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Psalm 90: 1-10, 12 (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition) 

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were brought forth or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. 3 You turn us back to dust and say, “Turn back, you mortals.” 4 For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past or like a watch in the night. 5 You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning; 6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed in the evening it fades and withers. 7 For we are consumed by your anger; by your wrath we are overwhelmed. 8 You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance. 9 For all our days pass away under your wrath; our years come to an end like a sigh. 10 The days of our life are seventy years or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. 12So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.

 Colossians 2:9-14 (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition) 

 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by the removal of the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; 12 when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, 14 erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. 

John 7: 37-44 (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)

37 On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, 38 and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart[b] shall flow rivers of living water.’ ” 39 Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive, for as yet there was no Spirit because Jesus was not yet glorified.40 When they heard these words, some in the crowd said, “This is really the prophet.” 41 Others said, “This is the Messiah.” But some asked, “Surely the Messiah[e] does not come from Galilee, does he? 42 Has not the scripture said that the Messiah is descended from David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?” 43 So there was a division in the crowd because of him. 44 Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.

Please pray with me. Gracious and loving God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts, be an acceptable gift to you, our beloved rock and our redeemer.

The picture on this mornings bulletin is one I took last Sunday. I had, as an assignment for my Eco Theology course, to find a place in nature that I could return to over the weeks of the course. I was to notice the flora and fauna, habitats, resources and living things that occupied the space. When I read the assignment, I immediately knew where I would go. This place is a little strip of wood nestled between a stream, the road, a larger river that originates at a dam at a lake and a small field. There is a marshy area at the edge of the lake where the small stream originates. This is one of my favorite places on earth and even in our beautiful part of Maine, I consider it to be one of the most sacred and beautiful patches of God’s creation.

Spending time in that place never fails to take me out of the busyness of my daily life and transport me into another time. A time out of ordinary time, where the worries and anxieties I carry in most of my daily life are pushed away and a new awareness can take its place. When I spend time here, I become more aware and alive than I usually am in the ordinary routine of my life. That day, I was aware of the wind in the trees, the blue sky and warm sun above me. My senses of hearing and smell were heightened, and I found myself pausing to identify sounds in the forest. There were so many! Many more than you would expect in the quiet of a fall wood, with only one human wandering in it. The trees were alive with bird sounds as they flew from branch to branch or pecked at the wood hunting for their dinner. The undergrowth moved and stirred as squirrels gathered the abundant acorns and other goodies that littered the ground. There was so much to see that my eyes were dazzled by it all. There were leaves of all colors. Some painted the ground in shades of yellow, orange, green, and my favorite, bright magenta. Others fell in a slow silent dance as the trees released them to their final resting place on the soft earth. The stream and small river flowed and sang over the rocks. I could not help but be stopped in my tracks as nature showed me her beauty and abundant life, even as she was slowing things down and letting pieces follow the course of their life span and die.

Like the psalm from today’s reading, there was a mixture of thoughts and feelings as I walked and stood in the forest. This psalm, like many, is both petition and prayer. It is filled with questions and longing, anxiety and expectation, commands to the Holy and words from the human writer. This psalm voices the experienced reality of the human condition as well as a hope that comes from being honest and having faith. There is a tense dance for the hearer of these words as well as a reality in the brief and transitory nature of life. There are petitions to God, of hope and yearning. These petitions hold within them the fear and anxiety that do not readily accept the nature of our frail human lives and seek answers from God that will give us comfort.

There is a tension written about in this psalm that is an inescapable part of the human condition. Our lives are defined and marked by this tension whether we are aware of it or not. Whether we try to deny it or not. Whether we claim the reality or not. This tension is in how we live, decisions we make, what we choose as important and how we live our lives. While we are living, if we allow ourselves to acknowledge it, we are also preparing to die. There is no way out of this tension, which is defining for human life. As humans, many of us want answers and assurances. If we have anxieties, we seek to be reassured that we are okay or that our circumstances will improve. We are seekers of hope and in many times desperate for relief from situations and fears in life. Here the psalmist is doing this very thing. He is seeking an assurance from God, against the backdrop of the inevitability of death, against his own oblivion. There is a yearning and desperate need in this psalm for an assurance from God.

There is no denial in this psalm, of the inevitability of the death that will come to us all, but there is a plea to God. A plea to help make meaning of the brief span of years we have as humans and a demand to God for compassion, care, and support in making meaningful lives that are lived with gladness and will make a difference. There is a seeking of love and generosity from God that is enduring and will be the foundation of the lives of the believers in the Holy. There is a desire for the psalmist to leave a mark on the world that will last long after they have died. This desire is one that many of us are familiar with as we strive to live lives that make a difference for ourselves and those around us. It helps us make meaning and move forward in our daily walk. With the desires and pleas in this psalm, we are reminded that our work alone is not enough to have us remembered or have our achievements endure. It is only through God that we find truly lasting and enduring remembrance.

There is a need in us, as humans, for assurances and answers and to know our lives have had meaning and purpose. For most of us we want to know whether we made a mark or that we will leave something enduring behind. The psalmist is petitioning God for those answers and assurances, but God does not answer. We are left, like the psalmists, with the transitory nature of our lives and to try and make meaning of our brief span of years. How do we seek to do this when there never seem to be enough hours in a day or week and the years seem to speed up as we grow older? The answer is in the psalm and in the scripture readings for today. The number of years they tell us is 70 or 80 if we live well and are strong. They were being optimistic, this psalmist, because the average lifespan for a Jew at this time was noted to be 29-40 years. They clung to life and the hope of a long life despite knowing that most people during this time did not live half that length.

Our Gospel reading from the book of John is set at a time during the Jewish Festival of Booths. According to the commentary Texts for Preaching, This is a harvest celebration that is rooted in the memory of Israel’s wandering in the wilderness. It was a celebration that recreated the nomadic experience of the desert life and the transient nature of life on the move. The festival included a solemn ritual of the priest, singers and others making a  pilgrimage to Gihon Spring and returning to the temple and pouring the water on the altar. This ritual reminded them of the water pouring forth from the rock while they were in the desert and spoke of the prophesy of the coming of the messiah.

Jesus stood amongst the people and told them of a starkly different form of flowing water and how streams of living water will flow from within the one who believes in him. Jesus spoke of an abundance of living water that will come from the innermost being of the believer and that the transforming gift of the Holy Spirit was the source of abundance. Jesus spoke of never-ending rivers of living water that flowed from within and not from without. No longer, according to Jesus, would the people have to be thirsty or seek for water in the desert. Jesus is speaking of the fulfillment of the messianic prophesy and pointing the people toward everlasting life.

The Holy Spirit comes to believers after the death and resurrection of Jesus. They are intimately connected and yet distinctly different. With the death and glorification of Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes forth and brings with it life, vitality, empowerment and renewal. As followers of Christ, through baptism we die and are reborn and raised with Christ through our faith. Believers have the Spirit indwelling within them and from them flow the rivers of living water that allow for the works of the Holy to continue through and with us.

Our readings for today tell us about the frailties of our human lives but also show us how to live lives of meaning. As carriers of the Spirit, we are intimately entwined with Christ, each other and all of creation. We are accountable to God and are to make our lives meaningful as we turn repeatedly to the life-giving Source that is God. How are we honoring the brief bright gift that is our life and sharing the abundance of life-giving waters of the Spirit? As people of faith, our hopes, and lives, culminate in the Holy. Our work, relationships and every aspect of our lives should be lived with an attitude of expectation and wakefulness with actions that share the abandon the abundance that comes from Spirit.

The psalmist is looking for meaning and connection to the Holy. We are being called by our faith in Christ to be awake and not asleep as we live our lives. We are called by the Spirit to support each other and to see the interconnectedness to each other and to all of Creation. We are called to pause in the forest of our lives and be still and listen to all the abundance of life there is around us. We are constantly called to awareness of the transitory and short nature of life for all living things and most especially ourselves. In that awareness is also a call for us to be connected to the Holy and continually turn our hearts and minds to God. In that attention and turning is where we find connection, life giving and flowing waters , lasting meaning, and salvation. This is the answer to the psalmist’s pleas for assurance and freedom from oblivion. If we do what these passages tell us to do, we will be living! We will be awake and aware, and we will be connected to each other, the earth and all of Creation.