Sermon prepared for Pacific Lutheran University

—10:30 chapel service—

11/10/00 

by Gregory S. Kaurin, Pastor for Spiritual Care and Development

 at Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn WA

 

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Texts: Psalm 46

 

The Sermon--

River Blessings

 

Kevin Spacey was recently interviewed on the TV show Inside the Actor’s Studio.  He said something I needed to hear.  Sometimes we get so focused on the great reward out there.  One of the acting students in the audience asked him if he could give a word of advice on how actors can deal and cope with “these lean years before we make it in the field.” 

Kevin Spacey answered that if your reward is always focused on that time in the future when you “make it,” then you are missing all the rewards of acting.  The reward has to be simply from doing what you are doing right now, doing what you were meant to do.  It is not the accolades or the paycheck.  The reward of acting is acting.

I think what he said is true for all of us.  We need to find rewards in the moment, in the challenge and even the struggles we find ourselves in right now.  This moment is NOT just a hurdle.  It is an opportunity.

 

“Though mountains shake into the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam…we will not fear.  …There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.”

 

Just over ten years ago, my parents and I were walking on a path in Glacier Park.  The path followed a small creek that carved its way through the slopes and crevices of the mountains.

We stopped for lunch beside a small waterfall.  It was a peaceful day: sun shining through the trees, wind gently swaying the beargrass, the sound of rippling and rushing water, peace, assurance, calm.

My fingers became sticky from my juicy orange, and we had forgotten the napkins.  No problem—here was a creek-full of water!  So, I got up and moved down to the waterfall to wash them.

As I edged close, I began to feel my feet sliding even closer.  I reached for a handhold, moss-covered and slick.  And suddenly (you might say, immediately) the once peaceful scenery changed: eerie pounding rush, pressure and pulling, cold-boiling water bubbling around me, rough stone scraping my side. 

It’s amazing how powerful even a small waterfall can be.  I felt myself pushed heavily down and immediately lost all sense of direction.  After a moment, I was suddenly on the surface, only to feel the current pull me back under the falls again.  To be honest, I don’t remember being afraid, but I do remember feeling helpless.  All I could do was cover my head with my arms and wait until something happened.

Well, obviously, everything turned out all right—except that I lost a good pair of sunglasses.  Within a minute, I was sitting once again on the warm rocks along side the stream wringing out wet clothes—a little embarrassed, humbled, …but at least I was very refreshed!

 

Water is one of the strongest images we have, in Christianity, but probably the strongest common image in humanity.  Someone reaches for it in thirsty desperation, as though it was life itself.  Others fearfully battle it or flee from it in floods, as though it was a living army of destruction.  Water carries these extremes of meaning: life and creation to death and destruction.

And that’s just it: the postcard pictures of water deceive us.  The gentle surface we see and feel hides the currents beneath, the destroying and rebuilding image all at once.  Water is an image of peace, but peace out from struggle, peace from turbulence.

 

Water began as a few new drops, moist or frozen, that fell and pooled together, spilled into a small brook.  Joining a creek, the new drops began to follow a more ancient path.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in a building, a few drops were sprinkled onto the head of a young girl.  A new Christian began her journey, becoming a part of and adding to an older heritage.

The stream ripples along the ground, picks up earth and minerals, carries and deposits them along its way, pushing and carrying twigs and leaves.  Each bend and eddy is immediately new, unexpected and …suddenly passes.

Meanwhile, the baptized child picks up learning and growth in play, in tears, in tantrums of frustration, and in ripples of laughter.  As her environment changes and expands, she leaves her own marks where she passes, picking up dirt and twigs, leaving them, joining and separating from family and friends.  Each turn is a new minute and an immediately passing moment to cherish or learn from.  She and those around her grow older while new drops fall on other children’s faces.

Sometimes the stream spills over the rocks, tumbling over itself, fanning out to slap and pound the stone below.  There it bubbles and churns violently, but cleans itself of dirt and stale.  Refreshed, it moves on to fill the mouths and gills of fish with new oxygen, loosened food and snared insects.  It sustains a thirsty animal or a weary hiker who stoops to drink.  However, if water stands still too long, it stagnates, pollutes, and even dies.  It must have fresh water seeping in and out to sustain its green and abundant life.

Meanwhile, the water of nature and the baptized children have their differences.  Both do face death, both bear marks, wounds, scrapes, the twigs and dirt of life, but the water of nature will eventually pass out and away, lost into the ocean where it evaporates to mindlessly start over again.

We, on the other hand, are the waters of God’s baptized children.  We may feel thrown about, suddenly pushed and slapped hard by stones and twisting logjams in our lives, suffering illnesses, losing loved ones.

I once heard someone suggest that Christianity is some kind of bridge over troubled water.  It is not.  It is a bridge through troubled water.  We still go through the rough waters, but at least while you are on the bridge, you know you’ll come out on the other side.

While we may return, dust to dust, ashes to ashes, we have been baptized into, drowned in, and lifted up alive.  We will not be lost, or mindlessly recycled like nature’s water.  We are lifted up in the Living Water.  This Water has already spilt over Christ’s outstretched arms to splash down heavily on his wounded feet.  It splashes and boils coldly and violently around him. 

But from that wounded body, into the Water and into us, reaches and spreads a promise that no death, illness or pollution can corrupt.  We are made clean.  The weight of the cross is lifted, buoyed up and carried along with this Water of Life.  And with Christ we also become this Water.  We are Living Water—that brings life into the wilderness.

The Living Water of God’s forgiveness is not ours to hoard.  It was not our hands that made it, or our body that died and purified it.  When we try to pull in from people—withholding forgiveness and acceptance and patience—it grows still…stale…stagnates.  When, instead of open arms, we point our accusing fingers and push people away, then our water dies and stagnates, and we are all the more guilty.

Instead, our primary and conscious effort, our gift, is to nourish and feed the land and people which we move with and pass by, yes, with food and physical needs, but more important, with the acceptance and forgiveness carried in words and actions.

We need to spill over and splash about as we slosh around wet and refreshed.  The Living Water demands to be shared with those who need to drink its forgiveness, healing and nourishment.

Each place we turn, even in the ancient flow of people, each moment is immediately new and fleeting.  Share it, cherish it, or in grief and fear, cling to the promise that we are Living Waters that bear up the wood of the cross with Christ’s strength.  We are promised that these Waters have destination and will finally and fully carry us into Christ’s resurrection.  Let us gather at the river where there is a promise that quenches all fear.  Amen.

 

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