How We Relate to Creation is How We Relate to the Creator – Holy Ground Sermon Series Week 3 (Proverbs 8: 1-3, 22-31)
So far in this Holy Ground sermon series, looking at the importance of creation care, we have seen that our connection to nature has a lot to do with, and is a great way, to experience our connection to God. We have seen talked about our connection to creation not only bringing us closer to God, but also reminding us of our place in the tapestry of creation, as ones given the gift, and the responsibility of living on this planet and caring for it. Last week we talked about the holy ground that we walk on, and the places that become sacred to us. We discussed how our relationship with God factors into this. Where we experience connection to God often becomes a holy place for us, and if we are open to connection with God in nature, in that beautiful creation, then that is why places in the Great Outdoors often become sacred to us and representative of God. This week we are reminded of the sacredness of water, and how water often marks holy spaces, and holy events in our lives. We will discuss the holy water that touches us and immerses us and covers so much of our planet and makes up so much of our bodies.
If you are someone who has been baptized in a Christian church, then you have an experience of water in a sacred context. When someone is baptized, they are usually touched by water, whether that water is sprinkled or poured over them, or whether they are completely immersed in the water during baptism – going under the water so that they can emerge with sins washed away, repented of and forgiven, and they are ready for new life. Different denominations practice baptism differently. Some baptize infants, sprinkling or pouring a little bit of water over the child’s head as they are held by a parent. In the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) we practice what is called believer’s baptism. This means we do not baptize infants; we baptize individuals who are old enough to make a conscious and informed decision to make the commitment to Christ and the community of faith. It is also convenient that we do not baptize infants because Disciples also perform baptism by immersion, and if you are old enough to make an informed statement of your belief then you are also old enough to be dunked under water. So, most DoC congregations have baptismal pools in their sanctuaries. Ours in located there in the middle of the aisle. However, the earliest baptisms were performed in open water. Jesus, for instance, was baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. This tradition continues today as some congregations will still perform baptisms in open bodies of water. Another example of making a place in nature sacred through an experience of God.
So, water often marks the beginnings of one’s faith journey, just as water plays a part in the beginning of so much on our planet. As our lives of faith are formed in the water of baptism our natural lives are formed in the water of the womb as we await our birth into this world. Also, many of the great cities and population centers of our current civilization have been born from the water, or rather from access to the water. In this country alone, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit. All cities that grew and thrived because of their proximity to water. It was water that allowed cities like these to connect with the wider world. Water was also present at the beginning of the beginning before creation.
In the first chapter and verses of the Bible, it tells us that the earth was formless and empty and darkness rested over the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the water. We often think of God creating the world from nothing, but it seems as if there was a little more than nothing. I’m not sure that this mention of water means that it was yet in the form of a lake or an ocean, but if there is water that means there is hydrogen present, and oxygen. If there is hydrogen and oxygen then I assume some of the other parts of the periodic table of elements are there as well: carbon, nitrogen, helium, etc. The building blocks of life on this planet were there in the beginning. Furthermore, those building blocks are still here, still part of us. Astrophysicists have found that everything on earth is made of elements that once made up the stars. As those stars die and explode their atoms are recycled forming the elements that make up our world today. So, the things that are made up of these elements on our world live and die their atoms are continually used and reused to create new life. That means the atoms that made up water, air, and dirt throughout history is still with us today. That means that the atoms inside you now existed somewhere in the world 2,000 years ago when a young carpenter from Nazareth walked the countryside teaching and preaching the Good News. It means that atoms inside you now could have been there at the beginning, that in the beginning not just your soul, but a physical part of you was there with God at creation. Maybe. It’s a thought.
In the book of Proverbs we read that something, or someone, else may have been there with God at the time of creation. Proverbs is one of the books of wisdom in the Hebrew Bible. It contains pieces of wisdom and advice for living a good life. Some believe that part of this book was written by King Solomon, perhaps meant as advice for his son, but scholars to not believe this to be the case. The prominent character in Proverbs is Wisdom, or Lady Wisdom, or Sophia, a personification of God’s wisdom. The verses we read this morning come from chapter 8. This is where Wisdom is giving us her bona fides. There is no wisdom or advice given in this chapter, rather, it is Wisdom, Sophia, telling us where she came from and elaborating on her relationship to God. Her words here imply that she, Wisdom, was there with God in the beginning. There with the deep water. “The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old; I was appointed from eternity, from the beginning, before the world began.” A bold statement and a complicated or, perhaps, controversial idea. Certainly, you can understand the inclusion of this passage by the author of Proverbs. To say that wisdom has been around since the beginning of time gives it legitimacy. The wisdom of elders is to be respected, after all. As you can imagine, there is lots of debate around this idea that Wisdom has been there with God since the beginning. It may seem like a blasphemous notion to some. Of course, in the Gospel of John we read that “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God” and that this word became a flesh and blood human, and it was Jesus.
Now, I’m not saying that Wisdom is Jesus and Jesus is Wisdom. That’s not how the authors of Proverbs would have understood it, and as Christians it is not our place to explain away these Jewish expressions of faith by inserting Jesus over what they were trying to say. Wisdom was not viewed as a divine revelation to the world, such as the life of Christ. Instead, wisdom was viewed as a gift from God, something eternal and constant, and if one were to be open to that gift, connect with it and allow God’s wisdom to guide and encourage one’s life, then the divine nature of reality could be revealed to them. This is not unlike what we have been encouraged to do in the first weeks of this Holy Ground worship series. Connect with nature, connect with the gifts of creation, as a way of connecting to God, and letting that connection guide us. That is one of the interesting things about Proverbs. It is written as advice and encouragement for everyday life. Then we get to chapter 8 and we find that it is so much bigger than the everyday minutiae of our lives. Wisdom is something that has been there since the beginning. The wisdom of God is something eternal and using it in our everyday lives is a way to be in touch with the divine. There is certainly wisdom to be found when we remember that God’s presence with us is constant.
The town where my college was located was a small town in Missouri, but one of those that sprouted up near a body of water. Canton, MO is right on the Mississippi River and is the location of Lock and Dam #20. Near this lock and dam was a little RV park, for people who enjoyed sleeping in a van down by the river. It was empty a lot of the time during the school year, so while I was in school this little piece of land near the Mississippi was where I would go when I needed to remember God’s presence found in the constancy of the river. Sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, I spent many evenings sitting there by the river, watching it roll by, taking comfort in the thought of being part of that river. Ole’ Man River, he just keeps rolling along. And that made me feel better. I think being around water can be a good time to reflect on God, because we can see many parallels between God and water. They are both versatile, multifaceted. We can experience God as the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit. We can experience water as a liquid, solid, or gas. God is always with us, and part of the divine is in us. Water is also, always with us, our bodies and our planet are made up mostly of water, after all.
Another similarity is that we try to control both water and God. We try to control water by building dams in the river, or through other man-made structures meant to irrigate dry land or to take from one source of water and send it somewhere else. And, of course we bottle it and sell it – just one of the ways we have learned to profit off of providing necessary resource to people. Of course, we also pollute it with toxins, making less and less drinkable water easily or freely available. We also do this to God. We try to control what should not be controlled. We try to control God through rules and rituals, through dogma, through the way we read and interpret scripture. Humans are always trying to fit God into a box, into a space that makes it more understandable to the way they view the world. This shows up in harmful ways when people try to use their personal understanding of God to dictate how other people live their lives. There is no wisdom in that.
So, this week, let your encounters with water serve as a reminder that God, the source of life, is all around us and always with us. Let the water remind you that you made up of the same stuff, on a physical level and on a soul level, that has been with others throughout history. In God we are all connected. When you take a drink of clean, filtered water let it remind you that clean, non-toxic water is the right of every human being. Let it also remind you that the love of God is to be freely given and shared, absent any toxic theology or a view of religion that pollutes belief. This week let water remind you of your baptism, or if you have not been baptized remember that all water is holy water, so at all times we carry with us God’s blessing our lives.
Amen.