"People should be less squeamish about drinking sewer water." (Psalm 1)

 

What does water mean to you?

Water, we use it all the time don’t we. To bathe, to cook, to clean our clothes, to look after the plants in our garden, to flush away our nasties, to put cucumber and ice in and have a refreshing drink on the patio after a particularly stressful Sunday. Just water by the way.

We are so reliant on water aren’t we? It’s not something that we often think about in this country, as usually there’s a lot of it about. Although this year has been very different. We just expect it to come out of the tap don’t we? That is until a drought comes along. I’ve been thinking a lot about water.

I often walk by the River Wensum here in Norwich, and was shocked at how low it was the other day.

Now you all know that I’m an anxious person. I didn’t hear any gasps of surprise there. Bit insulted actually… Anyway. My anxiety manifests itself in lots of ways. Every year during the summer I get fixated on running out of water. I develop something I call ‘water guilt’. Oh that dishwasher wasn’t quite full or I could’ve put perhaps another towel in that wash. Water guilt. I have started collecting as much water as I can, not like a crazy person, but collecting it when I run the hot tap for example. I realised I was wasting nearly two litres (that’s 3 ½ pints to all you beer fans out there) when I was waiting for the tap to go hot. Perfectly good water going to waste. 

Joseph had dreams, I hope mine aren’t prophetic because they’re usually about running out of water. Turning on the tap and nothing happening, going to a lake and it being dry. For some people around the world this is the reality right now. East Africa, Australia, the earth is dry and crying out.

Water is precious, it’s a precious commodity that we don’t appreciate enough.

Water is the life source. There’s something of God in water, have you ever sat next to a stream or river and thought, this is a ‘thin place’, God is definitely here? There’s a fantastic stream near the priory ruins in Castle Acre, every time I’ve been there I can imagine the monks and people down the centuries. It’s no wonder that lakes, streams, rivers were often considered holy to ancient people. As we’ve got more and more cut off from God’s world we forget the importance of rivers and streams.

Scientists say that one of the main reasons life exists on earth is because of water. It’s a strange substance really, but it sustains everything. In places where there is no water very little grows. Even many desert habitats get water occasionally in some form or another, and although the creatures and plants need less water than here, they still need it from time to time.

So to hear on the news people saying things like ‘people need to get less squeamish about drinking sewer water.’ Or to hear that Anglian Water has been dumping sewerage into our rivers and the sea, it makes it all the more abhorrent.

God isn’t in the water, nor is the water part of God any more than we are, but it’s a part of the creation that God has given us, to sustain our shared life together. She gives us all this goodness. To abuse it is foolish. I’m thankful that many more people are considering the environment.

So the psalmist kicks of the psalms with this brilliant poem about the difference between those who do good, and those who do bad. Those who are upright, and those who are deceitful. We know that life is more complicated than the black and white shown here, so take this as a poem about the nature of some people’s experience. About what the writer thought, rather than necessarily what God thinks. Notice how this is not God speaking, but the person who wrote it pouring out a poem, a song of praise to his creator.

What is life with God like for this person? Well it’s like this;

“That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.”

That’s the line that particularly stands out to me. Those who are upright, who do their best to walk with God and treat the earth and those who live on it well, are like trees planted next to the life giver, the water, the flowing stream of God. With abundant fruit.

When we understand the context more this means even more than in a rainy climate like ours. In a culture with less water, it naturally features in the lives of Biblical characters. There was nothing more serious to them than the absence of water. Rain is a sign of God’s faithfulness and goodness in the Bible, and the pollution of water is one of the plagues sent on Egypt. Their water was made undrinkable.

Water is a blessing. Psalm 23.2 the psalmist writes;
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
²     He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,

Green pastures. Lots of water, full and abundant life. Not parched grass or polluted rivers.  

Water has a huge part to play in Christianity too. The waters of baptism in which if you’ve been baptised free us from the past, and help us to know that we are planted by that stream of God. That God rebirths us into full relationship with Him and each other. Baptism is a sign of love, of grace, a physical recognition of what has always been there for all of us, God’s love.

There is nothing we can do to make God love us less. The reason we get baptised is to remember this for ourselves, to wash away our sins in his love, and to say thank you. Thank you for creating me, for my life, for my consciousness, for water and all the goodness that surrounds us.

May we be people of uprightness, people who believe that we are trees planted by God’s mighty and life giving stream, and just like a river, may we give life to all that come across our path.

May we stand against those who pollute the earth for greed. They are like chaff that the wind blows away.

And so as a reminder of this, of God’s love, that we are called to proclaim. As a reminder of God’s faithfulness to us and our responsibility to care for the earth we are given. To remind us that we are trees placed by God’s water, and washed clean by God’s love I am going to sprinkle you with some water, and I hope someone will sprinkle me too.

If you have been baptised then this is a reminder of your baptism, if not, and you feel so moved perhaps we can have a chat afterwards about being baptised.

God our Father,
your gift of water brings life and freshness to the earth;
in baptism it is a sign of the washing away of our sins
and the gift of life eternal.

Sanctify this water, we pray.
Renew the living spring of your life within us,
that we may be free from sin
and filled with your saving health;
through Christ our Lord.
Amen.