Genesis 8:20-22, 9:12-17 Psalm 104:25-35 Rev. 22:1-5 Mark 1:4-11
Last Sunday Kath Jordan stopped me as we were leaving church and said ‘have you seen the ABC documentary called River? It is wonderful!’ I hadn’t but, knowing River Sunday was coming, I decided it would be good preparation. And Kath was right. It is wonderful. It has an incredible soundtrack by the Australian Symphony Orchestra and a beguiling commentary by Willem Dafoe. I was so mesmerised by it that I sat and scribed the whole script and I want to share some of its wisdom with you, if I may…
It began like this:
When the first rains fell the earth awakened,
It rained without pause for thousands of years,
Sculpting the landscapes into being;
Drops gathered as streams,
Streams braided into rivers,
Growing in force as they grow ever onwards and downwards.
Patient and persistent it wore mountains away
As it looped and meandered.
Where rivers wandered, life could flourish
For rivers are world makers
They have shaped the earth and they have shaped us as a species
Rivers are the source of human dreams
It was rivers that created fertile land and made it possible for us to settle and to dwell
Over time they became highways by which trade and technology spread inland
And along them also flowed poetry, stories and religions, politics and conflict
Rivers grew towns and cities, but they were also indifferent to human plans and dreams
Fickle and unpredictable
In flood they could wreak havoc
In drought they could disappear completely.
I paused the film here because it starkly reminded me of something I heard when I was in Canberra last month. A colleague spoke about her recent trip to Laikipia, Kenya, where the rains have failed for the last 5 seasons and are predicted to fail again. The drought they face is the worst in more than 40 years and their riverbeds are baked dry. Livestock and livelihoods are being lost, daily. Desperate wild elephants storm and destroy water tanks. More than 4 million people are without food and water; one million are under the age of 5. Women and children dig for hours in the dry riverbeds, searching for small pools of moisture, grateful to find even a cup full.
Water is life. Our rivers carry streams of life. And we fail to treat them carefully, with the worth they deserve.
But back to the soundtrack…
We’ve stopped going to the river: now we bring the river to us
But there is always a downstream cost
Somebody somewhere must have less
The amount of water in the hydrosphere hasn’t changed since the first waters fell
But the number of people on earth has grown exponentially
And every one of us is utterly dependent on water
[Instead of respect and care] we have riddled our rivers with poison in the name of progress
Leaving the water unswimable, undrinkable, even fatal
Instead of life-giving sediment and nutrients, rivers carry millions of tonnes of plastic waste into the sea each year
As always, the poorest suffer most.
Many rivers now fight for survival
The mystery and beauty of a wild river is beyond our ability to comprehend
But within our capacity to destroy.
Rivers that have flown for eons have been cut off in decades
Time and again, upstream need and upstream greed have led to downstream disaster
The lives of our rivers now will determine the destinies of generations to come
We will be remembered for all that we have depleted damaged and killed
Rivers are vulnerable to our harm but they also possess miraculous powers of recovery
Given a chance their life pours back
To think like a river means to dream downstream in time
To imagine what will flow far into the future from our actions in the present
To be good ancestors to those who come after us
Downstream of us…
So, Rivers really are the source of life and livelihood.
But today we gather at a different kind of river; today we come to the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God.
Today we come to the rivers of baptism, where God revealed the majesty of Jesus, renewed the promise God made in the Genesis reading we heard today and proclaimed God’s deepest love for God’s children – you are my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.
Today, on River Sunday, we gather at the rivers of baptism with Alias, to hear those words from God again; to hear God whisper, ‘Alias, you are my child and I love you. I am so pleased with you’.
And we each come with him. And as we reach the water’s edge, we acknowledge that, together, we need God like we need water – for life and all things.
We come and stand alongside Alias as he makes his own promises to follow the example of Jesus, as he steps into the flow of God’s grace, and as he gets drenched by the love of God. We do this together – we acknowledge our need of God and our gratitude for God’s provision of water to wash away sin and bring life in abundance.
On this River Sunday we ‘dream downstream in time’
We ‘imagine what will flow far into the future from our actions in the present’.
We commit once again to be ‘good ancestors to those who will come after us, downstream of us’ by looking after our waters. And as baptised children of God, rivers take on an additional significance to us. To the world, rivers bring life. To us they also bring our redemption, our healing, our wholeness, and our life’s worth.
That documentary ended by saying, ‘We share our fate with rivers. We flow together’. As those who have been baptised in the river of life, the river of God, never has that been truer. May we always bring life to all who are downstream of us. Amen.
Holy Adventures 