Water Gushing from the Rock

Pentecost A: “Water gushing from the rock”

Today I would like you to focus on the image of water. Not just water, but abundant water, water gushing from a rock.  I know you have heard those words from the psalms or from the book of Exodus, but have you ever seen in your imagination water gushing out from a rock.  Back when I was in the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, water was always an issue.  We had a giant holding tank on the hill above the monastery, and we had a windmill that pumped water up to that tank.  Most of the year, the wind mill couldn’t pump enough and so we used a small Briggs and Straton engine to fill the tank.  The water we pumped was drinkable, but if you left it in a glass for sixty seconds the orange colored iron would settle to the bottom. If you boiled it, a lot of iron settled, and when you washed your clothes with it, it would turn your whites orange.  And so we had a custom, once a summer to hike up one of the mesa’s to a spring fed stream to get fresh, pure, delicious water and to bring some back for drinking.  We hiked up to that stream and the water was ice cold and delicious we packed our bottles.  I said let’s hike up to the source of the stream.  We followed the stream through the meadow and up the side of mesa through the aspen saplings, and then there it was, the source of the stream, water gushing out of the side of a rock. It had been gushing there for a thousand years, probably young native Americans had come there to drink. After all these years it was still gushing.  Can you picture it?  Water in the desert, water gushing from a rock? Can you see this gushing water drawing people for years, for centuries?

Let me give you another example of water drawing people: the Ohio River.  Once, the Ohio was a wild river without levies and without damns.  It was a wild river with a mind of its own.  It drew settlers from the East who came in flat boats and discovered the gentle plains of Kentucky.  They were draw to the fertile fields and to the farms and ranches they envisioned here.  They were drawn to the Ohio as a super highway of transportation for people and for goods.   This town, once called Limestone, and now Maysville is here because of the Ohio River.  Water draws us.

In today’s Gospel we find Jesus in Jerusalem at the feast of the tabernacles.  It is a feast that is seven days long and it commemorates the time that Moses was out in the wilderness and struck a rock and water came gushing out of it.  Moses took the staff that God had given him, hits the rock and water came gushing out of it.  The feast of the Tabernacles remembered that story, and to commemorate it, every day for seven days the priest would go out into the center of Jerusalem where there was a large spring called the pool of Siloam.  The pool was bubbling up out of this rock and the priest would dip his pitcher into the pool and bring it back to the temple where he would pour it.  This was to remind everyone of the miracle that happened when Moses struck the rock and water came out of it.  One day Jesus was watching the priest bend down and dip the water that from the pool and Jesus said when the Holy Spirit comes and lives with you, out of your heart will flow rivers of living water.. I remember that long hike up the walls of the Chama canyon to that stream and then to the Rock with gushing water.  I see again that ice cold water on a hot summer day, and I taste again that pure fresh water with out the iron and it was delicious. I remember the words of Jesus: Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water and I understand them.  Sometimes our hearts are hard. But Jesus knows the power of the resurrection and the power of the Holy Spirit to penetrate our stony hearts.  He sees rivers of living water flowing from our hearts.  Today is feast of Pentecost and this feast reminds us that the Holy Spirit comes in our lives and into our hearts and the Holy Spirit will flow from inside of us like a spring of living water.  The Spirit that will flow through us is not something abstract or far off.  It is kindness, and care.  It is compassion and love.  It is mercy and forgiveness.  The spirit is the spirit that brought so many people together to do something for the Montessori school yesterday.  The spirit is the spirit that holds us all together and makes us people who consider the needs of others beyond these walls and in our community.

Today, we will welcome into this community Brent Mullikin.  On this Pentecost Brent will receive the sacrament of Baptism and will experience the Holy Spirit in a special way this day.  I ask you to stand Brent.  Brent, I pray that the Father will bless you with the spirit of Jesus Christ.  I pray that spirit will fill your heart to overflowing.  I pray that this Holy Spirit will wash you clean and that you will see your whole life as God’s mercy and forgiveness.  I pray that you will see your whole life as God’s gift and that you will know that God is sending you out to do the work he has given you to do which is to show mercy, forgiveness and compassion to those around you.  We thank God for you and we will welcome you as our brother in your Baptism.

We as a congregation will share in this experience of Brent, and we will renew our baptismal promises.  This day God will reach down into our hearts and change them from hearts of stone to hearts of flesh.  God will penetrate us with his Holy Spirit and that Spirit will flow right out of us, so that we all will do the works he has given us to do.

AMEN