The Baptism of the Lord ~ Mt. 3:13-17 ~ "Water Bearers for the World" ~ Susan McGurgan, D.Min.

One summer, when I was 11, my family built a small vacation cabin in the mountains of Colorado. When it came time to drill the well, in the excitement of finding the best location, hiring the equipment, and watching the well come in, for the first time in my life, I began to think about water as a complex reality.

On the long drive back to Oklahoma, I peppered Dad with a dozen questions. Across the high plains of Kansas, I learned of the vast Ogallala aquifer, spanning eight states and located directly beneath our tires, water treatment plants, desalination experiments, and the hydrologic system. For miles through the panhandle, I pondered the astonishing fact that through the eons, water has been neither created nor lost. The water carried in clouds high above our station wagon, frozen into glaciers, pouring over Turner Falls, and vaporizing into steam at Hot Springs, is the same water that flowed from chaos during creation; the same water that provided drink for dinosaurs; the same water that filled the River Jordan when Jesus was baptized, the same water that became wine at Cana, the same water that formed puddles in the red clay of my own back yard.

Water is central to our rites and our understanding of salvation history. It is more than a sign--it is an active agent of the grace of baptism, the freedom from sin, the power of God’s love, and the promise of new life. We use water to bless people, homes, churches--even police and fire equipment! We plunge the Easter candle into the font and sprinkle caskets with blessed water. We wash disciples’ feet on Holy Thursday and mix water with wine before the words of consecration.

In our spiritual history, water has purged, cleansed, healed, destroyed, and held out God’s Covenant promise of a new beginning for all humanity. At the very dawn of creation, God’s spirit breathed on the water and in the vision of Revelation, a river flows from God's mighty throne.

Water. Imagine our spiritual life without this powerful sign of salvation. And today, as we celebrate the baptism of Jesus, we also give thanks for our own experience of the waters of baptism.

Yet, for millions of people across the globe, water is no longer a beautiful symbol of life and hope. For millions, water is an almost impossible cross to bear--a frustrating and elusive prize; a toxic presence; a risky venture filled with dangerous returns. The challenges we face are many: a polarized society, increasing gaps between the wealthy and the poor, a world that feels as if it is fraying at the seams, and an earth facing an ever growing crisis of water.

We can disagree on the causes and solutions to this crisis, but if we open our eyes--even a little--we cannot avoid seeing it:  the loss of glacier mass, rising sea levels, ground water pollution, salination of fresh water sources, drastic shrinkage in underground aquifers, increasing episodes of coastal erosion.

In a world in which 71% of the earth’s surface is water, 1 in 3 people do not have access to safe drinking water and 3.5 billion people, 2 in 5, lack access to safe sanitation facilities.

On this day, when we remember Jesus rising from the waters of the Jordan and God, tearing open the veil of heaven to pour down his blessings, how are we invited to view our relationship with earth, and sky, and water? As we celebrate the saving waters of Baptism, how might we challenge our collective behaviors and choices that desecrate the waters of our common home? 

Do we see the connection? Can we embrace the challenge?

Or, have we become so immune, so numbed to the sacramental nature of water that we no longer connect the water in the font to the waters of the seas and rivers and lakes?

Have we become so complacent that we no longer flinch when much of the world cannot find water clean enough to drink;

clean enough to wash;

clean enough to fill the empty font?

 Our pollution does more than soil the earth and foul the water. Each river that runs dry, each shoreline that fills with plastic waste; every toxic stream and polluted well, each loss of glacier mass is a direct wounding of the ways that God is made visible and real to us. The water crisis of our common home is not only destructive to the earth and her people, it is destructive to God’s presence among us.

St. Francis spoke of the earth and her diversity as sacramental. He called all creatures, rocks, trees, and waterways by the name, “brother” or “sister” because he knew each creature, each tree, every drop of water is made in the image and likeness of God. Each one, is a distinct and irreplaceable way God is present to us. Each one is connected  to us through bonds of sacramental and sacrificial love.

There will be people who say that connecting the baptism of Jesus with the environmental crisis is sacrilege at worst and poor homiletic judgement at best. Many Christians are uneasy embracing the material world as a location and source of blessing; as a place of God’s revelation. Many do not see a connection between the sacramental life and creation; between the water of the font and the waters of our streams and rivers.

There is a lingering desire to place bright yellow caution tape around the spiritual, or “holy” things, and carefully mark them as separate from the earthy, or “unholy” things. But God chose earthy things: wine, bread, oil, flesh, and water to carry the image of the sacred and become sacramental signs of God’s covenantal love for us.

God’s own self became matter, shape, form, and substance—and in that choice, God declared for all eternity that things of mud, and water, and flesh are holy.   

St. Francis once said, “Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water, which is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.[1]

On this Sunday, when we are invited to remember and celebrate the baptism of our Lord, can we also remember that we are created to be water bearers to the world? Our baptism brought us into creative partnership with the God of creation; the God of earth and sky and water. Can we embrace our baptism in ways that inspire us to boldness in the care of God’s creation, our common home?

Perhaps it helps if we remember that we ourselves are Sister Water.

Literally.

Babies are composed of 78% water. Adult brains and hearts are 73% water and even our bones are watery, at 31%. We are created to be water bearers, both literally and spiritually. We are called to shake the water from our eyes, rise up from the pool of baptism, walk into the world wet, and meet this challenge to carry living water to a thirsting world.

I believe we can do this hard thing. I believe we must. After all, we are water, part of the same water that flowed from chaos during creation; the same water that provided drink for dinosaurs; the same water that filled the River Jordan at Christ’s baptism, the same water that became wine at Cana, the same water formed puddles in the red clay of my backyard in Oklahoma; the same water that Francis praised as useful and humble and precious and chaste.

If we cannot do this, who will?

[1] St. Francis, Canticle of the Sun, The Franciscan Friars: franciscanfriarscresson.org/the-canticle-of-the-sun/