Scripture: Ephesians 4 & Micah 6:6-8
Loving and buoyant God, come float down the river of creation with us this morning as we take stock of our lives in the light that you have given to us — help us to be your body, receptive to your call, restored by your grace, and sharing the goodness of creation with others. Many of us have come here today with heavy hearts, or seeking inspiration, or looking for direction in our lives. Like the wind vane above our church, help direct our heart to center in the sacred wind of this world: the harder it blows and buffets us about, may our sense of direction be clearest and clarified. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, Lord our rock, tower, redeemer. Amen.
If you look at many of the coastal historic homes in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, you’ll notice that their front doors don’t face the road. Instead, they have doors that face the ocean or the bay, welcoming travelers as they arrive by the main mode of transportation — the water.
One of the early facts we learn in school is that there is no life on earth that is possible without water.
The linking of hydrogen and oxygen in H2O is a critical combination for the life-cycles of creation.
It’s also true that there can no be church without water — both this individual Newman church, and the global tradition of Christianity of which we are a part.
Water is where our creation story begins, with spirit moving over the surface of the water. We are part of the eternal ever-rolling stream seeking justice that the prophet Amos preached about and which inspired Dr. King’s Dream speech.
This past week at our Church Council and Trustees meeting, Stephanie D’Abreu pointed out that water has been a recurring theme at Newman Church over the past couple of years.
It was a moment where Stephanie named something simple and true, and helped us notice and appreciate the truth of this statement.
Since I began at Newman in March 2025, water has certainly been part of the life of this church. There were the early moments when water was leaking or flooding or pooling, as sometimes happens in historic buildings, and other times when our water infrastructure has been blocked and not let water pass to the places where it needed to be.
And there are also the positive features of water — all the water we have poured into the baptismal font. It is water by which we perform baptisms in order to channel the transformative power of Spirit among us as we dedicate lives to the faith of Jesus Christ. Warmed water in the form of steam is how we heat and make this room an inviting destination in the cold months of the year, and cool water is how we cultivate gardens and flowers to reflect the beauty of creation.
Water has been on my mind recently because yesterday was the five-year anniversary of my ordination to the work of Christian ministry and to mark the occasion, I re-read the ordination paper that I wrote between 2015 and 2020 — One of the requirements for ordination in the United Church of Christ is the writing of a robust reflection paper that explores ones’ theological beliefs and how you see them being used in a ministry calling.
My paper began with a section on water under the heading “Headwaters,” Headwaters being a reference to the places where rivers and streams start.
I wrote:
Christianity begins in water. John baptized Jesus in the Jordan. Jesus called fishermen as disciples, and spoke of the Spirit as living water. But in our current century, our natural world is in crisis. We’ve polluted our rivers and filled our oceans with debris. We treat natural elements as means of production. God the Creator has given humanity the world to cultivate and to protect, and we have not lived up to our calling. As Christians, we have been given a ministry of reconciliation. Can we reconcile the world? Can we advance the repair of the world, and thereby, repair our own religion? I think we can, and we have to. My hope, rather, is that our collective ministering will be flowing streams of living water to nurture the world.
It turns out that water is one way I understand my call to ministry here in the Ocean and Bay states — it’s a call to help repair where hurt has been done, nurture new life in parched places, and to channel the spirit through collective care.
Paul writes in today’s scripture reading that people are called into their faith in different ways:
It says Jesus called “apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ”
To experience a call is a powerful thing. It’s happening to many of us all the time, sometimes without our realizing it.
Author Annie Dillard captures the human tendency to minimize the significance of being called into the work of faith and justice, writing: Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? . . . It is madness to wear straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”
What does it mean for us to be drawn out to where we can never return?
As Parker Palmer says, A call does not come from a voice ‘out there’ calling me to become something I am not. It comes from a voice ‘in here’ calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.”
May we be so called today.
May each one of us be open to the God-given selfhood that we all carry with us, waiting be awoken and made real.
May we be open to the movement of God’s ever-flowing stream of creation. For what does the Lord require of us? Except to act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
Amen.
