This sermon was given, with some variations, at Grace Episcopal Church in Amherst, MA on Feb. 18th, 2024. The readings can be found here. Photo by Hunter So on Unsplash.
“…a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through the water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you.”
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God, mother of us all. Amen.
This morning, we enter the story of Noah and the flood at an interesting, and one might say convenient, point – the point of salvation and life and promise, rather than Noah and his family being surrounded by destruction as rain poured down around them. Our epistle, which I just quoted, seems to understand the story from this optimistic point of view as well, referring to Noah and his family as being saved through the water – just as the waters of baptism still save today. But still, if you’re anything like me, you might be asking: OK, eight were saved through the water, but how many others were killed by it?
Water is essential to life, but the story of a flood so big that it gives the earth and humanity a do-over should also have us thinking about suffering and destruction. Water can devastate, perhaps through a torrential storm or perhaps because of obstacles to accessing the essential, life-giving water that we need.
Our Gospel today gives a glimpse of that positive side of water. As Jesus emerges from the River Jordan and the waters of baptism, he hears a declaration from his Father: Jesus is beloved, and with him God is well pleased.
Quickly after this, however, Jesus is sent into the wilderness. The Gospel of Mark doesn’t give us much insight into what exactly happens in the wilderness. Did Jesus struggle with thirst? What role did water play for him out there? Whatever Jesus’ exact experience might have been, we can acknowledge that water is sometimes a fraught thing for people in the wilderness, something that may be hard to come by or that may require more preparation or effort to access safely.
Within our own country, water is fraught for those who migrate to the U.S. over the Mexico border, people sometimes dying from fatal dehydration in places like the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and California. Non-profit groups like Humane Borders provide water stations and shade over commonly traversed routes through the desert, in hopes of preventing such deaths.
Water isn’t only fraught in the wilderness, either, with water sometimes becoming contaminated or inaccessible even in U.S. cities or towns. Jackson, Mississippi – a city of 150,000 people – faced breakdowns in water access for weeks at a time, both in 2021 and 2022. Just a few months ago, the city of Baltimore had to put out an advisory for immunocompromised individuals about the presence of a parasite in water. Last year, in Hawaii, a clinic was opened specifically to treat those who were dealing with illnesses after consuming water contaminated by a leak at a naval base; that contaminated water had 350 times the level of petroleum that would be safe for drinking water.
Water is so necessary. Our Scriptures tell us it is precious but we also know that it’s precarious: easily threatened, or in the case of the great flood, easily threatening. Water is complicated.
Earlier this week, an article came out in the magazine The Christian Century titled “In Gaza, water is life,” exploring both the life-giving and fraught dimensions of water in the context of violence in Gaza. Written by two staff members of the organization Churches for Middle East Peace, the article begins by quoting one of their contacts in Gaza, who says, “The war is making me a more grateful person. I am starting to appreciate every single small thing, like when I used to drink water anytime I wanted. And having it hot or cold.”
The article goes on to highlight the humanitarian crisis in Gaza especially in terms of water. Access to clean water is at approximately about 5 percent of what it was prior to October 7th, but even before then, 95 percent of water in Gaza needed treatment in order to be drinkable. In addition to Israel cutting off water pipelines to Gaza, the reduced water access is also attributable to damage done to wells, pumps and towers, sewer networks, and desalination units through bombardment. A lack of fuel is also a major factor, since fuel is needed for many of the technologies that make water drinkable in Gaza.
Besides people not having enough water to drink – or safe, quality water to drink – a lack of water also leads to other crises, like hospitals not having enough water to clean off wounds.
In December, the organization Save the Children warned that starvation and disease – which are intertwined with the water crisis – may be just as fatal in Gaza as fighting and bombing, a disturbing claim when the humanitarian organization Oxfam has already calculated last month that Gaza has a daily average death rate higher than that of any other armed conflict in the last 24 years. As of two months ago, almost 8,000 children under 5 were suffering from the deadliest form of malnutrition which requires immediate medical care. We can imagine that number is only higher now.
On a very literal level, all this this reinforces what Peter’s letter is saying: people are, or can be, saved through water. Water can be a manifestation of, a reminder of, an immersion into God’s love and care and justice. And also the reality in Gaza reinforces that people can be doomed by water, whether by an abundance of it, like in a flood, or by contamination of it, or by the restriction or denial of it.
An endangered relationship to water can be characteristic of a wilderness experience, whether it’s a more natural wilderness like the kind Jesus enters into or the kind of wilderness that humans inflict on one another. According to one of my favorite writers on Scripture, Debie Thomas, this Gospel tells us three things about wilderness: “1) Jesus didn’t choose the wilderness, 2) The struggle is long, 3) There are angels in the desert.”
All three of those statements – Jesus didn’t choose the wilderness, the struggle is long, and there are angels in the desert – seem worth sitting with, but for today, I want to focus on the presence of angels in Jesus’ wilderness, in our wilderness, and even in the most incomprehensible and unjustifiable wildernesses happening around the world.
The article from Churches for Middle East Peace foregrounds the great need for water in Gaza, but it also shares a story that we might interpret as angelic presence in the wilderness. Particularly, it talks about the Holy Family Church in Gaza, a Catholic parish where some 650 people have been sheltering for 100+ days. There has been great tragedy at Holy Family, including a mother and daughter shot and killed on church grounds, but there has also been what Bishop William Shomali describes as a miracle. The church’s well, dug by a priest of the parish about 70 years ago, is somehow still working.
“The miracle is in the foresight of the priest to dig such a deep well,” Shomali said, about this well still being able to provide for those who are sheltering there.
In the midst of great loss and danger, there is a little bit of life peaking through, in people sharing in this miraculous water in the midst of the most dire circumstances. A little bit of God making herself known, persistent and insistent, even when so much else obscures Her presence.
In the Bible, angels are messengers of God, often inviting people to be brave or letting them know God is with them. Perhaps there is something of the angelic in anyone and everything that gives people courage to hope, courage to survive; in anyone and everything that connects people to love, or God’s care and attention. There is something angelic happening whenever we are reminded of what we heard in today’s Genesis passage: that God doesn’t want us destroyed, that instead God is engaged in relationship with us and every living creature – no matter who we are, no matter how much power we have or don’t, no matter what the world might to do us.
So, though there is much that might horrify in the wilderness, let’s look for angels too. Not as a silver lining that we use out of desperation to dull suffering or the tragedy, not as a way to reduce the urgency with which we might call for change or for peace – but instead because our faith tells us that this is the truth: that, to quote a beloved psalm, if you climb up to heaven, God is there; if you make the grave your bed, God is there; if you dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, God is there; always, everywhere, somehow, someway.
We look for angelic presence to help us to endure, to help us know we don’t speak up for, pray for, work for peace and the well-being of the world alone, but with the empowerment of God who desires those things more than any of us could.
This task of looking-for-angels is for our own personal wildernesses too, no matter how small or big we might think they are. The “wild beasts” that threaten us may range wildly. They may be things outside of us that might prey upon us – racism, homophobia or transphobia, financial or professional stresses, a natural disaster the loss of a loved one – or things inside of us – a struggle with greed, apathy, anger, a lack of forgiveness, loneliness, a challenge to our mental health, what-have-you. All of these wild beasts – every single one of them – can coexist with angels.
We don’t have to wait until Easter to get to the goodness of God. Here it is, breaking in, on the first Sunday of Lent, a season of wilderness, and waiting, and temptation, and preparation. Even if it only comes in the smallest slivers, the goodness of God can meet us in our confrontations with mortality, limits, weakness, and sin.
I wonder for each of us if there’s some miraculous well available – a well inside us, or a well we share with others, that we gather around – a well that surprises by drawing forth life and provision and hope, even when we feel close to hopeless. Is there a miracle in your life….something that doesn’t explain away or alleviate your suffering but instead communicates to you the presence of God even if you are suffering?
This Lenten season, may we hold in mind the wildernesses of others alongside our own – especially those who have no choice in their wilderness, and especially those whose wilderness includes a lack of the saving, life-giving water we all need. May the presence of wild beasts, danger, or temptation have us on the look-out for where angels might be – and for the chance to join in on their work, communicating hope and love and care and God whenever, wherever, however we can. Amen.
Rev. Megan McDermott 
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