The Water of Life September 23, 2018 Creation Time preached at Trillium United Church Caledon

Genesis 1:1-7

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and separated the light from the darkness. The light was called “day,” and the darkness was called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so.

Genesis 21:14-19

So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and gave her the boy, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was used up, she left the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him, about a bowshot away, for she said, "Do not let me see the boy die." And she sat opposite him, and lifted up her voice and wept. Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water; and she went and filled the skin with water and gave the lad a drink.            

Revelation 22

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

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Far into the imaginary future, there is a desert planet called Dune. With the exception of giant desert sandworms and a kind of small jumping rodent, it is believed nothing else lives on Dune. It is believed there is no water. The only commodity on this planet is an addictive spice which is mined from the sand.

But there is water on Dune – dew slowly and painstakingly collected by desert dwellers called Fremen, water reclaimed from the bodies of those who have died - hidden in large underground reservoirs. This dry, desert planet was once green and fertile, till people destroyed it with their desire to use its resources for their own wealth. Yet the Fremen continue to plant hidden gardens, collecting dew at night and saving water for the precious plants, and their plan is make the planet green again.

On this desert planet, the elusive Fremen have learned that when the giant sandworms come in contact with water, they die but fragment into tiny sandfish, which grow again into giant worms. In the process of death their essence mingles with  water, which is collected and called the “water of life”. The byproduct of the worms death is a substance which smells and tastes like cinnamon – and which is addictive. If ordinary people drink this ‘water of life’, they will die - only the religious Bene Gesserit sisters can physically transmute the ‘water of life’. Once this is done, it is not dangerous for others. The sandworm, the spice, and water are all interconnected, and necessary if the cycle of life is to continue.

In a village somewhere in the mountains, a lovely tree grows beside a beautiful sparkling stream. Pilgrims on spiritual quests, travellers who are weary and tired, come to this stream; they drink from the well, rest on the green grass under the shade of the trees, take fruit for their food. They leave again, refreshed, to continue their pilgrimage. The people of the village, seeing a good opportunity for commerce, decide that more benefit from this marvellous oasis should be garnered - so they install a gate at the road, and charge a toll. As the procession of pilgrims continues to come, they decide to brick over the stream, and charge even for a drink. Eventually, the pilgrims continue on their journeys without stopping, the travellers no longer come. The village is isolated; the inns and restaurants close, the parks are empty, the stream gradually dries up, the fruit trees and the shade trees die, the village dies. The river of the water of life no longer flows - only a desert remains.

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Abraham  - husband of Sarah and father of Isaac, sends his Egyptian slave and concubine Hagar alone into the desert with her son Ishmael. He essentially condemns them to death because Sarah doesn’t want Ishmael to possibly encroach on Isaac’s inheritance. Isaac or Itzakh means ‘laughter’ – Sarah laughed when she heard she would have a child. Ishmael means “God listens” because God heard Hagar’s laments, and provided water so they would not die.

Here on this earth, in this lifetime, water brings both life and death. In the river flowing through the new creation, the water is life itself. In the river flowing through Bangkok, though, human waste, food waste and industrial garbage flow to the sea. In the rainy season, cholera, typhoid and parasites are prevalent. In this same water, people bathe and wash their clothes; the water is used for cooking. They are well aware that the water which gives life for some, gives death to others. There is no choice. The water of life is also the water of death.

In Ethiopia and Eritrea, trees have been so consistently cut down for homes and fuel, that the desert has taken over - water is a rare commodity. A “Dune”scenario. For years, rain has barely fallen at all. When the water does come, disease is a very real problem. People die without rain, they die with rain. A child’s life expectancy is about five years, if even that.

Recently, water in all its forms has been the source of much death. A tsunami resulting from a Point 9 earthquake washed around the world, killing thousands and destroying much that was once green. All the way to the shores of Cape Breton this tsunami moved - in fact, it’s reported that the wave went around the earth more than once. Levees broke in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, killing and washing away most of a city, with the poorest of the poor suffering the most. Texas has been hit with some of the most incredible flooding ever experienced.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, thousands of farm animals – pigs and cattle – drowned. Its not possible to save all those animals in fast flooding. The waste pools from the pig farms have been flooded polluting all of the possible drinking water. The rotted bodies of the animals need to be removed or more disease will be spread. Cholera, typhoid – other diseases. Water need to keep animals alive becomes their death and the projected death of humans.

Most of our aboriginal communities still have no access to clean drinking water.. “Let them move” people say, instead of “Why are people in this country still without clean water?” yet when people died in Walkerton, Ontario, from E. Coli poisoning, we were outraged - shouldn’t happen here, we said. The problem was addressed. Yet where is our outrage when children die around the world for lack of clean water? When our native communities are attempting suicide because they can’t cope any more? Flint Michigan – water poisoned with huge amounts of lead and a bureaucracy which knew perfectly well what it was doing, but letting it go because the people mostly involved are black. And it still has not been addressed. 

Michigan State University sits on top of one of the largest garbage dump sites in the United States. It has sat there for decades. Between 1979 and 1984 the water in student housing was said to be safe and drinkable, yet when we lived there, it was impossible to get baby formula to mix properly, and boiled water produced an oily slick on the surface and in the cup.  Sometimes it came out of the tap red and sludgy, but after repeated testing was pronounced safe to drink.

The great company Nestle takes water out the ground in California, even as California suffers one of the worst droughts in its history. Continues to take water even as California dries up. The CEO of Nestle has said that human beings don’t have a right to water. And so water becomes a commodity to be bought and sold.

And yet water is also a miracle..............

Just outside Corner Brook in Newfoundland is a place called Steady Brook. About a kilometre or so along the Trans-Canada Highway past Steady Brook, is a stream which runs steadily year round. It is absolutely pure clean water with no bacteria, and it keeps for months without going bad. There are streams like that all over Newfoundland – and it’s far safer than the city water, which often has to be boiled before drinking.

A human being can survive a long time without food, but only two weeks without water. Water eases the pain of sore and tired muscles, helps provide a means for healing of injury. Water soothes us when we are tense or upset – a long bath can do wonders. Water and the smell of green air rejuvenates us.

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 Today, in this millennium, we are finding ourselves in a desert wilderness of our own creation, not God’s. In our destruction of the earth, we not only create a physical wilderness, but a spiritual one as well. We read the papers and shake our heads, but our garbage will still get shipped to someone else’s back yard. We are slowly beginning to take seriously the connections between our actions and the results of our actions, which have far-reaching effects.

In 1968 when our creed was written, there was nothing about creation in it. Since then, the world around us and our role in creation have come to further prominence. We have begun to realise that the stories in Genesis were mistranslated - that we were not given “dominion” over creation, but were asked to take responsibility - a word called ‘stewardship’.  So, we added to our creed the line “to live with respect in creation”.

Our Christian faith is also built on hope - the kind of hope which says “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water. “  This says to me, though, that the physical renewal of the earth can only come about IF humanity has a spiritual renewal. We have to drink the ‘water of life’ and undergo a transformation. Just as drinking the water of life on the planet Dune was a transformative religious experience, water is to be a transformative experience which calls us to care for the world around us, before we run out of time. Our faith opens our hearts like the rocks in the desert; the streams of living water, which renew our souls, flow into the deserts. As the spiritual desert begins to bloom and become green, then the water flows from us into the spiritual deserts of others - and as that water flows, the physical desert again becomes green. We cannot separate our faith from our environment - and we cannot separate our environment from our faith. The one thing critical to all the deserts in our creation is the water of life.

A river and a tree, life and growth. In the city of God, the river of the water of life flows through the city; on each side is the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, one for each month of the year. The river provides sustenance for the tree, the tree provides food for the people, so there is no hunger and no want any longer. Everyone will have access to the river of the water of life, without having to pay for it. Everyone has a right to the water. The Holy City is Eden recreated, the realm of God. There is nothing accursed – no poisons, no disease, no death – only abundant life.

"In My Next Llife....................." Creation Time September 16, 2018

“In My Next Life………………..”

1 Chronicles 16:31-34

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice,  and let them say among the nations, “God reigns!” Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it!  Then shall the trees of the forest sing for joy before God, who comes to set the earth to rights. Give thanks to God, who is good, whose steadfast love lasts forever!

                                               

Daniel 4:10-12

The visions in my head as I lay in bed were these: I saw, behold, a tree in the midst of the earth, and its height was great. The tree grew and became strong, and its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth. Its leaves were beautiful and its fruit abundant, and in it was food for all. The beasts of the field found shade under it, and the birds of the heavens lived in its branches, and all flesh was fed from it.

                                                                       

                                                                       Ezekiel 14:12-13
Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of all kinds will grow. Their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. Each month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will be used for food and their leaves for healing.

                                   

Revelation 22: 1-3

“Then the angel showed me a river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the main street of the city. On either side of the river stood a tree of life, producing twelve kinds of fruit and yielding a fresh crop for each month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse.”

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Poem “In My Next Lifetime”
 

This poem was written by Magie Dominic, a Newfoundland writer and artist, found in the book “Heartwood: Poems for the Love of Trees”.

There’s an advertisement going around, for burial. A person is cremated, then mixed with soil into a kind of pod, with a tree in it – the ashes fertilise the tree and help it to grow. Trees are reputed to be sentient beings – with feelings and a communication network. Research shows that parent trees actually funnel nutrition to saplings, to help them grow, and work to take care of trees which are not well.

In the stories of “Lord of the Rings” by JRR Tolkien, the character Treebeard, an ancient Ent, a tree-herder or tree-shepherd. He’s often considered the oldest living thing on earth, able to remember when the Elves taught the trees to speak. The Ents lived in the forests and paid little attention to the world of humans – until the evil of Sauron threatened everything. They tear down dams and walls, allowing water back into the valleys and bring life back.

Nothing Tolkien wrote was without purpose – and in these stories the survival of the earth and the people in it comes to the forefront. He is critical of advancing technology which is erasing all the things in the world which are good, and focusing on so-called progress, running roughshod over everything to further their agenda.

Tolkien was a professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford, and like his friend, C.S. Lewis, was a Christian writer who saw the damage being done to Creation.

Creation Time – the season of the church year – is something relatively new – an observation of our world designed to help us focus on our natural world, and reflect on what our faith tells us. Creation Time covers Sundays from the beginning of September until the beginning of October. Its followed by three Sundays in which we focus on food and thanks – World Communion Sunday, Thanksgiving Sunday, and World Food Sunday which is the culmination of the Churches’ Week of Action on Food, and also the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

And inherent in all these things is the world around us – trees, water, air, and food. And I confess as we look around us, the natural world and how we relate to it and live in it are becoming of more importance to me.

I love trees – I have a load of trees in my small suburban yard. Linden out by the street, two spruce in front of the house; birch, Japanese red maple, white pine, spruce, cypress, a pear tree, and bamboo. I want to add mountain ash. And we’ve noticed as the trees and bushes of the yard grow, we have more birds and animals – including rabbits and opossums.

Trees purify the air – keeping us healthier. Norio and I have been walking in Bluffer’s Park recently – and noticing how many trees there are. We moved to Toronto before the park was there, and we’ve seen it develop. This year the trees, especially the weeping willows, have grown incredibly. And an hour by the lake under the trees makes a difference in the whole day.

So I decided to start looking into Scripture to see what references to trees there were, and how they are represented. There are so many verses that it was hard to choose which ones. And trees all had a life and a purpose. Trees in the Bible were living sentient things  - which sang for joy. They were strong supports, like the Cedars of Lebanon. Trees are used for building, shade, food, heat, medicines.

They grow from tiny seeds into trees which provide food and shelter for animals and birds. Micah sat under his fig tree, offering hospitality and peace to any who came – without question. Feeding the body and the soul. Hospitality, extended under the shade of a tree which gave fruit as well – food for the body, food for the soul. Hospitality.

Palm trees - branches used to welcome royalty, laid on the ground in front of a simple donkey, to praise an extraordinary man who changed the course of history. The dogwood tree – something we know which has beautiful flowers and graces many parts of the world, is considered to be one of the strongest woods. Legend has it that dogwood was used for the crosses of the Romans, because of its hardness. Yet we believe it was also a tree of life – new life in a new way of living and being.

In Japan there’s a concept called “shinrin-yoku”, which literally translates as ‘forestry well’ , and is transliterated as ‘forest bathing’. Being in the presence of trees. It is now clinically proven to lower heart rate, blood pressure, reduces production of stress hormones, boosts the immune system, and improves an overall feeling of well-being. I remember walking in the forest with my mother-in-law, and listening to her talk about how trees and forests were good for the health.

And most important in these readings – trees were necessary for life. Trees provided sustenance, but they were essential for healing. Healing the body, healing the soul, healing the nations.

What medicines come from trees? The very simplest – willow bark, which have been known for centuries as containing the precursor of our modern aspirin - painkiller. Birch for mouthsores, bladder and kidney problems; cedar for fevers and rheumatism; maple bark tea for kidney infections, colds and bronchitis. These are just four – but these four are all around us. There are many more.

In Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation – the vision of the realm of God is a place where there is a tree of life on either side of the river of the water of life which flows from the Creator; the trees produce twelve kinds of fruit each month. The fruit is to feed all the people so there is no longer hunger or want, and the leaves are for healing – of the body, of the soul, and of the world.

Trees – they are essential for our lives – our physical lives, our spiritual lives. 

In my next lifetime, I want to be a tree -

Getting Realistic About Creation Matthew 6:25-34 (The Message)

 “If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.

 “Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.

 “If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

 “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.”

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Today is Creation Sunday, and I deliberately chose not to sing “All Things Bright and Beautiful”.  Why, when creation is part of our beliefs, when we praise the outdoors, spend time in the summer going to the cottage and enjoying the green, the beach, fresh air? Why? Because I think we get hung up in that and forget to look realistically around us – or maybe we are too afraid to look.

And I confess to having a serious problem with the Scriptures as well.  Don’t worry about tomorrow, but focus on today. Well, I can get into that a little – yesterday is gone, tomorrow isn’t here, so today is what we get.  But I can’t for a moment believe that with the way the natural world around us is going, sitting and waiting for God to fix it is a useful exercise. Because God isn’t – in my view – involved in making or breaking creation. Not in this way. We are responsible for a good share of the situation in which we live, and we are the ones who have to find a way forward before humanity is eliminated – by our own hand.

Rev. Ralph Carl Wushke  is minister at Bathurst St. United, as well as Ecumenical Chaplain at University of Toronto. I found his words helpful in trying to focus on working with these scriptures at the same time we think about the current world. In an age of climate change and looming environmental collapse, paralyzing anxiety about the melting glaciers, rising sea levels, extinction of species, and the spectre of ecological refugees can fill our days. Fortunately for us, anxiety is one of the themes in Matthew 6.  Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, noted Jewish philosopher of religion, loved trees and also popularized the term “radical amazement” in several books, including God in Search of Man (New York: Harper & Row, 1966 © 1955) He rightly intuited that real knowledge (especially Wisdom) births out of wonder, not doubt or fear.

Jesus’ words in Matthew 6 hold anxiety and awe in dynamic tension. Awe, wonder, and radical amazement are spiritual resources  in a time of climate change, not just for Christians. But for us, by taking time for mindfulness in this Season of Creation, we can find inspiration and renewal for our daily lives, challenges, and solidarity.

Nevertheless,  the time for waxing poetic about God’s good creation without looking realistically at what we have, is past, in my mind. So how do we manage the two?

For two weeks in August I spent time in Norway, Denmark and Sweden – and then a week in Finland. A friend and I cruised coastal southern Norway where the weather had finally reverted to what is considered normal for that time of year. We drove through Denmark and Sweden to Oslo for four days. The four countries this summer endured 70 days of record temperatures in the 30’s, and no rain. Sweden was hardest hit – more than 50 forest fires burned. We realised that while, on the surface it looked reasonably green, a closer look revealed something else; failing crops – corn about a foot high – it didn’t look like there would be a harvest of anything this year.  Right across, farmers were bringing in the second haying – there will be no third this year, which means a shortage for the animals. We noticed that the deciduous trees especially in Sweden  had turned dry and crispy and brown.  In Oslo some rivers had dried up. In Finland the forest floor was drying out – huge stands of fern all brown, trees turning yellow and brown – not because of the season but because of the lack of rain and the intense heat. Literally no fires or barbecues were allowed anywhere.  And at the cottage property where we stayed – a trout stream with little water and no fish.

The Arctic Circle was on fire this summer, as was a lot of northern Ontario and British Columbia, California – but also in Africa and Central Europe.  Water levels are rising in some places as the Arctic Ice melts, and water dries up in places where there is no rain. Animals begin to suffer; farmers begin to lose crops. But there’s more – the Sahara has been growing, and as it blows the sand moves across continents. Everyone in Spain and Portugal – and even parts north – recognise cars covered in Sahara sand. Smoke from fires in North America blows over Europe, smoke from fires over Europe blows across Russia and parts of Asia. In both Pacific and Atlantic oceans, super-storms are forming, and more of them than before.  Japan was just hit by a super-typhoon. Not that  typhoons are unknown, but that typhoons of this strength are unknown. Typhoon Jebi  is the first, but will not be the last.

It’s not possible any more to watch or read social media without something about weather, and climate. Here’s some more – Moose Jaw Saskatchewan broke a record on Wednesday for the coldest September 5 since measurements began, beating the record set in 1896 – at-2.8C. Several places noted record low temperatures.

Some countries are working hard to bring about change. In Norway we were told proudly, by many people, that within two or three years all of Norway will be driving electric cars. Anyone who buys electric gets a subsidy, no road tolls, and no taxes. Everywhere there are large solar panel installations. Those combined with hydro-electric power mean Norway will be a non-polluting country. Norway now has a zero deforestation policy. Germany, Portugal, Holland and other places are almost entirely moved to solar energy, reducing the pollution from cars.

It’s not good enough any more to sing hymns about how beautiful creation is, unless we also acknowledge what is going wrong as well;  yes, it is beautiful, still.  I went to the lakeshore on Friday, and it was a beautiful day, waves crashing in – the weeping willows have grown so much, green grass and sunshine. It would have been easy to think things are the way they always were. But they are not. And won’t be again. We are in trouble. What happens to the people who are displaced because of climate events? They don’t qualify as refugees, they don’t qualify as anything. How will they be fed, clothed or housed? If their jobs and livelihood is gone, what happens next? Where do they go? Who feeds them? What if it’s us?

There are lots of theories about everything, of course.  There are those who deny that the climate, or that the world is changing. There are those who think it’s nothing. There are those who recognise that the earth is a kind of organism with a life cycle which includes global warming, and there are those who believe – as I do – that human activity combined with earth’s evolution as a planet are together pushing us to a tipping point. And no outside deity is going to swoop in and save us.

On Thursday, Amnesty International warned that catastrophic climate change is near, that we are at five minutes to midnight. Every country in the world except the United States is part of a climate change agreement signed in 2015. And yet three years later those many countries are still labouring to put changes into place – not for lack of trying either. Many places have so many other issues to deal with as well; many lack funds; and unfortunately corporate greed and an unwillingness to let go affect everything. We push forward on developing projects which will be useless in a couple of years anyway.

And on this trip, the thing I noticed more than anything else. Those four countries – and indeed much of Europe, are truly making efforts – while other places, like Japan, are pushing dangerous technologies as ‘necessary’ and ‘safe’ even knowing the danger they pose – because of corporate greed and corruption. Case in point – the northern island of Hokkaido just suffered a 7.0 earthquake on the Japanese Shindo scale. 7 is the highest possible number for that scale, measuring the shaking power of the quake. Now, earthquakes can’t be helped – they happen. But – after this earthquake, power to the whole island went out, including the Tomari Nuclear Plant. Three million people without power. Backup generators did prevent the fuel rods from heating and a meltdown – but what if? Too close for comfort – and Hokkaido would have been affected for centuries to come. As would the rest of the world. Japan  narrowly missed another Fukushima.

So where do we go with this? Throw our hands up? Or do we pay close attention to the creation around us and far away from us – make ourselves heard wherever and whenever we can…. celebrate the beauty of the earth at its best, and work to ensure that all the earth can be renewed. Find wonder and amazement in the beauty which can be – remembering that we have the power to make change – for good, if we so desire it to be.

I put together just a few photos from the trip – and yes individually the things I mention might seem nothing. Together, in my mind, they form a picture.

And so we call on God – to send the Spirit into us – to enable and empower us to renew the face of  the earth. The time is here – and the actions of renewal must be ours.