If everyone gets their fifteen minutes of fame, perhaps I had mine about six years ago. It was at the time I was called to Westmoreland when my picture appeared in the Washington Post. It had nothing to do, however, with my coming here, and I wasn’t identified as the church’s new pastor, or even as a minister at all, but simply as a member of a group called Humane Borders. The picture shows me in a wide-brimmed hat and sun glasses, filling a water station in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, so that migrants passing through on their way from Mexico or Central America on their way to a better life might not die of thirst. Now in the interest of full disclosure, it was a staged picture – I had lifted a nearly empty container and poured maybe eight cups of water into the storage tank. Hardly worthy of national exposure, but the picture found its way to a number of newspapers. I had volunteered that day to transport some reporters from national media outlets like the New York Times out into the desert west of Tucson, to an area where there had been far too many migrant deaths, so they could see the situation, and write about it, and hopefully draw attention to at least three things: One, people are risking their lives to cross the border, so that they might work in this country and send money back to their families, who might then have a little better life. Two, Border security policies have forced them to travel through remote and desolate areas, corridors where water is scarce, and many of them were literally dying of thirst. And, three, some people of faith were doing something about it, establishing well-marked water stations, and maintaining them – addressing this very basic human need first, not asking who was there legally and who was not, doing this even in cooperation with the Border Patrol and INS – and only after saving lives were they using the experience to try and address the larger issues of immigration, border policy, and our economic relationship with Mexico that drives the immigration. It’s all about thirst – thirst for a better life, which all too often resulted in thirst for water itself. I hope I played some small part in meeting that need and bringing the issue to attention, even if the picture in question was staged. (Turns out my fifteen minutes isn’t quite up: You can still find it on the Internet - just Google me in an image search – I’m about the 62nd image to come up!)

In the season of Lent, these water stations might serve as a metaphor for all of us in our spiritual journeys. We, too, are thirsty – thirsty for meaning and purpose, thirsty for direction, thirsty for companionship, thirsty for justice, thirsty for more abundant life, thirsty for the presence of God – and this thirst drives us sometimes to leave our daily routines of work and career and personal and family concerns and enter the deserts of life seeking that something more, something that will slake that thirst. Maybe we’re here because we see the Church as a kind of water station, offering that which will keep us from withering away spiritually, or dying inside.

The Psalmist, who lived in the midst of a desert climate, much like that which migrants pass through along the U.S.-Mexico border, understood this thirst very well, and put it this way:
O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

As one commentator puts it, “In every age, the human spirit longs for God. In this psalm we hear of that longing, that thirst, that hunger that feels like being lost in a dry, weary desert, without the most essential things for life, including the life of the spirit. Our spiritual longing takes on a physical dimension, and it feels like our very flesh hungers for spiritual nourishment.”
Last Sunday the lead article in the New York Times magazine was called “Darwin’s God.” It is all about how evolutionary biology is exploring how religion came about, how in effect, we humans are hard-wired to believe in God, by whatever name you use....”there seems an inherent human drive to believe in something transcendent, unfathomable and otherworldly, something beyond the reach or understanding of science.” It’s quite lengthy and involved, and I’d love to sit down and discuss it with some of you who are evolutionary biologists.... but the message I take is that the Psalmist’s longing is not an aberration – it’s the way we humans are, and as hard as it is to believe sometimes, it’s even hard to not want to believe. I came across the story of an Irish author telling of his frustration when, after many years of struggling with the question of God, he decided to be an atheist. And proud of it! So whenever the topic of religion came up he confidently proclaimed, "I'm an atheist." To which people in Ireland always replied, "Aye but are ye a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?”

The Psalmist sings not only of this thirst, but also of its quenching – finding the refreshing waters of God’s presence in the sanctuary, of experiencing God’s glory and power in the holy place of worship. And just as the longing felt like a physical one, the response is also an embodied one, with lips and eyes and hands all engaged in giving God praise, and ones soul feeling satisfied as after a great feast. It is a sense of peace and fulfillment that remains even when the psalmist returns home and goes to bed, lying peaceful in the deepest night, when fears often loom large and faith needs reinforcement.

The church, you see, can be such a sanctuary, or a water station, a place where thirsty souls drink at the well, from living waters which never fail. “Can” being the operative word. Are we?

We serve in the midst of a culture is one of the most faith-seeking on earth. It is also one of the most unchurched. Time and again people tell me how they are “spiritual” but not religious, at least in the institutional sense. Church is often seen as a place more interested in institutional preservation than in actually worshiping God or meeting human need, slaking the thirsts of the human spirit. Churches get caught up in doctrinal disputes leading to battles over ecclesiastical loyalty and who owns the property. We worry about budgets and what board is responsible for what program and forget about our purpose. We worry about who to allow in and who to keep out, employing bouncers – in the form of theology or policy or style, if not prejudice. And people are dying of thirst. But the good news is the bad news is the good news. The good news is people are naturally thirsty, are made to be seekers, and will engage in an incredible array of spiritual practices in their quest for the holy. The bad news is they don’t often turn to the church to be satisfied. The good news is, we do have a good source for the living water that our world needs, if we will consciously tap into it, and see that our water station is kept filled.

This has been brought into focus for many of us over the last couple of months, as we have been engaged in the “worship initiative,” led by the Deacons and Sid Fowler. Most of you filled out the worship surveys, and we have been studying the results – not as a consumer satisfaction survey, but as a way of discerning what worship practices people find meaningful, where our souls and spirits are touched, and asking what God might have us do now to reach out to those thirsty souls not yet here.

One of the intriguing comments made at the Leadership Retreat where we looked over all this was that our congregation is more concerned with seeking God than with praising God, more about the search for God than an actual encounter with God – that this is reflected in our worship, and may disappoint visitors and those who may hope to actually meet God here. There may be some truth to that. Certainly, if you were to attend, say a Pentecostal worship service, there would be no question among those leading the service that God was present. There would be signs and wonders and miracles in their midst. The Spirit would definitely be felt! Likewise, did you know that one of the fastest growing churches, especially among the 19-to-35-year-old age group that many of our churches are missing, is the Greek Orthodox Church? What we may call “bells and smells” – really, mystery and mysticism – speaks very clearly to many of the presence of God, as experienced in their worship.

Here, by long tradition and by temperament, our style is more cerebral. We are a people of the Book. Many books, actually! We love to talk, maybe more than we love to listen. By far, people say that the sermon is the most meaningful part of the service. (Or if it’s not, they wish it were!) We love ideas. We love seeking truth, finding more value in the journey than the destination. That’s not all bad, of course. We like to say that the problem with churches who have all the answers is that they don’t allow questions. We like to say that we’re a place where you don’t have to check your brains at the door. We even say that in the UCC we call ourselves “U-C-Seekers.” We live the questions. We don’t hide our doubts. We enjoy our freedom to explore and not be labeled heretics. That’s who we are and how we market ourselves.

But that isn’t all that we are, and I think we do things that really do speak of the very real presence of God in our midst – in prayers, in music, in the sacraments. People come with many needs, many thirsts, and different parts of the service address those. Sometimes we comfort the afflicted, at other times we afflict the comfortable. Sermons might challenge our preconceptions and prejudices, or they might offer something to hang onto, a lifeboat in life’s stormy seas. Music and liturgy and sacramental acts may offer a vehicle for getting closer to God, or a window upon God. Or they might offer inspiration for action – which, by the way, the survey reveals is how 2/3 of those who attend weekly, and 3/4 of the leaders of this congregation see worship – “a time to be inspired to do God’s work of justice and love.” Even things like announcements play an important role. Some feel they break the flow of worship, others see them as a vital part of worship – they build community, they demonstrate that what we do here has implications beyond these walls. We respond to the challenge of God’s word in lives of service and love, and here are some of the ways to do that. And for some, God is found not so much in worship as in the doing – in loving one’s neighbor, in the bonds between people, in service, in fellowship, in the living of life. Stay tuned – or better yet, get involved – as we continue this exciting exploration.

Seeking God, the quest to quench the thirst in our souls for an eternal connection that is a natural part of being human, is what we are about. And Lent is a time when we especially seek God’s presence, earnestly and thoughtfully, through spiritual disciplines and particular attentiveness to the ways God is still speaking in our lives. Whether in church or in the world, we can listen for God’s voice, feel God’s presence abiding with us, sense God’s reassuring love and challenging call. Just how that will happen, or what it will look like, cannot be defined. But a poem by Jane Kenyon puts it this way....

I am the blossom pressed in a book,
found again after two hundred years. . . .
I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper. . . .
When the young girl who starves
sits down to a table
she will sit beside me. . . .
I am food on the prisoner's plate. . . .
I am water rushing to the wellhead,
filling the pitcher until it spills. . . .
I am the patient gardener
of the dry and weedy garden. . . .
I am the stone step,
the latch, and the working hinge. . . .

I am the heart contracted by joy. . .
the longest hair, white
before the rest. . . .
I am there in the basket of fruit
presented to the widow. . . .
I am the musk rose opening
unattended, the fern on the boggy summit. . . .
I am the one whose love
overcomes you, already with you
when you think to call my name. . . .

(“Briefly it enters, and briefly speaks”
From The Boat of Quiet Hours
by Jane Kenyon,
published by Graywolf Press
© 1986 by Jane Kenyon.)

Last updated Wednesday, Februrary 29, 2008

1 Westmoreland Circle
Bethesda, MD 20816
301-229-7766
Email the church office: churchinfo@westmorelanducc.org
www.westmorelanducc.org

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