This past November, I had the rare privilege of speaking at the Johnson Symposium on Faith and Society at Holy Trinity, Minneapolis.  The featured speaker was Winona LaDuke, who inspired us all through her stories, her lived experience, and her current critical work. She spoke of the many people who are standing up for the rights of nature, of mother earth, of rivers, even of wild rice! She spoke of healing, restoring, and sustaining earth that has been corrupted and nearly destroyed by agriculture and for minerals. She dug into important details such as realizing nickel is part of yesterday’s electric battery, not todays, and that hemp, which she grows on her farm, is a much better, more sustainable crop for material than cotton.  She reminded us of how much we already know that Water is Life deeply from our experience, certainly in Minnesota, the land of way more than 10,000 lakes, to say nothing of rivers and streams.  We have learned so much about this from our indigenous brothers and sisters.  I well remember my first Water is Life protest march in St. Paul with my friend and colleague, Joann Conroy, under the leadership of her daughter, now Dr. Kelly Sherman-Conroy. We must take care of our water -- Mni Wiconi!

My contribution to the symposium centered on illustrating some of the ways that we know that Water is Life from almost every book of the Bible… and why and how the Bible encourages us to support remarkable work like that of Winona LaDuke. I explored five different ways that Scripture illuminates water as life — ways which I list below with relevant passages as well as a few insights from each category:

I.              Living Waters of Creativity (Genesis 1:1-2:14; Proverbs 8:22- 31)

The first chapters of Genesis set up the repeated pattern that water can be either death-dealing (chaos) or life giving (rivers of life). When God creates with Wisdom, water that potentially destroys instead gives life (here reading Genesis 1:1 as “with Wisdom, God created the heavens and earth,” following Proverbs 8 and Augustine). We are invited to follow God’s example to have Wisdom as our companion in order that we might help the many waters around us to be sources of life rather than death.

II.           Living Waters of Justice (Genesis 6-9; Jeremiah 2:13; 9:15; Amos 5:24; Isaiah 12:3; 44:3-4; Isaiah 41:17-18; Ezekiel 47:1-12)

In the prophets, the waters of chaos often become an instrument of divine justice.  Water is manifest as death when and where there is injustice - an instrument of judgment if you will (see Jeremiah 2:13; 9:15).

Water also becomes a rallying cry to act justly, most profoundly in Amos 5:24 -

But let justice roll down like waters,

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

And the living waters of the prophetic word also contain a promise of the justice to come (see Isaiah 44:3-4). We hear that God’s promise is not only for the people but also for the land itself.

III.        Living Waters of Redemption (Exodus 1:8-2:10; Exodus 14-15)

The central act of redemption in the Hebrew Scriptures is the freeing and saving of the enslaved people of Israel, told in the Book of Exodus.  Throughout the telling water is central, with the most important act being the crossing of the Red Sea.  But before that we hear the story of the saving of the leader of the people, Moses, who is himself rescued from death by 5 women. 

Moses, who will himself grow up to be the one who draws his own people through the waters of both death and salvation, is first drawn out of the water himself by Pharaoh’s daughter  and, in his naming, Moses is stamped with a name of living water forever (Exodus 2:10).

The living water of chapters 1-2 set the stage for the freeing of the enslaved people of Israel through the crossing of the Red Sea, Yam Suf, in chapter 14 and in Miriam’s all-important song. Miriam’s very name, Miryam in Hebrew, resonates with the Hebrew word for water, mayim. It is worth noting that in Numbers 20, when Miriam finally dies, the water in the wilderness dries up. 

               In the crossing of the Sea, we once again find the dual image water as source of both death and life, of judgment and redemption. The death, the judgment, is the drowning of the enemy in the sea. The life, the redemption, is the saving of the escaping slaves through the waters. When the LORD drives back the waters and exposes the dry land, we are reminded of Genesis 1:9-10 when God gathers the waters together in one place so that the dry land appears. In this act of redemption at the Red Sea, God is once again creating. This time God is not creating earth. God is giving birth to the nation Israel out of a ragtag group of escaped slaves.

IV.         Living Waters of Faithful Prayer (many of the Psalms)

Just as singing is central to the work of Miriam and Mary and other women in the Bible, singing is central to the Bible itself through the book of Psalms.  Water is everywhere in the psalms.  There are at least seven ways that water lives in and through the psalms:

Water is Life in Creation, Water is Life that Sustains and Refreshes, Water Is Life that itself Sings Praise, Water is the Living Lament of our Tears, Water is Life in Being Washed in Forgiveness, Water is Life in our Thirsting after the Living God, Water is Life as We Study the Word Together.

(I will be writing an article on “Living Water in the Psalms” for the fall 2023 issue of Word and World which will explore the many ways that the Psalm explore this topic.)

V.           Living Waters of The Incarnate Word (Mark 1:9-11; Mark 6:45-51; Luke 13:34; 19:41; Luke 7:36-50; John 13:1-20; 19:28-30 with Psalm 22:14-15 and Exodus 12:21-23; John 19:33-34; Revelations 21-22)

In the Gospels, the baptism of Jesus, his immersion in the water, reveals God.  And even as we watch this scene that sets Jesus apart from the rest of us, we are also enjoined to remember that, in baptism, Christians are also claimed by God as children marked by the Spirit. We are reminded that the waters of baptism, like the waters of creation, are marked by both death and life.  We take on both the death of Christ and the promise of new life.  And living waters take us on and in sacramentally.

Much of Jesus’ ministry takes place on or by the water.  Jesus shows himself to be master of the sea by teaching from boats, by stilling the storms, and even by walking on water.  Jesus’ relationship with the chaotic waters is astonishing as he conquers the raging Sea –  which is to say, Jesus acts as only God acts, changing death into life.

Jesus not only teaches, fishes, and stills the seas, he also shows us the weight of tears. Luke 19 tells us that as Jesus approached Jerusalem for his final time, he “saw the city, he wept over it.”  When we hear these words, it is impossible to confine the tears of Jesus to a distant past. Among the many things that might have evoked these tears, perhaps we also hear Jesus weeping over our failure to take care of living water. Just as he will later cry out from the cross, he takes up our lamenting and makes it his own.  Jesus weeps with us, about us, and for us. The living water of Jesus is found in tears.

Two profound stories of washing of feet (Luke 7:36-50; John 13:1-20) teach us much about living water and the depth of true hospitality – one when the woman from the city bathes the feet of Jesus with her tears (Luke 7:36-50) and the other when Jesus washes the feet of the disciples (John 13:1-20).

            We move then to the death of Jesus on the cross.  And one would think that we would find no living water there.  But we would be wrong. We find it in thirst, and we find it mixed with blood.

When we hear that Jesus thirsts, we experience Jesus most assuredly as human. We know the parched lips and dry mouth.  And perhaps we hear in this thirst not only a thirst for liquid, but a thirst for life, a primal need to have this life continue.  God enters into our lament (Psalm 22), owning and transforming it.

Which leads to a final remarkable water passage in John 19:33-34 where out of Jesus’ pierced side comes both blood and water. So many of the biblical images of living water are gathered into this single image.  The water mixed with blood becomes the river of Eden.  The water mixed with blood becomes the water flowing from the rock in the wilderness. The water mixed with blood becomes the great river of healing water flowing from the temple foreseen by Ezekiel.  The gift of Jesus’ blood is what makes the water living.  We reimagine all we know of water as life.

And then, in the last two chapters of the Book of Revelation, we are encountered by the final water visions of Scripture.  We hear a loud voice from the throne saying:

21: 4 God will wipe every tear from their eyes.  …6 To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life…

22: 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 2 … 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…. 17… And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.

And what do we do with gifts? We take care of them.  We share them with others. We are cleansed and our thirst is slaked by these waters, earthly and heavenly.  We know that the waters of life are ultimately stronger than the waters of death. Our hope is to become protectors of the waters of life. Mni Wiconi!