Dry Wells and Living Water A Sermon by Rev. Michael Scott The Dublin Community church. September 1, 2013 Jeremiah 2:4-13 Luke 14:1, 7-14

Transcription

1 Dry Wells and Living Water A Sermon by Rev. Michael Scott The Dublin Community church September 1, 2013 Jeremiah 2:4-13 Luke 14:1, 7-14 Let me begin by saying that I don t intend to give a report to the class on What I did on my summer vacation. However, there were some significant moments that started me reflecting on how you and I invest our lives. One of them happened when a couple who are old friends came for lunch. We told them about one of the great scenic wonders of our area, Doane s Falls, down the road from us. They ed us later and said that they stopped at Doane s Falls on the way home and it was truly inspiring. That got me to recalling our first experiences of the falls. It s a long series of impressive waterfalls and rock-roiled water that s all part of a lovely stream feeding into Tully Lake, about two or three miles south of our house. In days gone by, the stream was used to supply power for a number of mills. There s nothing left of those mills now but foundation stones scattered throughout the woods beside the water. But the Lawrence Brook still rolls along and cascades over the rocks with a steady, quiet roar. Dadgie and I have always been a little in awe of the beauty of this amazing place, and found it to be wondrously nurturing for our souls. You could easily pass an entire day just sitting among the trees near that roaring water and drinking in the solitude and beauty. Spending some time (admittedly not as much as I might have) appreciating the beauty around me on vacation made me realize that I don t have enough of those kind of moments in my life. I suspect few of us do. From day to day we re so hard at work trying to make life better that we have little time to feel how good life really is. While we re carving out time for meetings and grocery shopping, we re distancing ourselves moment by moment from the powerful, rushing rivers of spirit that could heal us. Maybe this Labor Day weekend, when we re supposed to be celebrating the value of good, hard work, is instead a fine time to reflect on how little attention we pay, in the midst of our busy lives, to those healing rivers of spirit. We re not alone. Jeremiah spoke of these things when he delivered the scathing and furious word of the Lord to the people of Israel: I accuse you, says the LORD, and I accuse your children s children. Why, according to Jeremiah, was God so angry? It was because the children of God had done awful things things that no one had seen done the world over, from the coasts of Cyprus... to Kedar. And what were the two greatest sins of the people of Israel? They were these: First, God says, they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and second, they have dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water. Have you been spending too much time trying to dig wells for yourself, trying to find some comfort, some goodness in all the chaos, only to come up empty? I ve got good news for you. There is a stream of living water, and finding it, drinking from it can change your life. You know what I m talking about. You and I devote so much nervous energy to digging

2 dry wells. We do it by trying to manipulate our world to serve our own interests. A little better job might just do the trick, right? If one could only earn a little more, the pressure could be off the family budget and then... then things would be OK. And so people put in extra hours, and break their hump to try to meet a quota, and bring ideas to the boss for how to improve things, and after a few years of doing that, get a promotion, and a raise. And so folks keep looking for more. And sooner or later, we all wake up to the realization that we re getting no closer to what we imagine is the good life. That well is dry. We try to manipulate our world to serve our own interests. Perhaps you think that you can push the discouragement or loneliness or hurt feelings away with a few more TV shows, or several stiff drinks, and in time you find yourself more cut off from others, and even from yourself. Dadgie and I finally got smart phones during this vacation. I learned all kinds of new things to do with it, and in short order realized how young people get so caught up in the darn things that they bury their heads in them all day long looking for... for what? A connection with friends that they have a hard time making in person... a little entertainment from a video game... something that s gone viral on Facebook to laugh at? But instead of being more connected to some significant others, I suspect people wind up touching a hundred people electronically at a trivial, skin-deep level. You can t entertain or distract your way into a hopeful life. That well is dry. It s a global disease as well. We try to manipulate our world to serve our own interests. As a nation, we have somehow convinced ourselves that we can make the world over in our own image. If we just exert the right pressure here, protect this national interest, and push another agenda over there, we can hammer this world into being a safer place. We can draw red lines in the Arab sand, but then we re faced with impossible choices when those red lines are crossed. We feel we can t stand by and watch while Bashar al-assad uses chemical weapons to annihilate men, women, and children, but we can t afford to start Word War III, and what good in the end will lobbing a few Patriot missiles into Syria really do? Instead of looking deeply into the impacts of our own past actions and seeking to rectify wrongs, working at understanding the perspectives of those in contention with us, and making every effort to heal relations and build bridges of mutuality we keep pretending to be the world s superpower, acting like frightened parents afraid their children will run the car off a cliff, trying to make the world safer and mostly protecting our limited national interests, but all the while, we keep learning that more and more of the world hates and resents us, and that our security is in greater peril than ever. It s a dry well. We try to manipulate our world to serve our own interests. And we think that the right economic program, or the right foreign policy, or the right education plan will fix everything. So instead of bowing our heads to humbly seek common ground in common-sense solutions, we get into a raging political fights, lining up behind our respective candidates and parties, accusing one another of anything we can to try to win, whether Democrat or a Republican, because the fate of everything depends on winning on seeing that our side s programs, and agendas prevail. And term after term, administration after administration, we discover that our leaders are flawed, our programs do not succeed, and our political platforms do not hold back the sea of money that corrupts the whole process, or the sin of pride that steadily erodes our nation s soul. Those

3 wells are dry. And I daresay, it s the major failing of the Church. We try to manipulate our world to serve our own interests. We get our committees organized, and do our planning, and set our budgets, and we keep thinking that we can program our way to the kingdom of God. So we spin out our annual plans. We do fund-raisers, and fellowship events, and stewardship drives, and special Sundays, and somehow, at the end of the day, instead of feeling nurtured, fulfilled, and revitalized, so many folks in the church end up feeling burdened and burned out. Sooner or later, it s going to have to dawn on us that beating ourselves into the ground to keep the machinery of church programming going is nothing more than a dry well. We try to manipulate our world to serve our own interests. Some folks think that if only we had more members, and more money, everything would be great. All we have to do is find the right outreach program, or follow the Alban Institute s ten easy steps to assimilating new members, or hit upon the right stewardship campaign formula, and the pews will be filled and the budget will be oversubscribed and God s Kingdom will be realized on earth! Trust me on this folks, It s an empty well! Here s the irony: all the while that you and I, and our nation, and our world, and our church are burning up our lives trying to dig empty wells, there s a river of water just through the trees. It s living water, and it s there for the taking. The one great sin of the Israelites was trying to dig empty wells. The other was turning their backs on the living water. What is this Living Water? It s a river of spirit. It s justice rolling down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. It s the water of life that Jesus offered to the woman at the well. It s stopping the obsession with our own welfare and the myopia of our limited interests long enough to consider from the depth of a quiet, humble heart, the welfare and interests of others. That s what Jesus was trying to tell the Pharisees when he had dinner with them. He told them to sit in the lowliest seat instead of the most exalted, and to invite the poor and needy strangers to their table instead of their influential friends. That kind of approach to life comes only from a heart that is humbled, quieted, and fed by a deep, steadily cascading Spirit. It s the very Spirit of the Living God that can flow in us and through us, and make each one of us into a fount of blessing. That Spirit is tumbling over the rocks all around us, and mostly we turn away. There are rare and precious moments when I stop the merry-go-round of meetings and paperwork and TV shows, and something helps me touch that Spirit. Sometimes it happens when I hear our choir sing, sometimes when I talk with one of you and find my soul filled with admiration for your gifts and dedication. Sometimes it happens when I hear the voice of wisdom from some great person who sees more deeply into life than I, or when I have my breath suddenly taken away by a black velvet sky full of stars. It is in those moments that I remember who I am, and whose I am, and the world gets put right. But you and I both know those times are all too rare. What would happen if instead of turning away from the waters of justice, the stream of

4 righteousness, the river of life and Spirit, we instead turned toward it? What would happen if we reoriented ourselves in ways that made room for the Spirit? What would happen if our nation stopped insisting that God was on our side in the fight against everyone around us, and instead took to praying with all our hearts that we might join hands with our brothers and sisters around the world and find our way to God s side? And here s the question I most want to leave you with: what would happen if our church got serious about reinventing ourselves to allow for the Spirit of God to flow through this community of faith, and all the little tributaries could satisfy and nurture each one who is here, as well as all those whom we touch with our ministry? What if we decided that our primary purpose was not to raise a budget, fill the pews and the slate of committee members, and put on the requisite number of annual programs? What if we decided that our primary purpose was to find the Water of Life, and offer one another and the world around us little sips of refreshment from the stream? How might it change us? My prayer for you is that you will at least stop for a moment in the course of your busy day, put down the shovel that you ve been using to try to dig your own wells, and sit down beside the flowing stream that is the Spirit of Holiness it s Living Water, and it can remake you.

5 Pastoral Prayer O God, we come into your presence aware of the deep mystery of this encounter. We come in reverence, knowing that your creative power, your infinite wisdom, and your immeasurable love are beyond our comprehension. Lend your Spirit of holiness, we pray, to illumine the dark corners of our awareness. In the words of scripture, the melody of our hymns, and the stirring of our hearts, disclose to us the wondrous power of your healing peace. Slow us down, O God, and quiet our hearts that we might hear the still, small voice of your grace whispering in our ears. As we share around this tale of blessing this morning, may you be made known to us in the breaking of the bread and may we take into our souls the forgiveness offered through this cup. And so, having been touched by your Spirit, encountered by the mystery of your presence, and filled by your sacraments, may we rise from our seats and enter into the world to bring love and joy into the homes of our friends and relatives, to carry your message of hope to the lost and lonely in our society, to establish justice in the land, and bring peace to our world. We pray for all your children everywhere: for those who go to bed hungry, for those caught in the relentless grip of poverty, for those who have no roof above their heads, for those suffering from chronic illness. Rouse us from the slumber of indifference, and send us forth to use our influence, our money, our votes, our work to remake our world, and to build your kingdom on earth. These things we pray in the name of him who taught disciples this prayer: Our father, who art in heaven...