Sunday March 15
Readings: Ex 17:3-7; Rom 5:1-2, 5-8; Jn 4:5-42
The first reading locates us with Moses and the Israelites in the desert. They are thirsty and in need of water.
In the gospel, Jesus engages a woman at a well. And while it has traditionally been read from a theological viewpoint, at a very basic level this story is about water.
We need water to survive.
My friend Jim Perkinson, a theologian and activist from Detroit, notes that the United Nations said in 2014 that 2/3 of humanity will not have access to clean drinking water by 2025 and that 1/3 of all United States citizens will not be able to pay their water bills by 2020! Questions around who gets access to water are already upon us and we have seen extensive water shut offs in places like Detroit and the “privatization” and commodification of bodies of water and aquifers all across this country (and the world).
This view of water as commodity (a thing to be bought and sold) goes back to colonization when European settlers viewed water, mountains, valleys and other aspects of the natural world as “inanimate” (meaning without a soul) and as something to be subdued. The indigenous peoples who were living here, however, generally had a different view. Bodies of water were viewed as having a spirit, a perspective and even a “will” of their own. Water was not a passive recipient of human interaction. It was an active agent.
If we were to take that view, even for a few moments and asked ourselves, “What does our water want from us?” I wonder what we would start to think about.
Would water want to flow to every household regardless of income?
Would water want to be packaged in plastic and sold for profit?
Would water want to be diverted from the original paths that it had chosen?
Would water want us to pour toxins into it?
In his ministry, Jesus spent a lot of time in and around bodies of water. As we read the scriptures, notice how many times water or bodies of water come up. These are not merely geographic references. Jesus and the people of his time had a relationship with water and their sources of water. And Jim Perkinson and many others speculate that Jesus “apprenticed” himself to the land and water when he spent time in the desert so that he could learn their ways and be in right relationship with them.
In our modern context (in the United States, at least) the average household uses about 90 gallons of water a day with most of that not being consumed. We bathe in it, flush our toilets with it, wash our dishes in it and pour it on our lawns. Most of us have no idea where our water comes from or goes to and we have no fundamental relationship to it. Yet we are radically dependent upon it.
It is not a matter of if a water crisis is coming. A water crisis is already here and it is touching the poorer peoples first. Without re-locating ourselves in our local watershed and becoming “watershed disciples” (as Ched Myers calls it), we will miss the revelation of the water.
For today, notice your water use and your relationship to water. Give thanks to the water that sustains you. Reflect more on where it comes from and where it goes and what happens to it – in your household and in our community. And remember that water has a spirit and a memory.