WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE…

Scriptures:  Isaiah 43:1-7

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

          In a sense this sermon is two weeks too late.  On the liturgical calendar and in terms of the lectionary, January 7 – the first Sunday after Epiphany – is when you are supposed to recognize the baptism of Jesus and celebrate the start of his public ministry.  The scripture lessons that we read today are actually the ones for January 7.

          But in another sense – or, actually, in two senses – this is a very appropriate Sunday to be talking about baptism.  For one thing, what is happening between John the Baptist and Jesus follows quite naturally from what we were talking about last week in terms of John’s understanding of his own prophetic ministry.  And for another, of course, baptism is the all-important precursor to Lura’s confirmation, which we’ve just celebrated.

          Exactly a year ago Ann and I were privileged to be at the College Park Baptist Church when Lura received the sacrament of baptism.  Now, for sheer drama and theatricality a baptism by total immersion sure beats the light little sprinkling that we do.  Somehow it feels more like it’s really gonna “take”.  And it is more consistent with the gospel accounts of Jesus wading into the water to be met by John so that both are dripping wet.  I don’t really have an argument with those who practice total immersion because of the strong symbolism that it signifies, although I can make a good case theologically that our practice of sprinkling has symbolic merit as well.

          More significantly, from my standpoint, is that Lura received her baptism as a young adult with an understanding of its importance and the commitment she was making – just as through her Confirmation Class she understands the commitment that she is making here today.  Lura was quite sick that night a year ago, but it was important enough to her to receive this sacrament and move into a new kind of relationship with God and with Jesus the Christ that she got out of her sick bed to do it.  That’s commitment.  That’s the kind of strength that we talk about when we speak of “discipleship”.

          In this passage from Luke, the Gospel writer is doing a jump-shift.  In the previous chapter we saw Jesus at age 12 in the temple talking with the elders, asking questions of them, and teaching them by the questions he was asking.  Now the scene shifts and we are introduced to a tempestuous John the Baptist, as we talked about last week – a man whose driving force was to seek repentance and to bring Isaiah’s vision of wholeness to fruition.  This other Isaiah passage that we read today is another part of that vision of wholeness, as God offers the promises of redemption to the people of Jacob and Israel, to the east and the west and the north and the south.  “Do not fear, for I am with you” – the most wonderful and powerful words that anyone could ever hear – that’s what John wanted the people to hear.  He stirred their expectations, those soldiers and tax collectors and all those in the crowd around him.  And he did it with a message that was immediate and urgent – so much so that the people thought he was the new Messiah.

          And who comes in response to this message?  It is One of whom John says, “I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals.”  And what does Jesus do?  He steps into the water, goes up to John, and says that you are the one who is to baptize me.  Jesus is now all-of-a-sudden 30.  We know nothing about him in those years between 12 and 30.  But 30 is an important age in the Bible; it is considered the time to begin one’s important work.  David was 30 when he became king.  Joseph was 30 when he began serving the king of Egypt.  Now, I don’t want Lura or anyone else to think that they have to wait until they’re 30 in order to have any kind of ministry or mission in the world.  We do things differently 21 centuries later, and with confirmation our young people are just as much a part of this congregation and its work in the world as anyone else here.

But now here is Jesus bending down in the water so John can pour water over him.  Picture the scene.  Can you imagine what it would have been like to have been part of that crowd?  Can you feel, even in a small way, what they must have been experiencing as the Spirit descends on Jesus and the voice of God is actually heard?  Can you sense how the old promises of Isaiah were coming true in their very presence?  Here was the Messiah indeed!

          What I would like us to focus on in this incredible scene is that Jesus chooses to begin his ministry at a site of water.  It is a humble place of cleansing, this Jordan River.  Water is ever-present and all around us, as is Jesus – always available to us.  Water is the commonest of elements – nearly as un-noteworthy as the air we breathe.  To associate the Messiah with the ordinariness of water is to make him completely accessible.

          Well, at least that’s the generally accepted theory.  Those of us who live in southern Nevada with its arid climate, need for water conservation, and fear that at some point there won’t be enough water have perhaps a little different take on what this passage means.  Water is the prime sustainer of life, and it is a truism which we sometimes forget that our bodies are made up of 90% water and a few other elements.  So, what happens if water starts to become as rare as, say, oil or other depleting and depletable natural resources?

          Can’t happen is the retort.  This planet is two-thirds water; we could never run out.  But, of course, the water that’s in the oceans is not potable.

The title of this sermon, as you undoubtedly know, comes from that famous quote in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s long poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:  

Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink ;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

Those sailors were looking out on a vast expanse that looked so cool and refreshing, and yet they knew that to drink of it would soon drive them mad.  Coleridge was an 18^th century author writing out of a Christian conception of redemption and salvation that was pretty bleak; the plight of the sailors has come about because of the Mariner’s shooting of an Albatross, which stands for innocence and purity, and so its death represents humanity’s refusal to see and accept the good.  Coleridge’s description of what results is desolate indeed:

And every tongue, through utter drought,
Was withered at the root;…

There passed a weary time.  Each throat
Was parched, and glazed each eye.

In other words, the result of having sinned and fallen short in the eyes of God is to be deprived of life-sustaining water – that “living water” which Jesus speaks of to the Samaritan woman in the fourth chapter of John, when he says to her, “’If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink,” you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’”  The woman comes to know who he is and says, “’Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty…..’”  Like her, the sailors in Coleridge’s poem long for a “living water” that will slake their thirst forever – that will lead to their salvation.

          Water is a powerful symbol, even though we take it so much for granted, especially when we are deprived of it.  It is no coincidence and no surprise that Jesus uses his immersion in a body of water as the way to mark the start of his public ministry or that we use it to mark the most important decision anyone can make:  to become a Christian.

          But now let’s come at this from a slightly different angle.  Suppose with me for a moment that water is truly scarce – even scarcer than we in southern Nevada fear it might be.  How would we feel about it?  What would our attitude be toward this most important element that gives us life?

          In the classic cult novel of the 1960s, Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein posits precisely this point.  His protagonist, Valentine Michael Smith, is human but was born and raised on Mars, an arid and practically waterless planet.  In that culture to share water with another is a sacramental act, and anyone with whom you share water becomes a “water brother”.  To take a drink of this precious fluid would be like savoring the most expensive caviar.  And to immerse yourself in it, as in a bath, would be unthinkable.  Smith is brought back to earth.  He is naïve and childlike and knows nothing of the omnipresence of water on this new world.  Here’s a passage when his nurse, Jill Boardman, tries to get him to take a bath:

          Jill tested the water’s temperature.  “All right, climb in.”

          Smith did not move.  Instead he looked puzzled.

          “Hurry!” Jill said sharply.  “Get in the water.”

          The words she used were firmly part of his human vocabulary and Smith did as she ordered, emotion shaking him.  This brother wanted him to place his whole body in the water of life.  No such honor had ever come to him; to the best of his knowledge and belief no one had ever before been offered such a holy privilege.  Yet he had begun to understand that these others did have greater acquaintance with the stuff of life…..

          He placed one trembling foot in the water, then the other…and slipped slowly down into the tub until the water covered him completely.

          “Hey!” yelled Jill, and reached in and dragged his head and shoulders above water…..  “Are you all right?” Jill demanded.

          “I am all right.  I am very happy…my brother.”…..

          Smith…cupped a handful of water as if it were precious jewels and raised it to his lips.  His mouth touched it, then he offered the handful to Jill.

          “Hey, don’t drink your bath water.  No, I don’t want it either.”

          “Not drink?”

          His look of defenseless hurt was such that Jill again did not know what to do.  She hesitated, then bent her head and barely touched her lips to the offering.  “Thank you.”

          “May you never thirst!”     (pp. 74-75; 1991 edition, G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

          When water becomes this precious it takes on a meaning that binds people together in community – the kind of “beloved community” that we spoke about last week.  At this early point in the novel Jill has no idea what water is to Michael or how he is using it to offer her an incredible gift.  But she comes to understand it (or, to use the wonderful word that Heinlein made up for this novel, to “grok” it – which means to come to a whole, empathetic, complete understanding).  She becomes part of the community that Michael helps to form around Jubal Harshaw (a stand-in for Heinlein himself) – which as the book unfolds becomes one kind of model for what can become the “beloved community”.

          “May you never thirst!”  “’Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty…..’”  The offer of living water is ever-present for each and every one of us, as it is especially when we come before the altar of the Lord to be baptized or for confirmation.  As Isaiah has God commanding:  “…bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth – everyone who is called by my name.”  The offer of living water comes to us all.

When Jesus is baptized four things take place:  1) Jesus prayed, 2) the heavens opened, 3) the Holy Spirit descended like a dove, and 4) the voice of God spoke.  In human terms:  he was wet (that is, drenched in the human condition); his heart was open (allowing him to be committed to his task – to his public ministry); he received strength (to be enabled to carry out that ministry); and God blessed the work that he was given to do.  Our baptism – our confirmation – like Lura’s – give us that strength and that commitment, for, in truth, we are baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire as well as with water.  You know, it strikes me that our experience with the water of baptism can make us turn a negative into a positive:  the next time someone says to you, “You’re all wet!” respond, “Thank you!” – or even, “Bless you!” -- for it is the drenching living water into which we are immersed that gives us all that we need to be God’s people on ministry and mission in the world.

Amen.

Dave Pomeroy

                              First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ

                              Las Vegas, NV

                              January 21, 2007