Watershed

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Proper 16, Year A
August 23, 2020
 
“It is raining in the watershed!”  That one phrase brought such great joy and anticipation back when I was a whitewater raft guide and kayaker.  As the summer progressed, rain tended to be scarcer, and without rain, we were doomed to dragging rubber rafts across rocks, repairing the tears, and providing less of an exciting experience for our customers.  One August was so dry, we had to cancel our trips, meaning we did not get paid or tipped.  But when it rained, it was like sweet salvation.  The boats flowed freely and faster, the waves got bigger, and there was much more excitement for all of us.  “It is raining in the watershed!”  That proclamation is the whitewater enthusiast’s equivalent of “Alleluia.”
 
Rushing water has always been a sound of solace and comfort ever since my younger adult days.  The smells of wet moss, mountain laurel, and rhododendrons take me to the riverside.  I have been known to set out in the midst of a rainstorm to see the waters come alive.  Even when was little, my brother and I would go out and race sticks down the street gutters until they washed into the drains.
 
As I grew older and put myself in to river running boats, I did learn to be respectful of water’s momentous power.  As soon as I was able, I ran the entire Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, and saw how It shaped the land and moved enormous boulders in real time.  I learned to work with the current, to read the water, and find the safest passage. I learned always to watch downstream for dangerous ledges or strainers.  In raft guide training, we were taught that deep river knowledge meant respecting its power.  You never beat the river; you only work with it.
 
All of that power comes into being in the watershed.  While we were always focused on where we were and where we were going, there was that unseen dynamic upstream that made what we experienced happen.  I could go on about watershed protection as essential for the ecosystem, but these natural lessons, learned early in life, have translated into both practical and theological guideposts for much of my life.  As a teacher and parent of adolescent children, I was adamant and, possibly, annoying, insisting that they look downstream of their attitudes and actions, believing that small decisions can shape larger outcomes, impacting them, others, and the world they hope to help form.  And as a Christ follower, I have come to believe that the waters of baptism flow from the source, from Jesus, the ground of all love, health, and wholeness.
 
Where all of this is going is that the stories of God and God’s people that we tell today are, truly, watershed moments fin faith.  In Moses birth and life-saving story, we see the contrast between what everyone supposes is powerful, and what ends up being truly powerful.  The King of Egypt is afraid of the Israelites and out of that fear, he commands all of the newborn males to be killed.  As the King, his commands are absolute.  But compassion and love find another way.  The midwives cannot and will not bring themselves to carry out orders. In her own defiance, Moses’s mother hides him for three months, finally, putting him in a basket, to float him downstream to safety.  The King’s daughter finds the babe, which she should have reported, but her compassion leads her to name the child, and provide or his survival.  The king’s command may be law, but through these women, these life bringers, these life savers, the greater power of love prevails.  Thank God they did what they did, because downstream, that child, Moses, will lead the people out of slavery and into a future of promise.
 
Then we hear Matthew tell us of Jesus, going to Caesarea Philippi.  Caesarea Philippi is a sort of Roman retreat center, a place to the north at the base of Mount Hermon, at the headwaters of the Jordan river.  The geography of the place is no accident to its significance.  A sort of Las Vegas of the Greco-Roman world, it was a place where everything goes, where polytheistic pagan cults supported worship of Emperor Augustus, himself.  And this is the place where Jesus takes his disciples to see what secular power thinks of itself.
 
With all the idol statuary, and cultic craziness, Jesus asks his followers who people think he is in that setting.  They say that some think of him as a prophet, a sort of patriarch, or one of so many mystic characters from Israel’s history.  “But who do you say that I am” he asks.  And good ole Peter.  The first to speak and the last to measure his words, says the Jesus is the Messiah, the one sent to save the world.  This event is called the confession of Peter, it is the watershed of the church’s beginnings, and it is a turning point as to what God is doing in Christ.  If we know anything about Peter, we know that he stumbles upon this truth, not through his innate brightness, but as the divine speaks through him.
 
As a preacher and theologian, I tend to point at all of the biblical narrative as a vehicle through which we are shown who God is and told about what God does.  In doing so, I hold what we call a low anthropology, that is, a view of humanity that is at best a supporting role in the bigger picture.  Such as view is long on grace and suspicious of good works as a way of righteousness.
 
And yet, the players in the stories we tell today do have a substantial role.  While they may be responding to what has been revealed, or what is given them in creation, they are part of the watershed that enables the story to flow downstream. 
 
The theologian, Richard Rohr puts it this way:
 
“If you want to see the future of Christianity as a great spiritual migration, don’t look at a church building. Go look in the mirror and look at your neighbor. God’s message of love is sent into the world in human envelopes. If you want to see a great spiritual migration begin, then let it start right in your body. Let your life be a foothold of liberation.”
 
We find ourselves in a time of some tribulation.  You all know the deep divisions, the great challenges, and the helplessness we often face and feel.  But if our story tells us anything today, it is that we may not powerful, but we love and serve a God who is.  If we look at what is floating past us on the river, we are apt just to react and respond.  But if we want to seek the will of God, if we trust that God is not finished with us, if we are to be hope, help and be those human envelopes of God’s message, we need to look to the watershed: the person and work of Jesus.
 
So much of what consumes us is what is in front of us and what is downstream.  Will we be safe, healthy, prosperous and happy?  But what feeds that outcome, what informs our actions, what washes over us as baptized people, is the source, the ground, the being of God in and for us.  There is so much love upstream ready to flow through us.  It is raining in that watershed.  Alleluia.