Called to the Waters
“He came away from the waters of Jordan caked in filth and dirt. He came away from the waters of the Jordan with the sins of the world covering Him.”
– Rev. Roy Askins
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Most pilgrims today go to the Jordan River never knowing its waters are heavily polluted . . . and dwindling down to a slow trickle. Christianity’s holiest waterway has become entangled in a morass of pipelines, geopolitical tugs-of-war, and streams of waste. But this is not just true of the Jordan. Seven thousand miles away at the Jordan River in Salt Lake City the same thing is happening: rafts of discarded plastic bottles, carts, tires, and other trash are choking the channel to the Great Salt Lake.
At the site of pollution, how do we enact purification? What does baptism look like in an age of environmental degradation?
The rite of baptism reminds us that earth’s own waters can reveal ourselves to ourselves—and to God. If we have eyes to see, they reflect back to us our moral universe, showing our level of care for each other and God’s Creation. As in Flint, MI, where corrosive water from the Flint River was pumped through old lead pipes into kitchens where parents cooked and tubs where kids bathed, causing a public health crisis, we are called to answer for how we treat each other. From poorly planned dams and habitat loss to the introduction of invasive species, entangled fishing lines, and the climate emergency, the waters mirror the state of our ethical commitments.
Since the beginning, water has been a language through which God communicates to us, sacramentally. John the Baptist used waters from the rugged wilderness, carved from craggy rocks and muddy streams and home to locusts, to purify. He used water at a place past the edge of Judea’s built-up cities.
When we dispense with the tangled terrains of local rivers like the Jordan because their waters are too dirty and when we celebrate rites of baptism with water from the tap, we never see the ways that our local waters are connected and disconnected to our spiritual lives—even though the act of facing up to this truth about the ways we use God’s Creation without care would carry enormous potential for our own spiritual purification and renewal. We hide the truth from ourselves.
God is waiting for us in the water.
Perhaps paradoxically the only water with the power to cleanse us is earth’s own waters, which carry with them the truth about who and what we are—in our microplastics, in the heavy metals, in our reams of netting, in the messiness of our lives. It demands of us a question: Given all of this, how will you be purified? It gives the age-old answer: Through truth, humility, and love. Through grace. It reveals to us, this is you.
What does renewal look like? It could take many forms. For a faith community, it could be “adopting” a local waterway; holding regular volunteer clean-ups at a local river or stream; sharing the plate with a group conserving local waters; and helping teens and young adults in religious education to explore the history of a local waterway, including the water’s name and significance to local Indigenous Peoples. Baptism is an invitation to find out where your drinking water comes from and to hold regular visits, dips, and gatherings at a local waterway.
Many communities are already doing this work. Thanks to decades of hard work by locals and community leaders, the Bronx River in New York City, which had been cut off from its natural headwaters in the late 1800s and treated for centuries as a “natural sewer,” is now teeming with life again. In the 1970s, the river had been so covered with piles of garbage, local residents did not even know it existed. Now that the waters have been restored, school children visit the river to learn about biology and ecosystems, now that beavers have returned to the river for the first time in 200 years. And urban farmers grow food along parts of the river for residents in need, some of whom suffer the highest rates of food insecurity in the country, proving that these waters can sustain life again.
We are called by the waters to make structural changes to ensure everyone in our community has access to clean, affordable drinking water. In 2012, the human rights organization I worked for, UUSC, was part of a coalition that convinced the State of California to adopt the nation’s first human right to water bill. These protections are more important than ever as the years-long “Megadrought” has put 37 million people at risk of drinking water shortages.
In addition to deep reflections on baptism, we also need new rituals that can help us to honor our connection to our local waterways and each other. Last week, I joined students in leading a UU Water Communion in Yale’s Marquand Chapel. We poured waters from pitchers into a communal basin, to symbolize the waterways of the places that we call home and how they join together. We sang to the different waters of New Haven, CT, including the West, Mill, and Quinnipiac rivers and the Long Island Sound. And we named the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority as the facility that produces our drinking water."
Each plan to support local freshwater sources will look different, inspired by the local waters, learned by moving closer and listening for what is needed. To question our ability to hear God through polluted, dwindling waters would question the very condition of the world.
God is waiting for us.
In the water, we are called to spiritual renewal, knowing full well who we are, doing hard work, waiting for grace. As we know, it is not water that purifies us or fire, but the Holy Spirit, who answers on a whim the heart that loves truth and knows compassion. It’s messy, beautiful, tangled stuff.
You are invited into the waters.
¹ Rich, Adrienne, Diving into the Wreck: Poems, 1971-1972 (New York, N.Y.: Norton, 1973).
² “Why Does Puget Sound Need Our Help?,” Snohomish County Washington, https://snohomishcountywa.gov/3856/Why-Does-Puget-Sound-Need-Our-Help (accessed August 7, 2022).
³ “Census: Region grew by 600,000 in 10 years,” Puget Sound Regional Council, https://psrc.org/whats-happening/blog/census-region-grew-600000-10-years (accessed August 7, 2022).
⁴ “Why Does Puget Sound Need Our Help?,” Snohomish County Washington.
⁵ “Water Quality Improvement,” Department of Ecology State of Washington, https://ecology.wa.gov/Water-Shorelines/Water-quality/Water-improvement (accessed August 7, 2022).
⁶ Rich, Diving into the Wreck: Poems.
⁷“History of the Duwamish People,” Duwamish Tribe, https://www.duwamishtribe.org/history (accessed August 14, 2022).
⁸ “Directory of Projects,” Department of Ecology State of Washington, https://fortress.wa.gov/ecy/ezshare/wq/WaterQualityImprovement/TMDL/projectdirectory.htm#K (accessed August 7, 2022).
⁹ Erdoes and Ortiz, eds., American Indian Myths and Legends, 95-97.
¹⁰ 2 Cor.12:2-4 (NRSV)
¹¹“Why Does Puget Sound Need Our Help?,” Snohomish County Washington.
¹² “Issues and Problems in Puget Sound,” Department of Ecology State of Washington, https://ecology.wa.gov/Water-Shorelines/Puget-Sound/Issues-problems (accessed August 7, 2022)
¹³ “Sammamish River Temperature & Dissolved Oxygen TMDL,” Washington State Department of Ecology, https://ecology.wa.gov/Water-Shorelines/Water-quality/Water-improvement/Total-Maximum-Daily-Load-process/Directory-of-improvement-projects/Sammamish-River-TMDL (accessed August 7, 2022).
¹⁴ Climate Change Impacts on Puget Sound Floodplains,” Climate Impacts Group, https://cig.uw.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/11/TNC_Floodplains_3_25_16_bothlogos.pdf (accessed August 14, 2022).
¹⁵ Mathew, Naomi and Anais Remili, “Third newborn for Southern Residents: Killer whale baby boom.” Whale Scientists, https://whalescientists.com/killer-whale-baby-boom/ (accessed August 7, 2022).
¹⁶ “Why Does Puget Sound Need Our Help?,” Snohomish County Washington.
¹⁷ Kohler, Kaufmann and Samuel Krauss,“Baptism,” Jewish Encyclopedia, https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2456-baptism (accessed August 7, 2022).
