Rocks and Water
We stand at the threshold of a new school year. And, yes, I know that this is only an artificial threshold because, after all, teachers have been working for the past few weeks, getting their classrooms ready for students… and students have been faithfully showing up for two-a-days, as well. Summer has already ended and our triple-digit temperatures are the only reminder we have that fall hasn’t officially arrived yet. As we stand at the threshold and pause before the school year officially begins, the same question lingers in the minds of students and teachers alike: How will this year be different?
Well, for some, it will be different because they have moved up to a new grade level… which might mean new teachers… new topics… perhaps even a new building. For others, it will be different because they know they are reaching the end of a long journey that began when they were tiny tikes in kindergarten and will end when they receive their high school diplomas next spring. What will this year bring… what challenges… what celebrations… what memories? And, in all that is said and done this year, where will God be in that mix… and what difference will God’s presence make?
Throughout scripture… and throughout the history of the Christian church… God’s people have periodically stood at the threshold of something new. When Abraham set out from Uhr to Canaan… when Moses set out from Egypt to the Promised Land… when Joshua crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land… when David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem… when Ezra brought the Children of Israel back from exile… when Jesus was born in Bethlehem… when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples at Pentecost… the list goes on and on… through Gregory the Great… and Martin Luther… Dietrich Bonheoffer… and Pope John Paul II to the present day. At critical points in time, God’s children have stopped to ask themselves, “What is it that we believe… and why?” The answer has always been… in one form or another: “We believe in God, who is bound to us in a covenant relationship that is born out of God’s own great love for us… God who, despite our erring ways, has always been faithful to the promises first made long ago.”
Promises… promises… promises. God has made promises to us… and we have made promises to God. As human beings, we make promises because we want to assure someone that we mean to fulfill an obligation… or that we want to participate in some future activity. The problem is that we, no matter how well intentioned we may be, cannot, for a variety of reasons, seem to keep all the promises that we make. The same is not true with God. God makes promises and God keeps promises. Fortunately for us, God’s intent to keep those promises rests solely on God’s love for us and not on what we do or do not do for God. The love of God exists in and around us, even when we do not realize it is there.
Albert Schweitzer once described it in this way: “There is an ocean… cold water without motion. In this ocean, however, is the Gulf Stream… hot water flowing from the equator toward the Pole. Inquire of all scientists how it is physically imaginable that a stream of hot water flows between the waters of the ocean, which, so to speak, form its banks… the moving within the motionless… the hot within the cold. No scientist can explain it. Similarly, there is the God of love within the God of the forces of the universe one with him, and yet so totally different. We let ourselves be seized and carried away by that vital stream.”
Water. How often does the image of water appear in the Bible as a symbol of new life? Noah and the Great Flood. The Children of Israel crossing the Red Sea to escape from Egypt. The Children of Israel crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land. The baptism of Jesus and his new ministry. Jesus turning the water to wine. Jesus offering the Samaritan Woman living water. These are just a few of those images.
But there is also another image… the image of rocks… to signify the unchanging nature of God. Mount Sinai and the rocks on which God carved the Ten Commandments. The altar of rocks built by Jacob after he wrestled all night with God. The twelve rocks of the twelve tribes placed in the Jordan River to remember God’s faithfulness. Jesus’ parable about the man who built his house upon the rock. Jesus giving Simon the name Peter, which means rock and announcing that on this rock he would build his church. Again, just a few images.
Dakotah Martinez read the story of Solomon gathering the tribes and the elders at the new Temple in Jerusalam and the prayer he said dedicating the Temple and rededicating the Children of Israel to their God. And I read the story of an earlier time when Joshua stood before the Children of Israel in the Promised Land, demanding that they make a choice… that they choose the God that they would serve and dedicate themselves to God. You and I come to the Table on Communion Sundays to remember God’s faithfulness and to partake in the feast that reminds us of Christ’s death. Each Sunday, we stand and say what we believe in our “Affirmation of Faith.” But sometimes those words slip too easily from our lips and we are not always cognizant of the promises we make. Let me draw an illustration from our world today that might demonstrate more clearly what Joshua was doing when he stood before the Children of Israel and forced them to make a choice.
A stream of water in the Canadian Rockies is called Divide Creek. At one point in its meandering course, the stream is bisected by a large rock. The water that flows on the west side of the rock rushes into Kicking Horse River and eventually reaches the Pacific Ocean. The water that flows on the east side of the rock pours into the Bow River, which runs into the Saskatchewan River, into Lake Winnipeg, on to the Nelson River and Hudson Bay, finally finding its way into the Atlantic Ocean. Once the water divides at the rock, its destiny is set. There is no turning back.
Some choices in our lives are like that… like Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken”... the road that diverged in a wood. The path we choose makes a difference. The promises we make change our lives. Promises are for keeping. Every bride knows that… as she walks down the aisle to say her vows… as does the groom who is waiting for her. The promise of faithfulness that resides at the very heart of marriage is a beautiful one… and essential to our society. Promises are for keeping. That's what each one of us affirms… every time we sign a check to pay a debt. Whether is it for a mortgage payment, student loan or credit-card bill, every check signed, sealed, and dropped into the mailbox brings us that much closer to fulfilling some promise we have made. Where would any of us be, in life, without promises? Some anthropologists have stated that the promise is one of the most important innovations in human history. Without promises, there could be no banking… no insurance… no law other than ‘might makes right’… no commerce… no pensions… no marriage… and no diplomas.
Solomon celebrated the greatest promise of all at the Temple in Jerusalem: God’s covenant with us. Joshua stood before hundreds of witnesses to declare his choice and to demand that the Children of Israel make their choice. So today, as we begin a new school year, we have the chance to make that choice again and to renew our covenant with God… the covenant that was first made in our own baptism. It is just words. What difference can a few words make? Like the stream that forks at the rock… the road that diverged in the wood… the choices we make… and the words we speak… and the actions we then take… make all the difference. The Greek writer Aeschyslus once said “It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.” Our lives are measured by the choices we make and the promises we keep.
Do you love to tell the story of God’s love for you? I do… for I realize that the covenant we make is not a balanced one. God gives us far more than we could ever give to God. In the water of the baptismal font that Raymond has fashioned for us, are rocks… rocks that remind us of the unchanging promises of God… rocks in the waters that remind us of the living water of our faith… rocks that contained words… words that speak of the promises of God to us. As we sing our next hymn, I want to invite you to come forward and take a rock from the water. Take a rock to remind you of all that God has promised… a rock on which you can build a relationship with the God who loves you beyond measure. God has already made a choice. What choice will you make today… and what difference will that choice make in the new school year? Amen.
Joshua 24:1-3, 14-25