Relating to God as to Creation
Scriptures: Proverbs 8:1-3, 22-31, Mark 1:4-12
This summer for our family vacation we took a road trip out east to the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec. This is the large chunk of coastal land along the south shore of the St. Lawrence river as it opens up into the Atlantic. It was, all things considered, a very watery experience. Certainly the seaside drive, which wound its way right along the ocean for kilometer after kilometer, following the curve of small mountains reaching into the water and passing through tiny village after tiny village nestled in the bays. We watched the tides come in and out, collecting shells and crabs left stranded on the beach. We saw seals basking and barking on rocks. We marvelled at seabirds which circled calmly above the water before suddenly dropping out of the sky in a torpedo dive to crash through the surf and emerge with a fish in their beaks. We made our way right to the tip of the peninsula, to the town of Perce where the earth seems to end. And we took a tourist boat out on a cruise around the immense Perce Rock, which rises majestically from the sea just off the coast, with its iconic tunnel worn through the middle.
We did have a few watery days courtesy of the weather as well, but the wettest we got was on our very last full day on the Gaspe, when we had booked a final special adventure. Pam had found an activity called “Canyoning” in her trip research. We hadn’t heard of anything like it before, but it sounded like something that had to be tried. So Pam, Charlie, Lucy and I met up with a group of about 20 people along with a couple of guides in the town of Gaspe, and drove together down an increasingly rough dirt track to a small camp along the Riviere St. Jean.
Step one was getting outfitted. Wetsuits and hard hats for everyone! I can tell you, we were a pretty smart looking crew. We walked down to the water, and found ourselves in a beautiful canyon with steep sides and a river that wound and carved its way around sheets of rock. Some places were shallow, up to ankles or knees, but other spots opened into deep pools. And we basically spent the next few hours moving upstream and finding every way possible to have fun in the water. Our guides showed us spots where the water was deep enough to jump, and we’d take turns climbing up the canyon walls and jumping in from 3 or 5 or even 7 metres up! In some areas, the river had worn the smooth rock below into a perfect natural waterslide, and we could start up at the top and shoot ourselves down to the next pool with in the fast-moving flow. We climbed waterfalls and swam underneath them, we floated in clear pools, we swung on ropes and jumped in over, and over and over.
Lucy, Pam and I had a pretty good showing. We tried everything that was demonstrated, leaping from each dizzying precipice once to say that we did it. Charlie, on the other hand, was a fiend for the thrills. He took every platform and jumping opportunity three or four times. By the end, the rest of us were starting to shiver in our wetsuits, but he was still ready for more!
It was a truly amazing experience. Partly for the beautiful setting, and (fortunately) the beautiful day. Partly for the unique thrills and outdoor adventure. But mostly because for that afternoon, the river had become our playground. We became water creatures, like otters diving, splashing, sliding and chasing each other in their natural element. The river was ours to explore and enjoy and delight in. It became holy water – maybe a bit in the sense of a special place set apart, but more in the sense of finding ourselves at home in the flow. The river holy because it brought us to ourselves as water creatures.
And this we surely are. Creatures made of water – 60% of our bodies at least are nothing more or less than water. And we need it replenished every day in order to live. The Genesis creation story describes water as the primordial substance – God’s Spirit broods over the face of the waters as creation begins. The earth itself created in a parting and dividing of the waters above and below and a gathering into its proper places. Proverbs retells this story from the perspective of Lady Wisdom, the master builder at God’s side, assigning the seas their limit and establishing the fountains of the deep. Human beings live on land, but we always live near water. Our communities cluster around lakes, rivers, streams, underground aquifers and ocean coastline. Partly for transportation purposes and partly for access to life-giving water. Water that quenches our thirst and greens the land.
So it’s no surprise that water is such a steady companion and potent symbol all through the scriptures. The river of life that flows through the garden of Eden and then through the centre of the new Jerusalem at the end of Revelation. The flood that sweeps across the whole earth and leads to a new covenant with God. Wells that generate both hospitality and competition in the days of Abram and of Jesus. Water from a rock, a sea that parts, a river that boundaries the promised land. Souls that thirst and spirits that are parched. Floods of mercy and torrents of righteousness. Living water offered that we might not thirst again. And of course, the waters of baptism that mark a turning of repentance and a new life as beloved children of God.
As the great gift and necessity of life, water has always been celebrated, enjoyed, sought, demanded, fought over, stolen and spilled. These days, we recognize water at the centre of both our ecological and geopolitical crises. We’ve seen the effects of climate change and our unsustainable exploitation of resources in all kinds of water events. We talk about the melt of ice cap glaciers and loss of sea ice that’s raising sea levels and swallowing up coastal land. We see more and more extreme weather events, be they storms or droughts or floods. Two contrasting situations so often in the news of late illustrate the situation starkly:
On the one hand, we’ve followed the reports of devastating flooding in Pakistan during this summer’s monsoon season. Rainfall in August was 780% above average in that part of the world, leading to flash floods that submerged much of the country. 33 million people have been affected, including hundreds of thousands displaced as homes, bridges, roads and crops have been washed away. Holy water? Seems like a cruel joke.
On the other hand, we know that an extended drought continues to grind relentlessly on in the American southwest of our own continent – over 20 years now. Reservoir levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell are at historic lows, prompting moves to limit water allocations to seven different states that rely on these reserves. Significant water conservation programs will be necessary to keep the taps on, and further to keep the power on as low water levels are also threatening hydroelectric production. An extended drought is not helping matters, but the problem ultimately stems from unsustainable levels of consumption. Much of the water used in this region serves to irrigate water-intensive agriculture in high demand by people like us. I think of the giant container of almonds I keep in my office as emergency rations. And development continues unabated across the desert, adding more and more draws on a dwindling supply. At the same time, some in the pacific northwestern states are predicting an influx of migrants from the south, as folks in California and Nevada are forced to seek out a more hospitable climate with reliable access to necessities like water and electricity.
Too much water, and not enough. These extremes feel like the story of our times. Though we may struggle a bit to really feel the crises of water unfolding in other regions around the world. For the most part, our experience is still of abundant and reliable water appearing neatly as we need it. We’re nestled here in southern Ontario amidst some of the biggest freshwater reserves in the world. This summer was a little dry, but nothing to really worry about.
We know, however that access to water remains a key justice issue even in a land of moderation and plenty. Despite efforts to address the situation in recent years, there remain 34 long-term boil water advisories in place on First Nations across Canada. Places where what comes out of the taps cannot be relied up on to safely drink, bathe or wash dishes. Some First Nations like Grassy Narrows in western Ontario have had their rivers and water supplies poisoned by industrial pollution. The people of Grassy Narrows experienced chronic mercury poisoning for years from uncontrolled waste dumped by a pulp and paper mill upstream.
And then there’s the egregious example of Shoal Lake 40 also near the Manitoba border. In 1914, the City of Winnipeg began construction of an aquaduct at Shoal Lake that would supply the city with a vast supply of clean drinking water. An Ojibwa village that found itself in the way of the project got summarily relocated to a peninsula across the lake and designated as Reservation Shoal Lake 40. The base of their peninsula, however was promptly flooded as an effect of the aquaduct construction, cutting the community off from the mainland. This isolation came to a head in 1997, as Shoal Lake 40 was placed under its own boil water advisory lacking sufficient site access to build a water treatment facility. An indigenous community displaced, cut off and unable to access clean water from the lake it sits on, while under its feet water is pumped out to supply the needs of a settler city. It’s a grim irony. After much protest and community activism, the various levels of government finally came together in 2017 to build what was dubbed the “Freedom Road” to connect Shoal Lake 40 with the mainland and allow construction of a water treatment facility for the community. The boil water advisory was finally lifted one year ago last week, after 24 years in place.
The Shoal Lake story is a striking example of the way our modern development planning runs roughshod over the natural contours of the land. Without heed to the consequences for either land and water or the deeper questions of human flourishing. Too often we have seen our environment through the grid patterns of urban and settlement surveying. Straight lines cutting across whatever they meet. Perhaps we see our faith this way at times too.
You may have heard the expression “watershed discipleship.” It’s a description and a movement that’s been gaining momentum in the past few years among Christians concerned about ecological justice issues (see Watershed Discipleship edited by Ched Myers, 2016). It’s a nice play on words in at least three ways:
1. It acknowledges our current global crises on a whole bunch of fronts and names a watershed moment to which we are called to respond as followers of Jesus.
2. It recognizes that we are always disciples of Jesus in a specific location. That our lives of faith and our witness as communities will be rooted where we are – in one of the many watersheds that gives us the truest description of our place. As Jesus took flesh as God in time and place, so also do we follow and worship and serve where we are.
3. And it invites us to become disciples not only in our watershed, but disciples of our watershed. To listen and learn and read God in the movements of water and the turning of seasons.
What if we identified ourselves not by the city or the street that we live on, but by the watershed that sustains us? What if we could see the natural contours of the earth underneath our bulldozed and terraformed landscapes of borders and straight lines? The land as shaped by the flow of waters in which wisdom still whispers her presence from the very beginning?
Here in Waterloo Region we’re part of the Grand River Watershed. It’s the largest in southern Ontario, draining 6800 square kilometers of land into Lake Erie. 11000 kms of rivers and streams feed into the Grand as it makes its way south from the Dufferin Highlands, including the Nith, the Speed, the Eramosa, and our own Conestogo River. Our watershed is home to 39 municipalities and two First Nations territories, but also 90 species of fish, 250 species of birds and 80 species of wildlife currently at risk. This is our community, our geography, our common home.
The watershed that Jesus knew was dominated by the Jordan River: it had an upper course that flowed into the Sea of Galilee in the north, and a lower course flowing south from the Galilee into the Dead Sea. In the time of Jesus’ ancestors, the Jordan River Watershed was indeed a land “flowing with milk and honey.” The river and its abundant waters nourished rolling woodlands, grasslands and a remarkable community of wildlife including large animals like ostrich, cheetahs, leopards, lions, bears and deer.
The Jordan river we find today would hardly be recognizable to those whose descriptions we read about in the Hebrew scriptures. The river has been reduced to a trickle of its former self in many places, salty and polluted, and much of the land around it has dried up as well. Fertile hills have become desert and the region’s biodiversity has suffered. The Dead Sea that the Jordan feeds is rapidly shrinking.
Where has the water gone? Much of it has been diverted to service human settlements, and here again water is at the heart of so many justice issues in the Middle East. The state of Israel controls most of the water access and infrastructure on the west side of the Jordan. Borders and their walls twist and turn strategically around water access points rather than negotiated boundaries. Unequal access to water is a huge issue. While Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories boast swimming pools and lawn sprinklers, many Palestinians have no access to water and the land itself suffers.
It’s important to recall, however, that the Jordan River watershed was occupied territory in Jesus’ time too. Rome was also building watercourses and aquaducts to direct, hoard and control access to water, and the Jewish people were suffering. I wonder what it might have meant for John the Baptist to claim the river and baptize with water? The Jordan was already an important place for all those who flocked to John and his message of repentance. Here God’s people crossed over into a land of promise with Joshua after Moses’ death in the wilderness – miraculously, as the waters of the river parted. Though like so many others before and after, they took to the river with conquest in mind.
Isn’t it interesting that John’s water ritual is a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Water that has so often been weaponized as a tool of power. This water now made holy as a sign of turning and renewal. And interesting that Jesus wants the touch of this water too. As John says, the one who is more powerful is coming, bringing a baptism not just of water but of Spirit. But Jesus still marches down to the Jordan with the others. And the Spirit that he will share with the world descends upon him in the form of one of the very creatures that the Jordan sustains: a dove.
Notice that this divine baptism of Spirit doesn’t supplant the water of John’s ministry. The water and the Spirit move together. Holy water, Holy Spirit. The water remains a gift and a sign, and it is with a dripping face that Jesus hears the words: You are my beloved child – and I am very pleased with you.
That is the blessing we receive from holy waters everywhere. In ocean spray and cleansing rain, in flowing river and trickling stream, in a cool drink down parched throats. The waters of creation blessed as proclamation of our belovedness before our Creator. The Word who was in the beginning, beside God as wisdom, rejoices in the inhabited world and delights in these human creatures. The waters as holy gift to the beloved creatures, creating watersheds of beauty and delight that not only sustain life but make it good.
Amidst all the injustice, amidst all our failures to receive the gift and share it well, there comes this invitation to enjoy and delight. You are beloved, and this world is blessed. The water is holy, so go out and feel it on your face. Dance in the rain, swim in the ocean, climb those canyon walls and cannonball into the deep pools. Love as you have been loved. And then go and speak truth to injustice, having been turned in repentance and forgiveness once more by the touch of this holy water on our hands and heads.
Fresh from the river, Jesus is sent off into the wilderness. Out of the water, but still in the watershed. Bearing holy gifts to sustain him in a place of both struggle and grace. May we follow him in this watershed discipleship with passion, attentiveness and joyful delight.
Amen.