You Are the Living
Water
By Rev Steven R
Mitchell
Mountain View
United, CO 5/12/2013
Based on Acts
16:16-34 and Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
Water,
what an amazing thing it is. We drink
it, bath in it, swim and recreate with it, we need it to grow our plants. It comes in so many differing forms: it flows
as rivers and streams, we pump it from the ground, it collects as ponds, lakes,
seas and oceans, and we see it as white caps on mountains tops, and as glaciers
at either of the earth’s poles. It comes
to us in the forms of rain, snow, sleet, or hail, all of which we experienced
with the storms this past week. It is a
basic part of our need in order to exist.
Water is also permanent. Whatever
amount of water was present at earth’s began still exists today, and will
continue to exist in the same quantity as long as we maintain our atmosphere,
which is held in by the thin layer of ozone.
Water
is so necessary for the existence of life that scripture is filled with
metaphors of water as the key to life, beginning with Genesis where the earth
was watered by the dew and springs to the closing chapter of the book of
Revelations saying: Then
the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal,
flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. Jesus often compared the
gift of life with that of drinking water, with the last example being found in
this morning’s scripture text where Jesus was speaking to the author of
Revelations saying, “Let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life
as a gift.”
This summer Paul and I are starting to
shape our back yard into the sanctuary that every back yard should
provide. At present the back yard at our
house is an open canvass, ready for, no begging for an artist to apply their
gifts of order, texture, and color. I
have suggested to Paul that he needs to spend more time at Home Depot in order
to increase the possibility of bumping into the guy on T.V. who does extreme
makeovers of deserving yards – and if there is ever a yard that is deserving
and in need of a makeover, it is at our house.
This summer we are
in phase 1 water rationing, so rain fall is going to be more important this
summer than normal. In fact as we move
into the future with climate change, we are being told by scientists that we
can expect less rain fall in our area. A report was issued not long ago, saying
that the Colorado River in less than twenty-five years will not be able to
supply the current 40 million people who rely on its flow of water.
One of the problems
that as a gardener Paul and I face is choosing plants that will correspond with
the amount of water available. Paul is
more easily adaptable to this process as he has spent a number of years reading
up on drought tolerant gardens, where
I am less able to adapt; having spent twenty-five years in the Pacific
Northwest, I have become accustom to not only abundant rain fall but to a
variety of plant life that just doesn’t grow in our region.
So if the earth
still has the same amount of water today as it had as the earth was formed, how
can we be in a phase one water rationing?
The fact is, the climate is changing and with that change the weather
patterns that we have been accustom to also is changing. The same amount of water is still falling,
only in differing locations.
The church in the
United States has also been operating at a phase one shortage mentality since
the 1970’s. With fewer and fewer people
attending worship the American church has been operating from an attitude of scarcity. Over the history of Mountain View, we have
seen a slow decline in our own membership and attendance in worship over the
past couple of decades. How are we viewing
our congregational life? Is it through
the lens of scarcity, of a phase one rationing because we believe that we are
not receiving the life giving waters that God promises for us?
Yesterday, about
twelve folks attended a workshop titled “Walking toward Tomorrow”. We started off the workshop with a video that
spoke about possibilities which can only be seen once we believe that there are
possibilities. Once we believe, then we
can start to see the abundance that is within our midst. The question is, is the church in decline because it isn’t being sufficiently watered or
is it because the church has lost its belief in possibilities?
The relationship between me and my garden is
very much a living metaphor to the churches relationship and its
environment. The church has become
accustom to particular habits, activities, and ways of looking at itself and
the world around it. We think that the
world around us should bend to the way we experience God, instead of the
reality that we need to be pliable enough to adjust to the changing world
around us. It is similar to those Aurora
home owners who plant bluegrass in their yards which naturally grow in areas
abundant in water, instead of planting grasses that are accustom to growing in
arid climates. We pump water into Aurora
from far off reservoirs forgetting that Aurora is actually built in a desert
climate.
In Revelations
Jesus says, “See, I am coming soon;” When Jesus gets here, what will he
find? Will he find that his message of
abundance has been scorched by the heat of the sun and lack of life giving
water? I wonder if the church over time
has miss understood what Jesus meant about his returning? What if Jesus has already returned? What if Jesus wasn’t speaking about his
personal physical return after his crucifixion, but rather was speaking about
his return coming through the church? How
would that possibility change how we view ourselves? As followers of Jesus’ message, would not we
be that life giving water to a parched world?
In the story of the
Garden of Eden, we learn of two trees that are at the heart of the garden, the
tree of knowledge and the tree of life.
Adam and Eve were given permission to eat anything in the garden except
from the tree of knowledge. Once they
did, they were expelled from the garden before they were able to eat from the
tree of life. Living in the Garden of
Eden is the example of abundance and living life outside of the garden speaks
to life as scarcity. As we read in the
last chapter of the last book of the bible, we read, “blessed are those who wash their
robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the
city by the gates.” Once again
we see the roll of water as providing a new possibility with the washing of the
robes and now those who have washed their robes will have the right to the tree
of life and are able to enter through the front door into the city, that place
where God lives or I would compare it to the understanding of the Garden of
Eden that place of abundance `. I think this is how Jesus’ relationship was
with God, he was able to see the possibilities that come through God because
Jesus drank the water God provides.
We at Mountain View
have the opportunity to “Believe” that God has given us the living waters,
which allows us to see the possibilities that are in our midst, that tree of
life, so that we grow into the river that provides the living water to all who
are wanting to drink from it. As we walk
toward tomorrow, I challenge you to think of yourselves as being the living
Jesus that so many are waiting for and to be the living water that brings the
abundance in life into fruition. Amen
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