Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Rev. Meg Barnhouse
September 7, 2014
It’s time again for one of our favorite UU traditions, the Water Communion service! This is a UU ingathering service practiced by congregations across the continent where we bring water from a place where our spirit was refreshed. The water may literally be from a special physical place or it may be symbolic of that place. We are invited to share a few words to describe where the water comes from and its relevance. This is an intergenerational service with activities for small children.
Welcome to our Water Service. We bring water from places that refreshed our spirits this summer.
Once there was a drop of water that rained down into a lake where the water came from for a whole town full of people.
It was singing as it fell: “I’m singing in the rain, just singing in the rain what a glorious feeling, I’m happy again…”
Soon, after traveling through miles of pipes and pumps, he found himself wiggling with excitement inside the kitchen faucet of a house. In the house lived a kid, a mom, a grand dad, and a brown dog. Will I be used for washing? Drinking? Cooking? Making ice? The kid turned on the faucet and the water found himself falling into a glass. Yay! He thought. I get to be a drink for her. I get to help her be healthy and run fast and see far. I’m so happy! Last time I was a drink it was a dinosaur that drank me. (Because water never goes away, you know. It’s been here on the planet since the very beginning. Is that cool?) She ran outside with the glass and put it down on the grass so she’d have something to drink when she got hot. The brown dog, though, thought it looked interesting. He went over to it and knocked it over. OH NO! thought the water as he fell down through the grass and into the ground.
Sadly he sang: “Been a long time since I rock n roll. Been a long time since I did the stroll. Got to get back, got to get back got to get back. Baby where I belong. Been a long time been a long time been a long lonely lonely lonely lonely time…”
He sank down through the ground, downhill, since that’s the only direction water can go on its own. Soon he was in a river, and it was cold! He was scared and disappointed, and he couldn’t help but feel that he’d done something wrong to not be able to help his kid. He slipped along, almost fighting the flow of the rest of the water.
Soon, though, he started to sing.“Conceal, don’t feel. Don’t let them know. But now they knoooooooow Let it go, let it go, can’t hold back any more. Let it go, let it go, turn away and slam the door. I don’t care what they’re going to say. Let the storm rage on. The cold never bothered me anyway.”
We will leave our water on his way down the river and to the ocean, and we will find out what happens next in the break between families coming up and telling one another how their spirits were refreshed this summer.
…..
The little water floated in the ocean for a while, eager to get started as drinking water again. The air absorbed it, and it became part of a beautiful heavy gray cloud! The cloud moved over the land, filled with water.
He hummed to himself as they sailed over hills and ranch land. “The itsy bitsy spider came down the water spout…” when it came to the “DOWN CAME THE RAIN” part he sang really loudly, trying to give the cloud the hint that it should rain!
Finally the rain started, and there was his kid! Holding out a glass in the rain! He was going to get another chance! He fell happily into her water glass, and to his delight, she drank —- half of him. The other half she brought to her UU church’s water communion because she loved the rain so much.
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 14 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.
