I watched a TV documentary
this week about elephant poaching for ivory, and the investigator commented, there are two kinds of people – those who
wish for possessions, and those who wish for something much larger. The
poachers, the go-betweens, the consumers of beautiful ivory items….and those
who actively try to stop this because they see a much bigger picture.
I’m guessing most of us are
not involved in poaching, but we are desperate consumers of stuff. Most of us are not involved in the trade of
ivory, but we rarely question where our stuff comes from, or what some people
had to go through to get it to us.
Sadly, many of us aren’t
actively involved in anything larger, either.
Our vision is pretty limited to our own little corner of the world, and
is usually material- based, earth-bound, tangible, logical. If I can see it, and it affects me, I’ll pay
attention.
For example, in our Isaiah
text, the writer has God asking, why are
you working for something that doesn’t satisfy? Have you ever asked yourself that? Have we ever considered that all our hustle
and bustle and ambition and scrambling up the ladder of success isn’t actually
satisfying us?
So now that I’ve raised the
question, what ARE you thirsting for?
Some of us might answer
something like
A new job
A raise
A promotion
A good grade on a report card
Others, a little more in
touch with the nonmaterial realm might say you’re thirsty for
good news from a medical test
relief from depression
comfort after a loss
Or those with a bigger vision who “wish for
something larger” might say you thirst for
A little more respect at work
or a bit more affection at home, or
Answers to life’s perplexing
questions, like the disciples in our gospel reading
And as our vision expands, so
does our thirst, and then we thirst for things like
more compassion,
justice, or world peace
or a deeper connection with
God.
So what are you thirsting
for? ………
And once you name it, is an
hour a week sitting fairly passively in a church, doing it for you?
Of course not. No more than one glass of water a week would
satisfy your physical thirst
God invites,
Come, quench your thirst with something much larger, something free.
What God offers is only found
in the larger visions—it’s soul food—promised in Isaiah’s wonderful passage of
the new abundant life that follows trauma of loss and exile for God’s people
then, and now….
God’s vision of a reversal of
values for those who’ve been devastated by war, broken by loss, scattered physically
and battered emotionally…God offers a different mindset that invites us into
something much larger, and it’s free…its wondrous metaphoric language is a
reminder that the material realm is not the only one in the cosmos: we also
live, mostly unaware, in a realm of soul energy that we can’t see, where
God-qualities like kindness and compassion float freely,
where care of the earth and
the elephants matters deeply, where
Love, the life force of the cosmos, not possessions or power, quenches thirst
This realm is a rich source
of thirst-quenching water, an ever-flowing stream, not a once-a-week well. And if we’re still thirsty, we need to be
coming to the waters more often, day by day, sometimes hour by hour….to live
our lives close to the stream.
If we don’t, we’re a waste of
soil, like the fig tree in the gospel reading.
(Reading from The Wisdom Way of Knowing p58)
And if we DO,
(Reading from The Wisdom Way of Knowing p59)
Story from the ancients about
the teacher handing out the water…..
This Lent, this week, this
day, let’s stop struggling, whether for possessions, prestige, power or even
just pleasure.
Instead, let’s come to the
waters, and tap in daily to the divine stream of abundant life. Then, and only then, can we be involved in
that something much larger that will bring about compassion,
justice, world peace, a deeper connection with God.
It is our human job to
release that energy so the planet and
all that’s alive may also have abundant life we know through Jesus the Christ.
What are you thirsting
for? Come to the waters.
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