From Living Water Become Living Water

Water is an important biblical concept. The Bible is full of references to water and it's importance. Generally, I don't think we spend much time thinking about how important water is to us as we take a glass and turn a handle and the glass fills with water. About the only time we give it thought is when it is either less plentiful than what we would like or if it taste like the Tennessee River. Today, I want to bring some of the biblical importance of water into our lives right here in the New Oregon church family.

Water captured in a cistern or for some reason did not flow was important because it was often collected for drinking and cooking. It was also signifies a place to rest or peacefulness, calmness, or even time for devotion such as in Psalm 23.

Water that flows. It is not captured and while it can be used for any of the things I've mentioned about still water, it has a sense of life or movement that was scripturally and ritually important. Moving water was conceived as alive and offerws the powers of living more than just breathing in and breathing out – it was a flow of spirit-giving.

"If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" (John 7:37-38 ESV)

This was the last day of the festival called, “the Day of the Great Hosanna, because a circuit was made seven times round the altar with “Hosanna;” also the Day of Willows, and the Day of Beating the Branches, because all the leaves were shaken off the willow-boughs, and the palm branches beaten in pieces by the side of the altar. Every morning, after the sacrifice, the people, led by a priest, repaired to the Fountain of Siloam, where the priest filled a golden pitcher, and brought it back to the temple amid music and joyful shouts. Advancing to the altar of burnt-offering, at the cry of the people, “Lift up thy hand!” he emptied the pitcher toward the west, and toward the east a cup of wine, while the people chanted, “With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.” It is not certain that this libation was made on the eighth day, but there can be no doubt that the following words of the Lord had reference to that ceremony.”

Jesus is using the experiences of religious ceremony to call upon folks who wanted a new kind of living water. And I want us to hear his call to us today as we listen to our ears to our hearts to recognize the thirst that we live with every day. Jesus is calling to us as individuals and as a church to recognize our seeking, our thirst, and to just say “Yes” to the living water – Jesus. Jesus is asking that we come to the Living Water so we may be living water to others.

I believe it is very important that we recognize that Jesus is speaking here to followers and that he is letting them know that the Spirit, God's Spirit, will be with them after he is not. The Living Waters will continue beyond his crucifixion and resurrection through all eternity.

Our Gospel Lesson today is like a precursor to what Luke's account of the Pentecost experience. It was a day no one had every seen and out of it came a great deal of confusion, amazement, even some slurs – all common to powerful unexpected events. What we have in this account is a metaphorical still and living water that comes right up to our very altar this very day.

Keep in mind that biblically both still and living waters are used and are important. The church of my entire life has generally been that of the Still Waters. It was a place to come and worship. A place to gather and study the scriptures trying to understanding them to a degree to please God enough to open the doors of heaven – salvation during my lifetime has been getting to heaven.

We sought peace and happiness through our sincere and serious study and fellowship. We sought peace of mind with our giving to missions because we know the needs of others and wanted to help. We want to grow in our commitment to Jesus and to one another as we grow older through the years loving and caring for each other.

The church of still waters is a gathering of folks who love one another and we love the Lord. We are committed to believing Jesus as Savior, the Bible as the Word of God, the Holy Spirit as wondering around in the world even as we worship. We are the church along with all the other denominations: we are all connected and make up the body of Christ in the world of today.

Those folks who had gathered for The Day of the Great Hosanna were good folks as well. The disciples were good folks as I think of good folks. Jesus understood that at least some of these people were still seeking and that the regular worship, the usual missions, even those extraordinary moments or glimpses were not enough and they needed more. Jesus invites them to watch out for the Spirit because it was on the way and would continue the flow of Living Water.

I grew up in the church of still waters and so I'm a little hesitant to talk much about the church of living waters. However, today I feel led to jump into the less comfortable for me and venture into the living waters of Jesus and of what the church of living waters might look like.

What is so easy as Christians is to find a formula for salvation, chip it carefully into stone, and then sit back in the comfortableness of knowing and wait. Living waters are not captured into a chalice or a cistern to be used as needed. Living waters cascade over rocks, limbs, sand and silt as they make their way to an even larger body of water. Living waters are always pushing against the banks that make a futile attempt to hold them in a particular pathway. Living Waters also share themselves to become still waters.

Jesus is the same with us and the church. Rather than knowing a lot about Jesus he calls upon us to live the same as he lived. This means that we give our eyes to Jesus so that it is through him we are seeing the world around us. This means that we give our ears to Jesus so that it is through him that we are hearing what is said around us. This means that we give our very soul to Jesus in order to walk the path he desires rather than the one what we are comfortable with.

I know that folks really don't like to hear me talk about our need to tell others about our faith experiences but that's what it means to drink of the Living Waters – Jesus. He has called those who are not filled to come to him and recognize that He has called us all, each and everyone of us, to be preachers. Bishop Willimon tells of some stories of lay persons being living waters:

“One of you was telling me how a good friend of yours forsook her marriage vows, was unfaithful in her marriage, left her husband and family and moved in with another man. Most of us, if we said anything about this, would say something like, “Well, it’s none of my business.” Or, “I guess she is thinking that she is doing the right thing,” or some other such dribble. But you sat down and wrote your friend a letter, because you loved her, because you love God’s truth, even if that truth was unpleasant or painful. You told your friend that you were disappointed in her, that what she had done was wrong. She had broken her marriage vows, and broken her trust with those who had put their trust in her. That sort of thing takes guts. No, that sort of thing takes empowerment by the Holy Spirit. Go ahead and preach. ...

You work next to him at the office. You said that he was rather quiet and you actually did not know him that well. But one day you found him over in the corner by the filing cabinet, crying. You asked him if you could help, if anything was wrong.

Then he confided in you. He told you that he had, the weekend before, wrote his parents that he was gay, that he was coming “out of the closet.”

And his parents screamed at him, said that he had broken their hearts, and told him that he should not set foot at their house again as long as he had these feelings.

And you reached out, put your arm around him and said, “I am sorry that happened to you. Your parents probably love you, but they just don’t know how to love you in this moment. I am a Christian, and we certainly don’t feel this way about you. God loves you as a treasured creation. Please know that, remember that and cling to that,” you said.

Now how would you, a rather conventional and ordinary human being, be able to say something that courageous and comforting?

Your friend had been terribly depressed. And you could understand reasons for her depression. She had gotten back a set of dismal grades from her first semester at Law School. The relationship she had been in, had recently ended. Her depression seemed deep and frightening.

You urged her to get some professional help, to inquire about the possibility of that occasion, but you also said, “I guess we have never talked about something like religion, or spirituality, but I want you to know that I believe that Jesus Christ is more than an idea. He is a presence. He loves you, loves you very much, and because he has helped me through so many crises in my own life, I believe he can help you through these crises. Would you like to pray together?”

And she did. And she said that the prayer helped, and you helped. Isn’t that amazing?

We will need to continue to have the church of Still Waters where we care for and love one another. This is the pool where the Living Waters gather only to flow on outward. We are here to praise God for his redeeming love that is so great that it cannot be contained and must flow onward throughout the world.

Our Job is to join God’s redemptive story and keep it alive and flowing today. Begin today to think and pray about how God would have you to be God’s Flowing Water in this very community. As we flow as Living Water we will be collected by Jesus and the Holy Spirit to praise and then flow on in the world. Amen.

Vincent's Word Studies, Commentary used with e-Sword – the Sword of the Lord with an electronic edge, John 7:37.

Preachers, All!, William H. Willimon, sermon preached at Duke Chapel, 5/23/1999.