The Lutheran, February 2008
A monthly column by Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson
Waters of life
Precious gift, human necessity
"Give me a drink.” Jesus’ request of the Samaritan woman at the well was spoken centuries ago. But it is the daily plea of those who lack access to a reliable source of clean water—one in six of the world’s people.
“I am thirsty.” Jesus’ anguished words from the cross echo throughout our world today. The statistics are incomprehensible. This year 5 million people, 4 million of them children, will die from waterborne infectious diseases—10 times the number of people killed in wars.
I take water for granted and assume there will be clean water for drinking and cooking, warm water for cleansing and fresh water for our garden. My travels have shaken me out of complacency, however. When I witness women walking for hours and then standing in line to fill a bucket with water, I realize both the precious gift and human necessity of water.
As we become aware of the scarcity of clean water, the temptation will be to turn it into a commodity for profit in an increasingly competitive and global economy. The crisis calls for public and private sectors to collaborate so accessibility to clean water becomes a basic human right available to all rather than a luxury affordable only to a few.
Waters of Life, a resource from the Lutheran World Federation (No. 9, 2006) states: “Water is God’s gift to all creation for the sustenance of life. Therefore, promoting its preservation, responsible management, and equitable distribution should be understood by all human beings as a significant individual, communal, and corporate responsibility.”
Jesus’ simple human request, “Give me a drink,” was also a courageous act as he set aside rigid social, religious and gender boundaries. We can do no less as we respond to this growing crisis. In the ELCA social statement Caring for Creation, we declare: “… living creatures, and the air, soil, and water that support them, face unprecedented threats. Many threats are global; most stem directly from human activity.”
Together we are responding. Because of this church’s generous support of the ELCA World Hunger Appeal (see "There really is hope"), grants make possible comprehensive strategies for water relief, development and advocacy. In Peru, the ELCA hunger appeal through Lutheran World Relief has partnered with a community in the Andean mountains. A 33,000-gallon reservoir draws from a small spring to supply water to irrigate a local grain called guinoa. This reservoir ensures a steady crop, better nutrition, and sustainable income for the farmers and their families.
With support from the Lutheran World Federation-Ethiopia and ELCA hunger appeal gifts, the Afar Desert community benefits from a project that controls the flow of the river. More than 600 households now have greater access to the water needed to build sustainable livelihoods.
Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman began with a simple human request, “Give me a drink.” It led to Jesus offering the gift of living water: “… those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:14). As Professor Barbara Rossing reminds us in Waters of Life: “The living water offered by Jesus for our spiritual life speaks also to the living waters of our world today—rivers, oceans, glaciers, aquifers, and watersheds that are endangered by pollution, climate change, dams, privatization, and other threats …. Revelation invites us to see all the waters of our world as connected to that watershed of God’s river of life. ‘Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift’ (Revelation 22:17).”
I begin each day by recalling God’s word of promise spoken to me through baptismal waters. I know God sets me free for Jesus’ sake to live by faith for the life of the world. That very life is inseparable from water, both God’s gift of water in creation and God’s new creation in Christ.