Psalm 114
Where there is water, God makes the land dry.
Where there is no water, God brings water forth.
Where there is other water, God walks on it.
Still other water is turned into blood or wine.
Raging waters are calmed, and living water never stops flowing.
Water flows from eyes and when that is not enough blood flows from brows and sides.
Waters are created. Waters are separated. Waters are stopped. Waters flow. And water kills us but more often keeps us alive. This is the way it was, the way it is, and the way that it will be. And there is a peace in that, knowing that the water is and who it comes from and how it works and why so much of the universe, the earth, and us are made of it. But sometimes God takes what is ordinary, what is known and flips our understanding on its head. I can't imagine what it is like to be a slave to a superpower, after all I am a member of a super power. I can't imagine what it is like to need water when you are surrounded by sand, after all water magically flows with a twist of a knob, cold or hot or even lukewarm at my desire. I can't imagine what it is like to be on the run for my life and needing the water to move and it moves, after all I am comfortable and safe in my own little world. But the people of Israel, the Bible ones, didn't have to imagine it, they lived it and they were both better off and worse off because of it.
Jesus says that if you are given much, much is expected, and it was true of the Israelites, they were chosen and shown wonder after wonder. Sometimes they followed closely and sometimes they wandered in the desert for 40 years. Sometimes they were protected and sometimes they were defeated. And if that was all that was true we would be just fine in our day and age, but that is not the rest of the story. The rest of the story is that we have also been given much, in the shape of a thick book containing multiple books and sometimes we follow closely and sometimes we wander in our own deserts. We have the stories that they lived, and we have other stories of a God taking on flesh and dwelling among us. We have his teachings, his parables, his actions and if we fail to listen, to take to heart, to follow close enough to get the dust of the rabbi on us we may also go from protected to defeated, perhaps we will not be slaves to another, but we can very easily become slaves to our own desires, our own decisions, our own sins.
Believe in the water, but believe that God can make the water part, or appear, or calm, or rage.
+ What does water mean to you?
+ How are you treating your 'much'?
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