Water is Life

Synopsis     Deuteronomy 11:3-13         2/10/2018

Moses encouraged the children of Israel to recognize the acts that God had done to get them through the wilderness and to the promised land. He mentioned the provisions that were made but also the separation that had taken place between those who loved God and desired to serve Him, and those who didn’t.

He reminded the Israelites of the promises of God and helped to focus the hearts and minds once again on the blessings of land. He recounted the virtues of the land, especially in the blessings of abundant water.

Water is Life

Water is life. And the way water comes to us affects the way we understand how life works.

God told the people through Moses that in the Promised Land, water was abundant in the mountains and valleys. In Egypt, the water came from the river. Life was built around the seasonality of river. The flooding, the dry times; Egyptian culture and life was built on this rhythm.

But in the land of promise, the goodness was ever present, caught in the valleys and flowing from the mountains. It did not need to be carried by hand in small containers. Instead, water was abundant and integral to the land.

An Ever-present, Integrated Life

It’s funny how literal the analogy is.

I can live in Egypt. Sometimes I choose that. To come to the word, or the sacraments only occasionally. To drag myself through the doors of a church building where I perceive little or no value. A habit from my childhood that I resent just a little less than I fear stopping.

Or I can drink daily. I can consciously enter the narrative of God’s story – seeing my life in the context of the story of His life. Or even more fully by transcending every narrative and communing with the God of all creation in prayer, in liturgy, in sacrament.

“but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:14