St. Andrew’s Pictou, March 5^th 2006 LENT I

 

Defined By Water

 

Genesis 9:8-17

Mark 1:9-15

 

There are two unifying metaphors in today’s message: “Water” and “Covenant.”

 

Understanding these two notions: Water and Covenant open up aspects of God and humanity that we need to know; aspects that help us to understand ourselves and how we relate to each other.

 

Water is a crucial topic of health, commerce and trade these days:

-we are worried that the USA will come to Canada and take our water, being that we have 20% of the world’s fresh water; that huge amounts are already being diverted from the Great Lakes southward. Contaminated water from Devil’s Lake is being diverted north to Lake Winnipeg,

-as one might expect, with all of four water, all of us in North America use a very high consumption rate of fresh water,

- we are told that our bodies are composed of 80% water,

-we are told that a huge unacceptable number of 1^st Nation reserves in Canada are under “boil water advisories.” This means that they have to boil water before they drink it, because to drink it from the tap could make you sick and die,

-in Pictou, many are concerned that our sewage empties directly and untreated into Pictou Harbour,

-with global warming, the melting of the glaciers, and the global ice caps, there is the fear that many of the costal areas of our world will become flooded and uninhabitable,

-the Walkerton tragedy tells us that water, as much as it defines who we are and is daily needed for us to survive can also be our destroyer.

 

Water is an extremely important topic and will continue to be so.

 

With all of the water that Canada has (Manitoba has over 100,000 lakes, Ontario has 400,000 lakes) we are going to have to do something about how we deal with our water. People don’t want to sell it, but others say that we are willing to sell the wheat we raise with that same water, so why not the water?

 

Water is being seen as a right; something above commerce and profit, something that all people have a right to have for their existence, like food and justice, peace and shelter.

 

March 22 is “World Water Day” and our local ministerial is planning an event around that topic.

 

When you look at the evidence it seems that in spite of the fact that water is crucial to our survival, we have not treated water as the sacred gift from God that it is.

 

The undeniable reality is that water can be our saviour or our destroyer.

 

For hundred’s thousands of people who were hit with the Tsunami last year, Hurricane Katrina, and the ancient people’s of Noah’s time three thousand years ago, water can be a destroyer.

 

The people of the USA should have hired Noah to head FEMA because he knew the flood was coming and he properly prepared for it, even when others though he was out of his mind. Noah and his family were saved, those who did not listen; they perished like some kind of Biblical re-enactment.

 

Our text today comes after the flood where God makes a covenant with Noah that never again will the world be destroyed by a massive flood.

 

As a sign of the covenant that God is making with Noah, as a sign of his promise, God places a rainbow in the sky to show and remind both God and the people that God has made this promise, and that the people live under the covenant of God.

 

“God said to Noah, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.’”

 

We who live at the water’s edge are reminded with sacred reverence that the waters of the earth can create or destroy. Water is humbling and needs to be treated with reverence and respect. Our relationship with the water defines us. Should we be cavalier and disrespectful of the water, we will suffer the consequences. The signs at Peggy’s Cove tell people to sty back as rogue waves have pulled the unsuspecting into eternity.

 

Another aspect of water that defines us is for purposes of cleansing. We use water to clean ourselves and our world. We take showers, baths, and told to wash our hands to kill germs.

 

The cleansing nature of water is so recognized by the church that one of our sacraments, baptism is a kind of ceremonial washing. It all began for us with a man called, John the Baptist and his baptism of Jesus.

 

Now John had been baptizing people in the Jordan River before he baptized Jesus: a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins: John’s baptism signified that if we change our thinking towards God, we would inherit salvation.

 

Baptism in and of itself was not “the shocker” here. What was shocking was that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Saviour, Son of Man, Messiah, was baptized by a man; a human being. Jesus Christ himself received the baptism from a mere human.

 

A Messiah who received cleansing from a human upset the hierarchy of everyone’s thinking!

 

It is supposed to be the other way around. We are supposed to be the ones blessed, sanctified, and crowned by the exalted One, not him by us mere mortals!

 

We have a great message from God about Jesus and ourselves in having Jesus blessed in baptism by this renegade figure dressed in a camel hair cloak, a leather belt, and living in the wilderness eating wild honey.

 

God in Christ humbled himself to meet and connect with you and me. He came down to earth. He came down from the throne. He left divinity and embraced humanity.

 

The son of God, Jesus Christ became like you and I!

 

The waters of baptism defined Jesus’ solidarity with humanity.

 

We have to understand that theological reality to be able to hear what God’s opinion was of all of this.

 

“Just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’”

 

We all need cleansing. The first thing we do when a baby is born is to cleanse the baby. When we prepare a body for burial, we cleanse the body.

 

The important issue is not so much that we need cleansing (which is self-evident) as the fact that the water is provided.

 

Water from a rock was provided to the people of God as they traveled through the wilderness on their way to the Holy Land. The Sacrament of baptism is provided and offered to all, as the bread and the wine are offered for all.

 

The issue is God’s benevolence: the generous offering and invitation; the fact that it is not withheld but offered to us; the fact that it is all done with God’s invitation, for our free acceptance under the covenant of his promises.

 

You and I are defined by what we need and God offers knowing our need in life and in sacrament: cleansing water, and the bread and wine of life.

 

We close with Jesus words from today’s text:

“Time’s up! God’s kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message.”

(The Message p.75)

 

AMEN                        Rev. Alan Stewart