3rd Sunday of Lent, A March 8, 2026
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
When you need water, do you ask for it? Or do you grumble about the fact that you are thirsty? In both cases, the need is the same… that need is legitimate. Without water we die, so the suffering and misery of thirst is our body saying “this is important!” If our bodies can use misery to get what it needs, why can’t we?
Who says we can’t? I’m saddened by the misguided way Christians sometimes talk about our feelings and experiences, often reducing them simply “negative” or “positive.” People often act like feeling bad means I am bad. They will confess “anger” or “sadness” or “depression” as if the feelings are sins. By definition, a sin is a choice. A feeling is never a sin. Feelings aren’t sins, but they might be symptoms of sinful habits. The flip side of moralizing emotion is that people also tend to assume that feeling good about something means it is good. “That talk/movie/book made me feel good about myself, so it is good.” If it let you continue to lead a life of sin and selfishness, it is not good.
After all, “positivity” wouldn’t explain Jesus’ interaction with this Samaritan woman at the well. She doesn’t run into town to say “come see this man who made me feel good about myself.” She says “come see a man who told me everything I have done.” Surely, when he exposed her repeated sins of adultery, she must not have felt very good about it.
And yet, there must have been something about her experience that outweighed the shame and guilt and fear when he exposed her sin. Surely, his loving gaze, his sincerity in speaking the truth, and his courage must have overridden those “negative emotions” to give her reason to see the whole experience as genuinely good.
Honestly? I get that. Some of the best moments of my life were full of negative emotions. I was suffering and even miserable in those moments of guilt and shame and failure… and yet I look back on them with fondness. Why? Because just as our bodies use the pain of being thirsty to tell us to drink water, so the misery of my soul in my darkest moments and the misery of the woman at the well told us each to seek the living water of Jesus Christ.
Which brings me back to the question. When you are thirsty – physically, spiritually, emotionally – do you ask for water? Or do you just grumble about it. The confusion about negative and positive emotions can make this question hard to answer. The other problem is the way people around us misuse the word “complaining” to shut down legitimate concerns. Complaining or grumbling, properly defined, is a sin. But, speaking against injustice, communicating a legitimate need, or shedding light on evil and abuse are not grumbling. A young child who constantly says “I’m thirsty” or “I’m hungry” when they’ve had plenty to eat and drink is complaining. But if a child really hasn’t had anything to drink in 8 hours, telling an adult they are thirsty is not grumbling. It’s good.
Talking badly about your boss’ weird habits or criticizing differences in style is complaining. But if you’re really being overworked and underpaid, it’s legitimate to demand fair compensation. Really, the story of Moses and the Israelites captures this well. When Moses first goes to Pharaoh to tell him to let the Israelites go, he responds by saying “they are just complaining” and then increases their workload. When they tell him that their workload is unfair, he again accuses them of complaining. But the Israelites are right! He’s being unjust in treating them like slaves and demanding too much. They also have the right to worship God; refusing to let them is an injustice. He misuses the word “complaining” to disregard real injustice.
Yet, not long after that whole incident, we have our first reading. These same Israelites are in the desert with Moses. They’ve seen all ten plagues with their own eyes and literally crossed the Red Sea just weeks before this. They’ve been receiving miraculous bread from heaven – the manna – every day. And yet, when they get thirsty, what do they do? Do they ask Moses and God for water? No, they grumble. They sit around murmuring about how miserable they are and actually accuse God and Moses of leading them into the desert to kill them on purpose!
Really?! God miraculously sent plagues, split the Red Sea, and rained down mystical bread from the sky so he could suddenly let you die of thirst in the desert? But the Israelites were so focused on the fact that they were suffering that they didn’t think to turn to God for to ask for what the misery was teaching them to ask for. It’s no better than the child who says “I’m hungry” while refusing to eat the food sitting right in front of them. We can excuse the child who has not learned better, but what can we say for the Israelites? Or ourselves?
Family, friendships, work, religion, and life itself all sometimes make us miserable. Being miserable isn’t a sin. It’s a sign to us that something is wrong. Sometimes, misery can drive us to fix what’s wrong. When there is no solution, suffering can teach us to put less hope in the things of this world and more hope on the world to come which will right every wrong and address every injustice.
Being miserable isn’t a sin, but grumbling about that misery is. Grumbling is when we let our suffering convince us that God isn’t good and then spread that lie to others. Grumbling is when we let our suffering blind us to the good will of another person, focusing instead on their mistakes or weaknesses or even differences of opinion and then represent them as evil or malicious to other people, when we unjustly poison the opinion of others against that person. Grumbling is also when we speak against something that is good for us, but is just unpleasant.
If someone in your life is making you miserable because of what they say and do, ask yourself “am I miserable because they are treating me unjustly? Are they actually harming me? Or just challenging me?” If they are harming you, you can and should try to fix that without being guilty of grumbling. But when it’s not injustice, when it’s just discomfort or lack of control, do not think grumbling will help. In either case, let your misery turn you toward God rather than away from him.
It is not a sin to tell God how miserable you are and why. The psalms do it all the time. This Samaritan woman does it when she says “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Notice that, despite her request for physical water to solve the misery of her physical thirst, she ends up leaving her water jar to proclaim good news to the town because Jesus instead gives her the living water of the spirit to address the misery and thirst of a soul caught in sin and error. So it may be with you.
When you are thirsty, when you are miserable, you have two basic choices. You can either grumble and spread your misery around, or you can ask for what you need. So, ask God for living water, for grace and wisdom to address injustice when possible, to endure with patience when there is no solution, and above all, to hope in him who died for you so that you might truly live.