The ways of water

 

Luke 3: 15-22
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
January 12, 2025

Photo of a water droplet suspended over a pool of water, with ripples echoing outward. The water is a deep blue, with an opaque off-white center that has a divot in the center. The water droplet has reflected in it colors of white, yellow, deep turquoise, indigo, black, and light blue.

There are times the lectionary can coincide so closely with what is happening in the world that, depending on your point of view, it can feel insensitive, almost callous. In the reading this week from the prophet Isaiah we read, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” In Luke, John baptizes with water but Jesus baptizes with fire and with the Holy Spirit.



Fire and water. We know that fire does burn everything in its path, consuming homes, businesses, places of worship, whole communities, human, animal, and plant life. The water needed to contain and extinguish the fires in Los Angeles was there but the demand has been too high for a system designed to fight a housefire or two at a time rather than multiple neighborhoods. Water is a precious resource in California, which suffers drought more than most states, due to climate change.



But California’s water supply also suffers due to human mismanagement, which is a nice way of saying “greed”. 80% of California’s water goes to agriculture but agriculture only contributes to 2% of California's GDP. Agriculture such as pistachios, almonds, pomegranates, things that many people cannot afford to buy. These huge farms contribute to monocultures which also harm pollinators. And make no mistake, these aren’t just farms but billionaires who own them, who buy and secure the rights to large sources of water that everyone depends on.



Water is a public resource, a human right, something that shouldn’t be owned by anyone. There is even such a thing as “paper water”—water that exists as water rights claims in legal documents but not in the real world. Everything about our existence depends on a reliable water supply. Human beings need between 11 ½ and 15 ½ cups of water a day, and more if you’re migrating through the desert or fighting a fire. Everyday items each have a water footprint. Whether we are purchasing food or clothes or shoes or a new car, we are also paying for the water used to make what we are buying.



A pound of almonds takes nearly 2,000 gallons of water to grow. It takes more than 3,400 gallons of water to produce a smartphone, 6,000 gallons of water to run a 60-watt lightbulb for half a day, and 1,800 gallons of water to produce a 16 oz. steak. And while we’re talking about the price of eggs and gas, a single egg requires 53 gallons of water and it takes 13 gallons of water to manufacture a gallon of gas. Even though 71% of the earth is water, less than 3% of it is freshwater; it is not an inexhaustible resource, especially if we continue our ways of pollution and excessive usage.



The prophet Isaiah, John the Baptist, and Jesus would be losing their ever-loving minds if they could see what we do and what we don’t do with water. John wasn’t baptizing Jesus “in the name of the Father…and YOU…and the Holy Spirit”. I mean, how awkward would that be. Before the Church added the Trinitarian formula and called it baptism, what John was offering was a mikvah bath of repentance, repentance meaning turning around toward God and God’s way of wholeness. A mikvah is a ritual cleansing to get right with God, in which one is immersed in living or moving water, from a spring or a river, water that does not stay in one place but is always on the move. In the gospel of John, Jesus offers living water, what he called the Holy Spirit, to a Samaritan woman.



Water reminds us that the way of life, life that grows and sustains growth, is the way of movement and change. Every day this planet changes because of water. When a hurricane researcher was asked what he expected to find after a storm, he replied, “A new beach”. Rivers change their course from ever so slightly to mightily. I used to think it was the earth that is the most patient of all creation, but mere drops of water can wear away at rock for millennia. The Colorado River has been carving the Grand Canyon for the past 5 to 6 million years. It’s happening now as we pray for the people of Los Angeles and Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, migrants at the Mexican border.



It’s no wonder we use water for some of our most sacred rituals. We are all birthed into this world from the waters of the womb. Water can both give and take life and thus commands our respect and a right relationship with it. Water is the great equalizer, a reminder that we are more alike than we are different. We all need water to live, just as we all need food, clean air, shelter, care when we are sick or injured, community, belonging, and acceptance. How then can we rationalize withholding any of these from each other because we claim we have more rights, more power than others, because we “own” something?



The baptism that John offered was given in the Jordan River, at the border, away from political and religious power, free to anyone who desired it. Repentance can also mean changing one’s mind, changing one’s heart, changing one’s life. Imagine if baptism wasn’t a one and done but something we did continually throughout our lives?



When we’re ready to commit to a path that looks like the path of Jesus.

When we’re ready to let go of a hurtful past to embrace a life of grace and forgiveness.

When we’re able to change our thinking about people we thought were not like us.

When we transition to our authentic selves.

When we no longer can live hiding who we are because we know the unconditional, unmerited, unlimited love of God.

When we find a community that loves us that way and we want to live that way too.

When we realize that everything and everyone is holy and worthy of love.



Author Norman Maclean wrote, “Eventually all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.” Think about it: everything and everyone in this world has been touched by water at some point in their existence.



What a world it would be if we could say the same thing about love. That’s what baptism means to me—that one day, everything and everyone in this world has been touched by love at some point in their existence, unconditional, unmerited, unlimited. If baptism represents any hope of heaven, let it be this kin-dom on earth. Amen.

Benediction – enfleshed.com


Not all paths are faithful.
Not all paths are paved by love and justice.
Not all paths will satisfy.
But the Holy One does not leave us without guidance.
God whispers to us,
individually and collectively -
calls us by name to come and risk the journey
of the way of righteousness.
Let us go together. God goes with us.