"Renew Yourself"
Do you know how spiritually thirsty you are?
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Text: Revelation 21:1-7; 22:12-17
It is so easy for us human beings to lose our souls. By our souls, I don't mean our eternal relationship with God. I do not mean a part of our being, I simply mean to lose not only the depth of our relationship with God and our awareness of God, but also our sensitivity to the world around us, to the needs of others. To lose one's soul is to be consumed with self at the expense of everything and everyone else, to lose one's sense of the call of God. I thought about this very recently.
On March 6, the President of Kenya made an international appeal for the world to come to the aid of his country, particularly in the northeast part, which borders the Horn of Africa. The reality, according to Mwai Kibaki, is that his nation has 12 million hungry people suffering from the ravages of drought. It is so bad, he says, that what were fields three years ago are now a dust bowl, and people who lived in a flourishing and beautiful part of the world are now struggling to survive. The situation is so dire, he said, if no help were to arrive, some three million people would die within the next few months.
The last time that part of Kenya had rain was in December 2005, and then it lasted for only two hours - such is the nature of the drought. What highlighted this for me was that when I opened the newspapers the next day, most of them contained not a word, not one jot or iota about this problem. Rather, there was discussion about the line-ups at airports as people were trying to get out of the city on their holidays, and stories of a few minor problems that occurred locally. Twelve million people starving because of a drought and the newspapers are talking about airport line-ups! It is easy to lose your soul.
This week, I was talking to a friend of mine, who is a medical doctor and a devout Christian. He spent the last two-and-a-half months in Malawi in a place called Chinthembwe, which is not far from Lilongwe, which is one of Malawi's biggest and most prosperous cities. In the rural areas, the drought there has caused massive problems. Added to that, there is the highest preponderance of AIDS in Africa and mothers are in danger of passing on AIDS to their children, but there is no clean water to mix formula. It is a crisis of unparalleled proportions.
When you get him talking about this, even just for a second, you see the moisture in his eyes as he says he sees the images of the children he tried to cure or to re-hydrate in the midst of that drought. These are engraved on his mind and he will never ever forget them. Yet he says he sometimes becomes desensitized to all these images and then it becomes no different from someone showing you their holiday photographs. You say, “Oh, that's nice” and pass it back to the person without ever capturing the meaning of the moment. It is easy to lose perspective, to lose our soul.
The United Church of Canada, to its credit, has decided to make this year the International Year of Water, in order to bring to people's attention the plight of the world with regard to drought and starvation. The issue is the flow of water, the ownership of water, the lack of water; the need is to understand that water is essential to life for the world. Without water, everything shrivels and dies. Water is the source, the hope, the inspiration that allows us to live.
I was reading just recently about what happens to human beings when they become dehydrated. Our systems break down in the most incredible and all-encompassing way, since there is not a system in our body that is not affected by water. We are made mostly of water, and when we become dehydrated everything goes - from eyesight, to energy, to libido, to hair - everything goes when we do not have water. Even if we have enough food, we need water to survive.
While I have thought about the social and economic and political crises that arise from drought and a lack of water in the world, I have come to realize that there is also a deep spiritual side to our thirst, to our dehydration, to our need for water. It is not just our awareness of the world that needs to be re-stimulated and reinvigorated in order that we might be conscious of the world and its problems; we also need to be made aware of the thirst that often occurs within our own lives, a spiritual thirst, a spiritual dehydration, where we become dry inside. When we become dry inside, like dehydration, it affects every system in our body, every part of our lives. That dehydration can be radical!
The Scriptures talk about that spiritual dehydration. In the Book of Isaiah, where there is this vision of all the people of Israel who had been living in exile returning to the Promised Land, returning to Zion, Isaiah describes the return of the barren and the dry people of Israel. Listen to his language: “Come all of you who are thirsty, come to the waters, you who have no money, come buy and eat, come buy wine and milk, without money, without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread or your labour on what does not satisfy? Listen to me, and eat what is good and your soul will delight.”
Hundreds of years later, this vision that Isaiah had was fulfilled in the coming of Christ. John had this vision from Revelation Chapter 22: “The spirit and the bride say ”˜Come,' and let him who hears, say ”˜Come.' Whoever is thirsty, let him come, and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the Water of Life.”
This morning, I want to give you an invitation. It is the invitation the church has given for 2,000 years, and that is to come and drink freely from the fountain of life so that you thirst no more, and in thirsting no more, you reinvigorate and revitalize your soul as you renew your relationship with God, as you become aware of the needs of the world around you. But first, know your thirst.
Last fall, when Andrew McRae, a professor of theology in Acadia, and I were discussing my doing further study there, he made a very interesting comment: “You don't know you are thirsty until you are exposed to water. You don't know you are dry until you know that the water is there.” He was discussing this in the context of education. You don't know, a minister doesn't know, none of us know that we have become thirsty and dry until we are exposed to something new, until we are exposed to water, something that stimulates and triggers us, causing us to think about new things. My friends, very often we live our lives not realizing that we are thirsty, not realizing that we have grown spiritually dry and dehydrated. So, thinking about water and thinking about our thirst does make a profound difference in our lives.
Here is a true story: In 1996 a young man on board an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf fell overboard. Can you imagine falling overboard from an aircraft carrier? That must be incredibly scary. Well, he fell overboard and for 36 hours no one realized he had gone, poor fellow. Eventually, someone said, “Where's Joey?” but no Joey was to be found! They waited 24 hours more, and then they called his wife and family and informed them that Joey had fallen overboard and was lost. He was presumed dead, since nobody lasts that long in the water without sustenance.
They had no idea where they lost him and they gave up on finding him. However, after falling overboard, he made a flotation device out of his trousers. He blew air in them, and made a sort of buoy. He had been floating like that with no water, so dehydrated could hardly speak, when he was picked up by some Pakistani fishermen who were at sea at the time. They just happened to see him! They brought him on board, they gave him water, and he survived. Two years later, he was interviewed by Stone Phillips on NBC. He asked him, “How on earth did you survive? All the books say you should be dead, since you were in the hot, baking sun in the Persian Gulf with all that salt water! You should not have survived!”
“You know what I did?” he replied. “I prayed, and I don't know what happened when I prayed, but all I could think of was one word, and that word was water. I didn't think about my thirst, I thought about water all the time. Water, water, water - that was the only response I got to my prayers, and finally, I was picked up and saved.”
I have heard that when our bodies need water, something in our pituitary gland stimulates two hormones, which triggers the hypothalamus to tell our brain we are thirsty. We don't actually feel thirsty until we tell ourselves we are thirsty. We don't know we need water until our brain tells us we are thirsty. That is why they tell athletes, for example, always to drink water before they feel thirsty, because by the time they feel thirsty, it is too late. Having become dehydrated while on a golf course, trust me, you don't stand a chance of making a putt if you haven't had a lot of water. At least, that is my excuse! You have to keep drinking, because by the time you know you are thirsty, it is too late.
This brings me to my main point, which is that spiritually, we need to be made aware of the fact that we are thirsty. Part of the ministry of the church, part of the message in today's Bible passage is to tell humanity: “You might not realize it yet, but you are thirsty, and if you don't drink of the source of the fountain of life, you will shrivel and die.” The problem is that so many of us are running around making sure that we avoid the issue of our thirst. We try to deal with the barrenness and the dryness of our souls and our lives by filling them with all manner of things, but they don't bring life, they don't re-hydrate the soul, and after a while they no longer provide respite from what we think is a thirst.
Sometimes we fill our lives with all manner of things rather than the true source of life for our souls. When we become thirsty, just like you do when you become dehydrated, you start to see things that really aren't there. You become overcome by fear. For example, the thirsty soul that has not had the life-giving power of water fears and is frightened, and so much of religion and so much of the dryness of religion is borne out of fear and is not borne out of the free grace of God.
This is St. Patrick's weekend and I heard a wonderful story about two Irishmen who moved to the United States in the 19 century. They had come from the most rural part of Ireland, and they had never seen a train before. They were in a hotel room next to a railway just outside of Philadelphia. Suddenly, the room began to shake, and a train goes rumbling by. Paddy goes over to the window and he looks out and sees this great, big fire box, with coal being shovelled and steam going everywhere, and sparks shooting from all the brakes. A few minutes later, another one rumbles by, and there is the same fire box and smoke. Three hours later, another one rumbles by, and finally Paddy says to Mickey, “Look, Mickey, they are moving hell three cars at a time!”
So much of our life tends to focus on fear and hell and death. When we become dry, our religion becomes dry and we become frightened and don't see things as they really are. There is a thirst that shrivels the soul.
However, there is the water of life. According to the New Testament, the water of life is the grace of Jesus Christ. It is that water of life that reassures us of God's great love. Jesus extends a great invitation to drink from that water of life, to look into your heart and soul and see the barrenness of it, but also to drink from it. So often, my friends, we become apathetic. One of the symptoms of spiritual dryness is apathy; another is complacency.
The great philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard tells a wonderful parable of a wild duck that is flying northwards in the spring with all his fellow ducks. As they got over Denmark, which was Kierkegaard's home, they decided to land and take a respite. They landed in a farmyard where there were domestic ducks that had become part of the farm experience. This wild duck decided to take it upon himself to eat with these domestic ducks, and filled himself with food. He loved the life on the farm. Every day somebody actually brought food for you! Can you imagine that? There was a warm barn to go into at night with hay for bedding and other animals for company. This is great, thought the duck.
So, he ate more and more and more, and when it came time for his flock to fly off, the duck said, “Oh, actually, I would like to stay here a little while longer. Why don't the rest of you continue with your migration?” He thought, I am going to sit here and eat and get fat. So, he did.
On their way back south in the fall, the other ducks flew overhead and quacked and made noises and invited their friend to come back. But he said, “No, I am happy here. I am well fed. I have water, a barn, friends, I don't need to go with you.” But then, he thought about it and decided that maybe he should go. He started to take off, but he was so fat he could only make it as far as the top of the barn. Finally, his wings gave out, and he dropped back down again.
The next spring, the flock came back again. All his friends were in the air, and they all called out, “Come, come and join us.”
This time, he tried to fly, and he couldn't even get above the door. He was so fat, so happy, so complacent, and so his friends went on to their adventure in the north. Year after year, they flew overhead and invited him to join them, but he didn't. He couldn't move any more. After a while, he didn't even hear them or recognize them, and then he died.
So often, we are like that. We don't drink from the source of life, because we have become complacent. We don't turn to Christ; we just hold on to our sin. We just take it one day at a time in a life that is dry and barren. We don't even know we are thirsty.
The mission of the church, as outlined in the Book of Revelation is to give an invitation to the complacent, to give an invitation to the fearful, to give an invitation to those who are thirsty and dry and those who don't even know their thirst yet. It is to say, “Come and take for yourself the source of life, for when you do, like a fountain from heaven it cascades through your whole body and restores your soul.” But, don't be worried if you feel dry today. Sometimes, when all around is dry and barren, great things are revealed.
In 1986, two young men were digging by the Sea of Galilee outside their kibbutz. There had been a drought for many, many months, and the Sea of Galilee was dry and its bed was crusty. As they were digging, the young men came upon something they couldn't believe - the remains of a boat. They called in some archaeologists who came along and started to dig it up carefully and to restore it. They dated the boat to around the time of Christ - it was 2,000 years old. Using the ancient boat as a model, they were able to make one similar to those that had been on the Sea of Galilee during the life and time of Jesus. The young men looked at this boat and they could picture the disciples on it being tossed in the waves and the wind, and they understood when they looked at the hull how dangerous it must have been, and their hearts were glad that in the midst of the dryness, they had found something of value.
The church is the bride of Christ. The church says to the world, “Come, even in the midst of your barrenness and dryness and thirst, and you will find the water of life.”
“Come,” wrote John. “Whoever is thirsty, let him come, and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.” The greatest invitation of them all! Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.