But lest any of us get too anxious I want to put this in some perspective. There has been a virtual cavalcade of clergy behind this altar since Saint James began. In fact the altar itself has moved three times. And look around you, would those in the congregation who were here when the building was built please raise your hand? Even the congregation has changed completely several times since 1750.

I want to take you on a pilgrimage this morning that traverses the geography of the spirit. We'll start by remembering that the journey to spiritual freedom is not a straight line nor an easy path and we'll look back to Exodus to find our own way forward.

God had freed the Israelites from Pharaoh's grasp by visiting ten plagues on Egypt. It was as though each plague served to pry open Pharaoh's tight fists one finger at a time until the Israelites could wiggle out and run to the shores of the Red Sea. Standing on sand Moses wielded his staff, a sign of God's power present, and the waters that he had once poisoned with blood as one of those ten plagues, parted and became the path that led to new life. It had taken ten tries to reshape Pharaoh's will and even then Pharaoh wavered, sending his army after the Israelites.

Change is challenging even when one initially says "yes" to it. Nathan knows this. I know it, and you know it too. Pharaoh wanted to be free of the headache of the Israelites while somehow still having the benefit of their labor and without having his power visibly challenged. Pharaoh had to journey by stages until he reached the place of willingness to let Moses' people go.

By the time they were a little ways into the wilderness, the Israelites wanted freedom from Pharaoh while somehow still having the security and sustenance that came along with the slavery they had endured. Just as there were ten plagues for Pharaoh in Egypt, so there were ten tests in the desert of the Sinai for the Israelites.

The purpose of all these plagues and tests was to show who was sovereign, and who was not. The purpose of the whole spiritual journey, then and now, is to move into right relationship - to be reconciled. For the Israelites, this part of the journey culminated at Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments. The Commandments further defined the nature, and boundaries, of the relationship between God and God's people. It was at the base of Mount Sinai that God bound himself to the Israelites in Covenant.

But we begin this morning in the wilderness of Sin, which sounds like a metaphor but is an actual place. Moses and the Israelites journeyed by stages through this dry wilderness. They traveled southeast down Wadi Feiran, the largest wadi in the Negev on their way to Mount Sinai. According to locals, scholars, and legend, it was at Wadi Feiran that Moses struck the rock with his staff, bringing forth water so his people could drink.

Feiran is also the site of Rafadim, the oasis named in the Old Testament as the place where the Hebrews battled the Amelecites. To journey through Feiran is to pass through chapter seventeen of the book of Exodus.

Much of chapter seventeen deals with the tension of wanting God's presence but wanting it on one's own terms. "Is the Lord among us or not," is the refrain that came up whenever the water was bitter or absent, the food scarce or unfamiliar. To journey through the book of Exodus is to explore the geography of the spirit and to come to understand that God is faithful even in unfamiliar terrain. Quail falls from the skies, manna descends from heaven, water gushes up from the rock and all this so that trust might rise in the hearts of God's people. "Is the Lord among us?" Yes, declares the sound of a thousand wings and the rush of falling water.

Paul writes to the church in Rome to encourage them, a community he has never seen. He writes from the wisdom of his own spiritual journey. Paul does not need to see the Romans to name the challenges they face. But whatever is happening, he suggests, know that God is in it - not as the cause of our suffering but as the author of our salvation. The journey leads to God and God has made a path through the desert - through the wilderness of our sin- by sending God's Son ahead of us. The work of Christ is to reconcile us to God and each other. The blood of Christ is the Red Sea through which we pass to new life. The cross of Christ is the staff that brings forth living water even from the rocky ground of our worst days.

Whatever suffering we may face, we do not face it alone. And as we travel the road before us, in faith, we will move from suffering to endurance. By trusting even in times of adversity our character is strengthened and we learn to hope for things as yet unseen. "Is the Lord among us?" Yes, declares St. Paul, God's love is poured into our hearts, no matter what may be happening around us, and that love is enough to make a desert bloom within us.

Our journey as a community and as individuals is full of change and surprise. Not all of these changes may be perceived as blessings at first. Some surprises may be felt as challenges. We may remember and long for the sustenance we once knew as we enter terrain that is unfamiliar. When the difficult or the unexpected confronts us we are as likely as the Israelites or the Romans to wonder "is the Lord among us?"

The answer is "yes". The answer is always "yes" whether we feel it or not. Whether we can see the evidence of God's presence in the moment or not, God is among us. We may thirst for constant assurance and visible signs as we move into the unknown future, but sometimes it just comes down to trust.

A Covenant is indissoluble. The promise made at the base of a mountain holds true even in Monkton. Sometimes we just have to believe that the strength of God's promises will be sufficient to sustain us as we move into a landscape that is foreign to us. We may become parched in our journey from time to time but we will not perish. God will find us even in a strange land.

Jesus left the territory of the Jews and entered a Samaritan city. He sat at Jacob's well and asked the woman who came at high noon for a drink.

Everything was wrong with this picture. It turned the conventions of the day on their heads. Jews did not consort with Samaritans, nor did rabbis speak with women. The right time to draw water was in the evening when it was cooler. The women of the village would come in a group and talk about everything and nothing as they filled their jars and then walked back to the village.

But it is not evening, the woman is solitary and a Jew sits next to the well she seeks. Jesus and the woman are an anomaly, two characters out of normal context, shimmering in the noonday heat.

Each is thirsty. Jesus needs water. The woman is parched for companionship - for right relationship. We do not know if her five husbands had died, divorced her or just disappeared but it is clear that she does not have a single sustaining relationship with anyone of any gender. She comes to the well alone and at a time that guarantees her continued estrangement.

Moses had reached out his staff to coax water from a rock. Jesus reached out with compassion to breach the stony shell of this woman's life. He causes the water of life, a river of hope, to rise within her. She recognizes the presence of God and runs, reconciled, into town to gather others and bring them back.

Wanders in the desert, outcasts by the well - all are sought by God who offers living water that quenches the deepest thirst and a offers us a life that never ends. There is no point on the journey beyond the grace of God. It is the nature of God to find us in the desert, to meet us at the mountain, to know us as we are but to call us ever closer. It is not our efforts, nor the buckets that we carry that yield the drink we dearly need. It is the promise of God overflowing in loving kindness like a spring that never ends. Let us drink deeply, in trust, and live.