Wade in the Water

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
September 9, 2018
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
austinuu.org

We bring some water from a place special to us for the common bowl as we speak together about places that move us, have meaning for us, or hold comfort for us.

Intergenerational Sunday

(Sing) — Wade in the water

This is a spiritual song from the Africian American tradition. Women and men in Africa were enslaved and brought over in ships to be sold in people in South America and North America. Enslaved people in the US were allowed to go to church, and some of the songs they would sing had layers of meaning. They mean one thing, and they also mean another thing.

First verse: See that band all dressed in white. The leader looks like an Israelite.

The Israelites were people we learn about in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Jewish Scriptures. Their people had been enslaved in Egypt for 400 years until a hero named Moses helped them escape. They went across a sea to the place where they could be free. In the story, God pushed the water out of their way, and then when the bad guys chased them, all the water fell back on them. Wade in the water.. God’s going to trouble the water. What does that mean, trouble the water?

Story in the Christian Scriptures, in the gospel of John. There was a pool in Jerusalem, and the legend was that God would make the waters choppy and rough, troubled, from time to time. If you could get in or get your friends to put you in when the water was troubled, you would be healed. The story goes that Rabbi Jesus had a conversation with a man whose legs hadn’t worked for 38 years. He told Jesus he didn’t have anyone to put him in the water when it was stirred up. Jesus told him to rise, take up his bed, and walk. He did. The religious people told the man he’d broken the law by carrying his bed on a day people were supposed to rest. He said that the man who healed him told him to do that. They looked around for Rabbi Jesus, but he had already left.

This Scripture, which the men and women in church all knew, teaches that the laws people make up are not important to Rabbi Jesus, who they worshipped. The laws said they were slaves, and that they should obey the people who owned them. This song says if a law is not right, not just, it’s okay to break it.

Wade in the water…. God’s going to trouble the water

See that band all dressed in red… Looks like the band that Moses led. There was a woman who was a hero to the enslaved Africans. Her name was Harriet Tubman, and she led groups of people escaping through fields and swamps, through mountain passes and friendly houses with hiding places so they could get to the Ohio River and cross over into states where enslaving people was against the law.

For these enslaved believers, water meant baptism and it meant a way to throw the dogs off your trail and a way to get to freedom. Their lives had plenty of trouble, so having a faith story that troubled waters were the time when healing could happen was very strengthening.

Those of us who are physically free still have rivers to cross in our lives and inside ourselves. The waters around us get troubled. We can remember that these are times we can ask for help from our friends, teachers, and family, and that the Spirit of Love is loving us.

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.

Most sermons delivered at the First UU Church of Austin during the past 18 years are available online through this website. You will find links to them in the right sidebar menu labeled Sermons. The Indexes link leads to tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on the topic to go to a sermon.