Water Communion

September 9, 2007

Rali Weaver

First Church and Parish Dedham

I love that hymn we just sang.

“As tranquil streams that meet and merge and flow as one to seek the sea, our kindred hearts and minds unite to build a church that shall be free.”

It is a beautiful melody and also an empowering lyric.

“Prophetic Church the future waits your liberating ministry, go forward in the power of love, and proclaim the truth that makes us free.”

I wanted to start this church year out with a prophetic word and a big bang of a service this morning.

I wanted to offer up something as fantastic as the lightning and thunder we had last night from this pulpit this morning, something that reminds us all of the work we need to do and why we are coming back to row together again this year.

Being in the midst of a drought, I thought I would have had plenty of fodder for a sermon on protecting our water resources, and with all the news about global warming I had planned to regale you this morning on the importance of protecting our environment.

The problem was that every time I started that sermon about the importance of water conservation my sermon sounded dry. I realized quickly that the reason I was having such a hard time is because all I wanted to do was to extend the summer and slow this headlong rush into the hectic autumn season.

I imagine some of you feel that same way, because starting back to school or work after the relaxed summer schedule can sometimes feel as though you are starting a race. While races can be fun, going from a slow, leisurely time to a fast-paced time can be exhausting and stressful, and I have found myself this week putting on my clothes backwards and making coffee without putting coffee in the filter. And I realized that the pressure of getting this first sermon as your called minister, right, was making all my words seem wrong.

And I have decided that instead of prophetic words I am going to settle for simply encouraging us all to slow down.

In many ways, rituals, like our water communion service today, help us to do just that--slow down. By taking the time to be intentional, and exploring our life through ritual we can savor life and make things last.

I understand from Rev. Clary that this water ritual has been a long-time tradition at First Church. Everyone brings water from places where they have connected to nature and shares their stories, and in this punch bowl those stories merge together. Spending time in nature is one way of slowing life down. Sharing our experiences is another. The water we bring today is then taken and filtered and used throughout the year for baby naming or baptisms.

The use of water for purification is an ancient and time-honored tradition. Most of the world’s religions use water in some ritualistic way to purify an individual from uncleanliness before any ritual takes place. The Hebrew Scriptures are full of countless rituals of purification, and modern mainstream Judaism continues to specify several laws for purity, including, in some cases, full immersion.

In Christianity, water baptism is not only seen as a cleansing from original sin, but also as a right of passage. In the day of John the Baptist, full-immersion baptism was used to prepare people for the coming Messiah.

In some more orthodox faiths, careful rituals of purification involving different layers of washing are set up for laity and clergy to use, including separate bowls of water for dipping fingers and making the sign of the cross.

Islamic rituals for purification are centered on preparation for prayer, and also take place prior to touching the Koran.

Buddhists also wash before meditation.

All of these rituals, as well as all types of preparation, have a way of slowing things down. Most of these rituals pre-date germ theory and seem to have been born out of an organic human need.

Our water from this ritual today will be used throughout the year for our baptisms and baby naming. In a Unitarian context, our use of water for babies has nothing to do with cleansing away sin or unworthiness; we believe that we are all born worthy. Instead, this ritual is used to embrace the newcomers in our midst and to give them names.

Making an intentional connection and marking important moments in our lives with ritual is another way of savoring what is important in our lives.

Every time I have named a baby, the water has been central part of the ritual. Perhaps the parents were engaged by the Euphrates River and water from that river is used to bless the child. Or the grandparents are still practicing Catholics and so they bring water that has been blessed by their priest to be used.

Whenever a child is named in a Unitarian Universalist Church, the water plays a most important role.

The families who choose to bless their children with the water we prepare today will benefit from all of your summer vacations. The child who is baptized in our water will have the blessing of all of our shared stories and experience. (Isn’t that wonderful!) Taking time to share our experiences is yet another way to make things last.

There is something else here, too. Every time I bless a child and I hold the child, I get a powerful feeling that my mother and father once held me in that same way. And before them, their mother and fathers did the same. I can see the arms wrapping around us from generations before. And then I realize that this child will some day hold another child in this same way that I am holding her. And so it will go throughout time: arms holding, bodies receiving, in an unbroken line. When we look at our water communion in this way, it lends an almost transcendent quality to what we will do today.

We share our stories, we pour our water in the same way that you did this last year and in the same way that we will do this again next year.

What faces were here last year that are missing on this day?

Who might join us next year who is absent today?

There is an inescapable chain of interdependence that connects us across time and generations. Our history and our connections make us stronger, but I hope that in some small way they can also remind us to slow down, and remind us that what is present will pass and will come again.

May our hearts and minds work together to share this journey day by day.

May we pay attention to the beauty that surrounds us in nature and in the passing of seasons. May we pour freely this water at this time of drought, knowing that our rivers will be full again. And may this water bless each of us in the ways that it also blesses each new life that enters our community this year.