October 19, 2025 · Rev. Derek van Gulden · Psalm 104:10-13; Isaiah 43:16-21
In the creation justice series, Rev. Derek van Gulden turns to water: the waters of Genesis that all life comes from, a dry year of water bans and brown maples, and a six-kilometer walk for water in Kenya. And then the living water Jesus offers the woman at the well, which, like the other kind, is meant to be shared.
Transcript
People of God, would you join me in a moment of prayer? Gracious and holy God, this morning I ask you to move the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts by your love, and help me this day not to be the instrument of my own or anyone else's oppression, but an instrument of peace in every step, in every breath, in every moment of every day. May it be so. Amen.
Friends, if you are joining us for the first time this fall, we've been on an adventure of talking about creation justice today. If you haven't figured it out, we're talking about water. Holy water. The scripture today you heard so far. Don't worry, I have a lot more in the book has talked about water as giving life And water has living water that gives us life, spiritual life. So we're going to chat quickly about each of them, especially in a community that sits on an island and is surrounded by water. I think it's important to remember what water brings us. Quoting from the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, also known as the Green Patriarch. In his letter on water, he says, just as water is the essence of life, water is also the primary element in the life of a Christian, where the sacrament of baptism marks the sacred source of our spiritual life. At the end of the service, or at any time you feel like it, I will invite you to come forward as you're leaving and dip your hands in our baptismal font and bless yourself or bless each other.
I want to talk to you first about the water that gives us life in the Scripture today you heard that everything comes from water. In the beginning of Genesis. We hear in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while the wind from God swept over the face of the waters. And then God said, let there be light. And there was light. And God said, saw that that light was good. And God separated the light into day into darkness. And God called and said that it was good. And God said, let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let the separate the waters from the waters. So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. And God called the dome sky. And there was evening, and there was morning on the second day.
In Genesis chapter one, verse twenty teaches us that creation literally comes out of water. Water brings forth swarms of living creatures. All. All creation depends on water for its birth and for its continued life. Water is an integral part of everything we do. A basis of creation.
Now sitting and living on the ocean, we can look out and see the vastness of the ocean. That's a lot of water. But on the earth, one percent of all water is fresh water. In other words, drinkable water. It's not a lot and it's decreasing. We know here in our own town. Every year now, even this last winter, we have water bands because we haven't had enough rain. You see it as you drive into town. But I walked around this week and you can still see people watering their lawns, whether they're supposed to or not. And many of them might have wells. And I stopped and talked to one person. He goes, well, I have a well. I didn't ask him why he was watering his long. And I said, that's great. But he's still sapping the fresh water from the earth. And I asked him, why do you water so much? He goes, because my yard is green and lovely. And that's what we try to portray in this community. It must be where he lives.
Water is not available to a good portion of this world. Those of us who live here and in the western world and other developing nations, maybe we just have to turn a faucet. Outside. Inside, we can turn the faucet one way or the other and we get hot water. It's amazing. And if you're like me, I take it for granted. So often whenever I'm washing my hands, I have to remember. Get your hands wet. Turn the water off. You don't need it running. When you do the dishes, fill the sink. Wash them all there. When you take a shower, you shouldn't take more than five minutes and you only have to turn the water on, get wet, soap up, and then turn the water on to rinse off. Now that comes from a long time sailor that in the Navy. That's about all you got. You were quick, but you still got clean. Because at sea you either have to make your own fresh water or carry it, and it doesn't last a long time.
But because of how we live our lives throughout this created world, water resources are being depleted. They're being degraded by consequences of our agriculture and industrial systems that use water, deforestation, climate change, overconsumption, waste, And pollution. All of those are sapping the water that we need. Not just humanity, but all creation. My son is a farmer, as I've told you many times. And water is important to them. Now. They're dairy farmers, but you can't get milk if you can't get water for your cows.
But here's a few statistics that I keep around just to remind myself. How many of you like coffee? Oh, come on, don't be afraid. I don't, but coffee requires two thousand five hundred gallons of water to produce one pound of coffee. Two thousand five hundred gallons of water for one pound. I don't know how much coffee you get out of a pound, but I'm sure not much. And coffee is pretty universal. Rice, one of the world's staples. Six hundred and fifty gallons of water to produce rice. It's important for us as part of creation and the part of creation that God blessed us to be stewards of. To realize what we eat, what we drink, what we do affects water. If you go and ask a local farmer which of your plants which of your produce grew better this year when we were in a drought, and I'm sure you'll be fascinated by what grows well and what doesn't when we don't have water.
Has somebody said when I was up in Vermont visiting my grandkids two weeks ago, grandpa, did you come to see the colors? I said, well, no, I came to see you. And they went good. Because there's no colors this year. None. All the maple trees are brown. You can see few glimpses. Actually, they're better down here. I noticed the other day driving up to Beverley and walking around. Because the trees are so dehydrated.
The other thing we need to remember that access to water is limited. I know because I do it. When we hear that water band, most of us might go, oh geez. I mean, not that I water my lawn because then it'd grow and I'd have to mow it more often. But think about those who don't have ready access to water.
This picture up on my little waterfall here. Is Maureen. I've talked about her in the past. I met her when she was thirteen, when I was spending time in Kenya. It's a picture of her I took after she and her sister Judith and their cousin Winnie took me to get water one day, and it was a short walk. It was only six kilometers, which is pretty short in some places. And you see the yellow. Container she's sitting on holds twenty gallons of water. They carry it on their head. They gave me a bucket when we got back. They told me I couldn't drink any water that day because there was only a few drops left in my bucket. One, I couldn't put it on my head and two, I was covered with it. And one of their neighbors said, Brother Derrick, you've used enough water to wash our whole community. So no drink. True.
I've been in places where there are members of the community that put these buckets in wagons. Handcarts. They spend all day, four hours, five hours walking to the closest well, filling up all those containers and bringing them back for the community. That community was in El Salvador and they rotated. Who did it? So it wasn't one specific group every day. Everybody took part and it was a day long event. Them leaving early in the morning and getting back after dark. Think about that when you turn that faucet.
Here in this country and around the world, there's many ways that we use water. We use it to keep our plants growing. So we have nice. Green growth inside and they don't take a lot unless you have a lot of plants. How many of you have something similar to this? A water bottle of many kinds. That's the most current popular one, right? What is it called? Oh, I don't think this is a hydrant here. Oh, it's the color that. Yeah. I looked last night in between Sarah and I. I think we have nine water bottles, each one different, each one with cool stickers that we put on. Do we need that many? We always have them filled with water in the car when we go for a walk. It's just trying to be aware of what we consume.
Without water, we don't have life. But also without living water. What do we have? You heard the John passage was part a small part of the gospel passage of the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman who. Jesus meets an amazing woman in her own right because she becomes a disciple. But that's for another day. But she asks him, or he asks her about the water. And he says roughly, I'm not going to read it because you heard it already. But the water that you can drink from the well, after you drink it, you'll still be thirsty. But if you drink the water that I. That Jesus will give her, you'll have life eternal. It's the living water. It's the spirit and faith that we all have that come from our faith.
Just as water feeds creation. For many of us, that living water is what guides us through life. That is the hope that we look for regularly. Or I do, and I hope you do too. You can go throughout Scripture and you can read about the living water in the created world. Water is so important not just what we drink, we bathe with, but also that living water that walks with us always, and that we can share with others through word or more importantly, through the way we live our life. For me, it's the reminder that enables me to live the love and justice of Jesus through the living water that we receive at our baptism or any other time in our lives.
I hope you will take an opportunity when you leave the sanctuary. To stop at the baptismal font. Dip your hands in and bless yourselves or those who are with you. With the living water. Water. Holy water. Both are needed for life. Both are needed for creation. May we remember that. Share it and be aware of how we use it and where it comes from. Amen.