St. Paul’s United Church Earth Sunday, May 1, 2011

Living Waters – Rev. David Mundy

Numbers 20 Revelation of John 22:1-7 John 21:1-14

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I thank God for many things and one of them is that the Kate and Will’s wedding is now over! My wife Ruth was in hospital at the same time as Princess Diana, as both of them anticipated the birth of firstborn sons, so you would think that I would look forward to the wedding. Nope, although I confess I did watch. Last week it was the most important subject on the news, outrunning tomorrow’s federal election. Missed, unfortunately, was the magnitude of misery caused by the flooding in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Whole communities have been inundated while others’ wait anxiously, hoping to escape the worst as flood waters crest. If you go to the websites of the Winnipeg Free Press or the Saskatoon Star Phoenix newspapers, you will find hour-by-hour coverage of the flooding and what they are calling floodcams giving us a view of the rising waters.

Meanwhile, about two thousand kilometres directly south of these provinces it has been a different story in the state of Texas. Communities have been evacuated there as well, and a state of emergency was declared, but it is because of wildfires. Texas is experiencing the worst drought in a hundred years, so it is next to impossible to stop the fires raging across the state.

It’s strange isn’t it that the absence or the overabundance of something as elemental as water can have such a profound effect on our lives. For the most part we take water for granted and this past week there has certainly been a fair amount of grumbling about the amount of rain we have been experiencing. But when water is missing, everything turns to dust and fire. And when water rolls over the landscape it is virtually unstoppable.

This is the day we decided to observe Earth Sunday, which usually takes place on the Sunday closest to Earth Day on April 22^nd. Since that was Easter, we decided we could wait a week and perhaps it would be better if we call it Water Day. Our theme is water because many of the children of the Sunday School have been following a water theme through Lent. Not only have the kids been looking at biblical water stories, they have been raising money for a well in Africa through the organization known as Ryan’s Well.

From the biblical standpoint they had no end of stories about water to choose from, beginning at the beginning with the Spirit of God moving over the waters of creation. There are a number of stories in the Older and New Testaments about wells and oases as auspicious places where people encounter both the human and the holy. During Lent we heard that Jesus met a woman at a well and promised her living water.

There is the dramatic and mysterious story in the book of Exodus about the people confronting Moses and Aaron because they are dying of thirst. Moses strikes a rock twice and water flows. In one of his letters the apostle Paul mentions the tradition of the rabbis that the rock followed the people through the wilderness, a kind of water fountain on the go!

Lots of choices but since we are in the season of Easter we decided on a story of Jesus meeting his disciples following the resurrection, after they had decided that they would return to their original calling as fishermen. In John’s gospel they go back to the sea called Tiberias or Galilee, which isn’t a sea at all but a freshwater lake, the largest and just about the only lake in Israel. While it may be the most famous lake in the world, it is only about a quarter of the size of Lake Simcoe here in Ontario.

The symbolism of this story is wonderful. Roughly three years earlier, Jesus called the disciples away from the waters of the lake after they had successfully pulled in a huge catch. Again he invites them into abundant life, resurrection life as they once again experience an amazing haul. The One who is living water reassures his followers from the shore of a lake that he is alive and that they will experience new life.

Of course this isn’t just a story from an ancient time. The lake called Galilee still exists in modern-day Israel and it is shrinking at an alarming rate, in large part because the water is being siphoned away for agriculture and other uses. As the lake shrinks the water itself is polluted by agricultural runoff which affects the fish stocks. So the fishing industry which has sustained people for thousands of years is now on the verge of collapse. There are no nets miraculously teeming with fish.

This is the tension with which we constantly live, the tension between the sacred and sacramental nature of water in virtually every religion, and the practical realities of too many humans vying for a limited amount of water.

Last year I attended an excellent conference in the high desert of New Mexico called Water and the Baptismal Life. Our leaders were an interesting combination of eco-theologians and experts on water resources. The theologians invited us to consider or reconsider the ancient importance of water in our faith tradition. One of those presenters Ben Stewart wrote an article this past January in the Christian Century magazine called The Ecology of Baptism in which he offers these thoughts:

/contributor/benjamin-m-stewartFor as long as humans have prayed, they have probably prayed at water places. Water often moves us to wonder, joy, terror or peace, and many times, water—whether it's the awesome power of ocean waves, the cold upwelling waters of a spring, a small, still pond, the sound of a mountain stream flowing over rocks, deep, slow rivers with creatures rippling the surface, crashing waterfalls, nourishing rain on parched land, the seemingly infinite expanse of the sea or hot springs rising mysteriously from the earth—moves us to prayer. The Christian heritage of praying next to water is older than Christianity itself, being deeply influenced by our Jewish heritage.

The experts at our conference explained how precious a commodity water is in a state which is essentially a desert climate. Water rights are bought and sold because water is as sought after as oil and ancient aquifers, the underground lakes, are being sucked dry by the demands of a growing and thirsty human population. I did notice while I was there that there were signs in every washroom of every public place encouraging people to conserve water, even to turning off the tap while brushing teeth.

These combined themes of the sacredness of water and the scarcity of water affected me even though I was returning to this country which is so blessed by water in abundance. When I got home I began to notice news items about the quality of water in the Great Lakes and the effect of the oil sands development on rivers in Alberta. I read that the amount of available water along our border with the United States has declined by eight percent during the past decade, probably due to climate change. And I can’t help but wonder where Americans will turn for water once they have used up all of theirs.

I have also heeded the encouragement we received to make water more visible in worship, particularly around baptism. The pouring of water, the sight and sound of it, is an essential aspect of who we are as people of faith. It is wonderful that the Sunday School has picked up this water emphasis both in its symbolic form and as a matter of justice.

So what can we do to be the people of Christ who is living water, who quenches our spiritual thirst and is the firstborn of creation? If we see every drop of water as holy, a gift from God, we will “have a care” about how we use it.

Our other reading today is virtually at the end of the bible, in the Revelation to John, and it provides a vision of the fulfilment of history when the river of God will flow through the centre of the Holy City. But this river will not be polluted with industrial waste or sewage. This river will be crystal clear, and provide nourishment to the fruit trees which line it. It will provide the water of life.

What this can say to us is that will live with this faith-full vision of a different world, informing our individual choices and the bigger picture of water use.

Our United Church has been encouraging us for years to avoid buying bottled water, which is not only the source of tremendous waste, it sets up the dynamic of those who can afford water and those who can’t. When this campaign began many people thought our church was foolish, yet it has become a global movement.

Men, we are often obsessive about the colour of our lawns in summer, insisting that they stay green in even the driest weather. You might be surprised to hear that a single lawn sprinkler uses more water in an hour than a combination of ten toilet flushes, two five-minute showers, two dishwasher loads, and a full load of clothes.

We should recognize and applaud industries which become more conscientious in their use of water. The brand name Labatt Breweries is well known in Canada, but you probably don’t know that brewing beer – you have heard of beer? – is a water intensive process. Traditionally producing a bottle of beer required the equivalent of seven bottles of water for cooling and cleaning. Labatt’s recently received a Water Efficiency Award for reducing their use of water in this process – the equivalent of 400 Olympic size swimming pools each year.

Of course the justice of access to water is essential too, and isn’t it wonderful that our children are developing a new way of thinking and being as Christ’s people. Through your support for the well project in an African village you are showing them how important this is that everyone has access to clean, life-giving water.

So we will continue to play in and around water, and to let it sustain us for generations to come, and to enjoy the way it informs our worship of the living God, Three in One. Why don’t we conclude with the prayer we say together as the water is poured during our celebrations of the sacrament of baptism?

Gracious and Holy God, we bless you for the gift of life

and within it, the gift of water.

Over its unshaped promise your Spirit hovered at Creation:

by water comes the growth of the Earth.

Through water you led the children of Israel to freedom;

in the waters of the Jordan your child Jesus was baptized.

Now may your Spirit be upon us and what we do,

that this water may be a sign for all

of new life in Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen!