Confessions, Augustine echoed what we find in these texts: “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Like the psalmist, Augustine declares to the Lord, “my soul thirsts for you” (Psalm 63:1) and is later satisfied “as with a rich feast” (Psalm 63:5).
In a fairly common Lenten thematic juxtaposition, we have the warning to examine ourselves: “If you think that you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.” (1 Corinthians 10:12). Here is the call to examine our lives, re-orient our hearts, and embrace the discipline of the Christian life. At the same time, however, we are invited to come and be satisfied: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!” (Isaiah 55:1) An open invitation to anyone who has a need, to anyone who is thirsty.
What seems like a tension is resolved when we realize that our thirsts and desires must also be examined. That is, we need to be concerned not simply with quenching thirst but with cultivating (and then quenching) the right kind of thirst. Augustine says that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. Nothing else will quench this thirst or satisfy this hunger.
This is perhaps where our cryptic gospel lesson comes into view. Jesus’s discussion of the slain Galileans and the toppled tower of Siloam alongside sins and their guilt actually provides more questions than answers, leaving the disciples – and us – in something of a wilderness. However, as Paul writes to the Corinthians, God will provide a “way out” (lit. an exodus) for God’s people in their time of testing. For Luke, this “way out” takes the form of Jesus’s repeated admonition to repent (Luke 13:3, 5). In other words, there is opportunity for mercy available; the fig tree has one more year to bear fruit with the help of the gardener. Nonetheless, this mercy must reshape and transform our desires as well as direct our thirst toward that which truly satisfies.