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5 Easter If you could name the greatest luxury we have living in this country, what would it be? Our standard of living? Our political system? Our freedom? Our diversity? Our creature comforts? What if I told you that before and above all these things, our greatest luxury as Americans is something so basic, so ubiquitous, none of us ever have to think about it. For in the world we live in, friends, the greatest luxury in our lives is water: clean, potable, sweet water. All we have to do is turn on the spigot, anywhere, at any time, and a seemingly endless flow of water is ours to use as we please. That is, unless there is a catastrophic water main break, leaving 2 million people without clean water this morning in the Boston area. Or when an oil rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, ushering in an ecological holocaust on the fresh and salt waters of the South. And here’s the greater reality: Over 1 billion people who inhabit this planet do not have the luxury of clean water. They live in places where the water is thick with pollution, or disease ridden, or non-existent. Here’s the reality: less than 1 % of the water on earth is fresh, and of that amount, only a small fraction is accessible and drinkable. The fact is water is more precious than gold, more luxurious than any other of the world’s resources. Some folks in the know have already figured this out. By the middle part of this century, most experts agree, we will see global wars over water. Already private companies are buying up what good water remains. And here’s one more ultimate reality to consider: water is eternal. And by this I mean there is the same amount of water on planet earth today as there was at the beginning, 5 billion years ago. These realities were not lost on the writers of the Bible, because they too lived in a land where water was scarce. Semi-arid Palestine yielded only small amounts of drinkable water, and to procure it, our spiritual forebears spent prodigious amounts of time and energy transporting it, insuring its safety, and being vigilant about its source. They knew the true value of water, because on a daily basis, they lived fully aware of their own thirst. So palpable and so constant was thirst in the world of the Bible that it was seen to animate our deepest desires and aspirations as human beings. Thirst was seen as a gateway to the soul and its own need for spiritual sustenance. And so it seems to me no small thing that our scriptures come to conclusion with the summing up of St John the Divine in the Book of Revelation which we read this morning in these stirring words: “And the One ’sat upon the heavenly throne said: ‘Behold I make all things new. It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without price from the fountain of the water of life.’” Water is precious. And to know thirst, to really know what it is to be thirsty is to know who and what we are, it is, in the words of our collect, to step into the way that leads to eternal life. “I give you living water, so that you may never thirst again,” Jesus said, “The water that I give will become in you a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” Three days without water, and you and I will die. We are made of water, over 50% of our bodies is composed of water. Our thirst can only be quenched by water. And in like manner, our thirsty souls can only be slaked by the spring of water that gushes up to eternal life. I cannot tell you how deep an impression was left in me on my recent travels in India, by simply acknowledging my thirst. I had to think about water all the time. I had to submit to my thirst. But unlike the vast majority of Indians, who will walk miles in the blazing sun for a cup of water, or who are forced to drink water that is infested with bacteria and viruses, I drank only purified water from bottles. Now if that isn’t an image of luxury, I don’t know what is! What left an even deeper impression on me, however, was to see the sheer delight and reverence Indians have for whatever water is available to them: as women gathered in the first light of dawn to discretely bathe themselves; as pilgrims descended into the mighty Ganges for cleansing; as children splashed and played in open city mains; as they all paid great attention to slaking their thirst. Water in India is sacred, and so is the thirst that draws us to it. One of these transplanted Indians was Mother Theresa. Her story is so well known now, that its humble beginnings is often lost in the grandeur of the Nobel Prize and her international recognition. When Sister Theresa began her mission in the sweeping slums of Calcutta, there was no support whatsoever for her work. She ministered to the wretched, the outcast, those whom no one else would touch or even dare look at, lepers, the disfigured and insane, the dying. To find a place to house these untouchables, Theresa went to the most unlikely place of all. She went to the center of the city and approached the chief priest of the great Temple of Kali, the Hindu God of Death. Moved by the little nun’s compassion, the chief priest consented and gave her a ramshackle building adjoining the temple. It became the first house for the dying of the Missionaries of Charity, and to see it now is an extraordinary experience. This small Christian hospice housing dozens of men of all ages, stands behind and in the shadow of the imposing gargantuan Kali temple. And as you go to the roof of the hospice, you are met with these simple words, painted for all to see: I thirst, a phrase that was among Mother Theresa’s favorite on her earthly pilgrimage. Ever since visiting this holy site, I have wondered about these words and why they resonated so deeply in this saintly woman’s heart. Yes, they spoke to Theresa’s thirst, who we know now wrestled hard with her dark night of the soul. They speak to the thirst of you and me, and how we can only be satisfied by what truly quenches our thirst. But there is something else, here in these words written by Mother about God’s thirst for us: “I thirst for you. Yes, that is the only way to even begin to describe my love for you: I thirst for you. I thirst to love and to be loved by you—that is how precious you are to me. I thirst for you. Come to me, and fill your heart and heal your wounds. If you feel unimportant in the eyes of the world, that matters not at all. For me, there is no one any more important in the entire world than you. I thirst for you. Open to me, come to me, thirst for me, give me your life—and I will prove to you how important you are to my heart.” Friends, here is the great mystery of our lives. Our thirst is a portal to eternity. And God’s thirst for us is a portal into this mortal realm, into the journey of each our earthly pilgrimages.
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