July 27, 2008
First Congregational Church in Thetford, Vermont, UCC
(this sermon consists of a series of related readings with time for reflection)
Part One – Psalm 104, NRSV
You set the earth on its foundations, so that it shall never be shaken.
You cover it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.
At your rebuke the flee; at the sound of your thunder they take to flight.
They rose up to the mountains, ran down to the valleys to the place that you appointed
for them.
You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.
You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills, giving drink to
every wild animal; the wild asses quench their thirst.
By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches.
From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of
your work. (Psalm 104:5-13)
(a few moments for silent reflection)
Part Two – Statistics, Global Ministries/CTS newsletter
How Much Water??
* 70 percent of Earth’s surface is covered by water,
* 97.5 percent of the world’s water is salt water and
* 2.5 percent fresh water. Most of this fresh water is trapped in polar ice caps, with
much of the rest found as soil moisture or kept in underground aquifers.
* According to the World Health Organization, less than 1 percent of the world’s
freshwater, or 0.007 percent of all the water on Earth, is readily available for
human consumption.
Some Water Facts?
* One person in North America uses an average of 487,150 gallons of fresh water
each year, the highest average on the planet. By comparison, Africans use about
64,722 gallons.?(7.5 x more)
* According to the United Nations and World Health Organization, one of every
five people lacks access to safe drinking water – and half of the world’s
population lacks adequate water-purification systems. ?
* Lack of water is not just about dry crops or thirst. Consumption of and exposure
to unsafe water kills more than 25,000 people every day and accounts for about
80 percent of the illness in the developing world.??
* According to the World Water Development Report, a UN survey, over the next
two decades, the average supply of water per person will drop by a third.
Heightened hunger and disease will follow. Humanity's demands for water also
threaten natural ecosystems, and may bring nations into conflict.
(http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/water/index.html)
Bottled Water Industry
* Fortune magazine recently described water as “one of the world’s great business
opportunities. It promises to be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th.”
(http://www.cbc.ca/news/features/water/) In fact, water “is the fastest growing
sector of the US beverage market and is a $55 billion a year business globally.”
(www.stopcorporateabuse.org)
* It is estimated that over half of the US population drinks bottled water with an
estimated 15% drinking only bottled water. (www.stopcorporateabuse.org)
* At a recent International Bottled Water Association convention a spokeswoman
for the industry reported that last year Americans spent $13.1 billion on bottled
water.
* Some in the industry predict that bottled water sales will eclipse soda by 2011.
(LasVegasSun.com)
(a few moments for silent reflection)
Part Three – Stories, Global Ministries/Church World Service
Elma from Ethiopia, “I go to collect water four times a day, in a 20-liter clay jar. It’s hard
work! I’ve never been to school, as I have to help my mother with her washing work so
we can earn enough money. Our house doesn’t have a bathroom. If I could alter my life, I
would really like to go to school and have more clothes.” (Elma Kassa, 13-year-old girl,
Ethiopia, Source: Church World Service)
Juana is an eleven-year-old who lives in the Chalatenango region of El Salvador. Juana’s
father was killed during the war and she now lives with her grandfather, her aunt and
several cousins in a small two-room house. She is bright and delightful, with an infectious
smile. Juana also works very hard every day. Each morning, she rises early and joins other
young people in her community on a 30-minute walk to get her family’s daily water
supply, which she brings back in a five-gallon jug balanced carefully on her head. Then
she gathers her family’s clothes and, at a nearby creek, she washes, scrubs and hangs to
dry the day’s laundry. After a breakfast of beans and tortillas (and sometimes a
scrambled egg), she’s off to school where she studies math, reading, literature, science
and English.
(a few moments for silent reflection)
Part Four – Sabbaths 2002, VI, Wendell Berry
(Given: New Poems by Wendell Berry; 2005, Shoemaker & Hoard publishers, pages 110-
113)
(a few moments for silent reflection)
Part Five – exerpts from Atchafalaya by John McPhee (in The Control of Nature)
(The Control of Nature by John McPhee; 1989, Farrar Straus Giroux publishers, pages 32-
33, 36, 37, 39-40, 42, 59, 60, 61, 63)
(a few moments for silent reflection)
Part Six – Rumi (13th century Sufi) and Revelation
Jars of springwater are not enough
anymore. Take us down to the river!
The face of peace, the sun itself.
No more the slippery cloudlike moon.
Give us one clear morning after another
and the one whose work remains unfinished,
who is our work as we diminish, idle,
though occupied, empty, and open.
(Jars of Springwater from The Glance: Songs of Soul Meeting by Rumi, translated by
Coleman Barks; 1999, Viking Arkana publishers, page 1)
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from
the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On
either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit
each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations (Rev 22:1-2).
Amen.
Sermon 07/27/2008