Sermon thoughts and other musings

What is "living water"? To us, the phrase is just a euphemism. To persons in Biblical times, living water meant running water - as opposed to stagnant, standing water. In nature, it's pretty obvious that you would prefer to drink fresh running water instead of standing water.

Movement vs. stagnation. That's what the Gospel is all about. The usual Scripture text for Pentecost is Acts 2:1-21. A piece of great advice I heard from a friend about reading that passage is "watch the walls." What he meant by that is that Jesus appears to a group huddled in a room - then suddenly there is a crowd! What happened to the walls? The Spirit calls us to leave our walled existences and get out among the people. Being people of Pentecost - "pentecostal", if you will - means being willing to build bridges to others across every wall that humanity has been able to erect.

Too many churches are content to open their doors, but unwilling to leave their walls. But the willingness to move beyond our own life experience and connect with others in their lives helps us try to understand what their lives are like. Theologian Frederick Buechner says that the capacity to live in someone else’s skin is the definition of compassion. And he went on to say that compassion also means understanding that there cannot truly be joy and peace for me until there is joy and peace for you

True compassion isn't about letting people inside our walls; the compassion we need to show is the compassion of God - the God who came to earth as Jesus Christ, and the God who moves among us in the person of the Holy Spirit.

Do you want to be standing water or living water?