Second Sunday in Lent, February 28

Water Prayer
From the Lutheran World Federation

Holy God, our Living Water and our merciful Guide, together with the rivers and seas, wells and springs, we bless and magnify you. You led your people by the pillar of cloud and fire through the sea, and provided them water from the rock. We thank you for the gift of water.

The Holy Spirit moved over water in the beginning of creation. In water, your Son Jesus received the gift of baptism and was anointed by the Holy Spirit to lead us into the way of everlasting life through his life, death, and resurrection.

Gracious God, you have called us into a community of faith. We are called to life by you and to sustain life with you, the source of life and creator of every being. We pray for those who struggle every day for their daily supply of water: in the slums of Brazilian cities, in the deserts of Africa, in the townships where clean water does not flow. We pray for those who experience floods and for others in desperate need of water. We pray that those who are fortunate to have an abundance of water do not take your gift for granted, or fail to heed and understand the cries of people who need water for life.

Amen.

Friday, February 26

by Betty Iwan

For inspiration for my Lenten blog, I looked in the Presbyterian Hymnal and picked hymn #368, I’ve Got Peace Like a River . It is an African-American Spiritual whose verses can be summarized like this.

I’ve got peace like a river in my soul.
I’ve got joy like a fountain in my soul.
I’ve got love like an ocean in my soul.

African-American Spirituals are often written in coded language. I wonder if the words in this spiritual are talking about God who is flowing continuously through our soul, who is as refreshing as a cool fountain and as wide and expansive as an ocean.

Even though I am fond of the imagery suggested by the original words, I decided to insert my own water images to bring this spiritual to life for me in another way. With my changes, the hymn looks like this.

I’ve got peace like a hot tub in my soul.
I’ve got joy like a shower in my soul.
I’ve got love like a warm spring in my soul.

I know that I can get totally outside of myself and feel relaxed when I am soaking alone in a hot tub. I feel at peace and at one with the world. I get that amazing feeling of being one with God as well.

I feel joy, like being in a state of nirvana when I am taking a shower and letting the hot water flow down over my body. As a good earth keeper, I know I should keep the shower short but taking a hot shower is a spiritual experience for me. I feel joy in living and joy in God.

When I bathed in Radium Hot Springs in Canada in 1981, I felt warm and comfortable all over, a physical state I rarely experience in chilly Rochester. I felt that life was good, that God is love and that I never wanted to leave the warm springs.

Of course staying in a hot tub or shower or warm springs is not practical and it is not where the world is. Dinner needs to be prepared, a meeting or follow up work from a meeting needs my attention, the hungry need to be fed at the Dining Room Ministry and a letter needs to be written to my legislator to lobby for laws that assure equal treatment for all persons. Yet basking in the warmth of the hot water cleanses and refreshes both my body and my soul so I that am ready to reenter the world and get back to God’s work.

God, you are our Source of Life and our Renewal. You flow continuously through our souls like a river. You are as refreshing as a cool fountain and as wide and expansive as an ocean. You are peace like a good soak in a hot tub, joy like the feeling of an ever flowing shower and love that embraces us like the gentle water in the warm springs. Thank you, God.

Thursday, February 25

From “Sacramental Mud” by Barbara Brown Taylor

“That is mud, you fool! You are about to lie down in a tub full of mud!” But lie down I did, and it was like nothing I have ever felt. It was hot, and heavy, and smelled like the kind of bogs dinosaurs used to get stuck in. I found a rock underneath me with one hand and a stick with the other. I wondered where exactly this mud had been before it was around me. Then the M.B.A. [Mud Bath Assistant] came back in and raked more mud over us until we were both covered up to our chins. At first we laughed, but as the heat and weight got to us we grew more solemn, and I at least was conscious as never before of what it was like to be buried alive, to be lying naked under pounds and pounds of real dirt. From dust you came and to dust you shall return, I thought. This is what it means…

An excerpt from today’s sermon for the LENTEN VOICES SERMON SERIES led by Martha Langford. Bring your lunch and join the discussion at 12:00 NOON in JOHNSTON HALL.

Wednesday, February 24

by Elizabeth Laidlaw, Deacon

The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. John 4:13

When I boot up my computer each morning, my homepage takes me to a live webcam on Sanibel Island in Florida. I am greeted with the lulling vision of waves rolling in and out, caressing the beach. For me, the ministry of Third Church members washes over Rochester (and Louisiana and Kenya) in waves of love….sometimes smoothing over rough times, sometimes bringing food or removing obstacles for each other, sometimes agitating the landscape for change, sometimes just being there in stillness. Christ’s love, which moves through us in these waves, sustains me.

Loving God, help me during this Lenten season, to feel the energy of your son’s love and use the power of that love to do your work here and now. Amen

Tuesday, February 23

by John Wilkinson, Pastor

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” (John 4:7-15)

The unnamed Samaritan woman—an icon to me—understands, as do we all, that we experiences a deep thirst, and that the only way for it to be quenched is an encounter with this living water. This living water appears here not as doctrine, not as dogma, but as relationship, as flesh-and-blood, as conversation, as journey.

What the woman does for us at the outset of Lent is call us back to the well, reminding us of our deep thirst. Tradition has spent so much time analyzing what has been wrong, or less frequently, right, with this unnamed woman. That may be a worthy pursuit, but it’s a pursuit that Jesus seems not to be overly concerned with. Rather, his focus becomes her focus – what she needs, what we all need, to live the lives we are intended to live, to have the deep thirst of our life quenched, to come into contact with this one, this living water, who meets us in unexpected items and places, and who transforms our lives, changing everything.

“Give me this water,” she says. Give us this water, we say.

Monday, February 22

by Becky D'Angelo Veitch

“Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water” John 7:38.

This verse of scripture is on the cover of our Lenten brochure. It was also included in a prayer in today’s “Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study” which this day focuses on Kenya, and tomorrow focuses on the Democratic Republic of Congo. In preparing to write this devotion, I spent days thinking about water—water in scripture, water and its soothing properties, water and justice in the world. I thought about baptism and cleansing and quenching of deep thirst. Through it all, however, I kept coming back to my memories of my visit to Africa.

In the spring of 1998 my boyfriend (now husband) Robert and I returned to the village where he had served as a mission volunteer in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We were there for the purpose of helping dear friends of his (also mission workers) move their family of five back to England. While we were there, Robert was welcomed back to the village as family. I was welcomed warmly, and, as his girlfriend, scrutinized thoroughly.

On many occasions during our visit we ate dinner at the homes of people with whom Robert had worked closely. We were treated as honored guests, and I later found out that our host families would borrow water purification systems from the British and American missionary families to prepare for our visits, knowing that our unaccustomed bodies would be made sick by drinking the village water.

As anyone who has traveled to developing nations can tell you, there is no more humbling experience than to be the recipient of this incredible hospitality. These families were some of the most joyful and faithful Christians that I have met. I was thankful to these families for the special efforts that they made to provide us with purified water, but the living water, that still to this day nourishes my spirit, is the experience of breaking bread and sharing fellowship and prayer with them.

Loving God, May your life-giving waters nourish us in our bodies and our spirits, this day, and ever more. Amen.

First Sunday in Lent, February 21

Friday, February 19

by Peg Strite, Deacon

A number of years ago, on a trip to Israel, our tour group spent the night in Tiberias, a city on the West side of the Sea of Galilee. Earlier that day, a storm had brought waves crashing up along the shore, and some of the roads were flooded. Folks were driving down as close as possible to see the unusual event. We were told that our planned boat trip from Tiberias to Capernaum would be cancelled.

I always think of that experience when I read or hear the story in Matthew 8:23-27 about Jesus calming the storm on that very sea. His followers were afraid, crying "Lord save us. We are perishing." But Jesus said to them, "Why are you afraid, you of little faith?"

That's the most important message in the story, I think. Jesus seems almost surprised by their fear. After all, He is with them. Why should they be afraid?

Looking out our hotel window the morning after the storm, we could see that the sea was as smooth as glass. For me, that was a reminder of Jesus' calm, reassuring presence, and of how faith in that presence can fill our lives with peace, comfort, and strength.

Loving God, we give thanks for your presence in our lives each day. Strengthen our faith and remind us that Jesus is with us even in the midst of our fears. In His name we pray... Amen.

Thursday, February 18

From “The Water of Life” by Charles Kingsley

 The East—and indeed the West likewise—was haunted by dreams of a Water of Life, a Fount of Perpetual Youth, a Cup of Immortality: dreams at which only the shallow and the ignorant will smile; for what are they but tokens of man's right to Immortality,—of his instinct that he is not as the beasts,—that there is somewhat in him which ought not to die, which need not die, and yet which may die, and which perhaps deserves to die? How could it be kept alive? how strengthened and refreshed into perpetual youth?

An excerpt from today’s sermon for at the LENTEN VOICES SERMON SERIES, led by Rod Frohman. Bring your lunch and join the discussion at 12:00 NOON in JOHNSTON HALL.

Ash Wednesday, February 17

John Wilkinson, Pastor

We who live somehow connected to the Protestant Christian tradition are not quite sure what to make of Lent in general and Ash Wednesday in particular. It seems somehow “catholic,” whatever that may mean. It is not, or I should rather say, not exclusively, Catholic. Forty (40) is a biblical number – Noah’s Ark, the wandering Israelites, and Jesus’ time in the wilderness, you will remember. And the notion of ashes as a reminder of our mortality can be depressing and grim, though I prefer to think of it as liberating and humbling – and liberation and humility can go a long way in the living of our days.

On top of all that, there is the notion of giving something up. Perhaps you need to do that. Perhaps I need to do that. Not as punishment, but as an opportunity to focus, to contemplate. Or better yet, rather than giving something up, why not take something up. Something good for you – good for your body, your spirit, your mind, your community, your church.

So Lent begins. It begins at Third Church in a particular way, as we focus on water. You know about all of the events – come to some…your spirit will be nourished. I am particularly intrigued about water. Right now, its primary form is snow. By Easter, its primary form may be slush! But you get the point. It is such a simple thing, yet such a profound carrier of the biblical story, and such a fundamental need for human living and our globe’s future.

As Lent unfolds, please be in touch with me, through this blog or at jwilkinson@thirdpresbyterian.org. Let me know how living water is nourishing your soul, or how we as a community may discover new sources of living water. And may the blessings of Lent – giving up and taking up, be yours, as we journey to Jerusalem and new life.