Our summer sermon series began with Light. Then Water. Then Land. Now, on this fourth sacred move of creation, we return to light. But this time, it’s more than illumination. It’s a heartbeat. Breath. Night and day, the rhythm of a divine clock.
 
You probably noticed Genesis marks time in numbered days. This has sparked all sorts of debates. Was the world made in six literal, 24 hour days? Or is this a poetic unfolding—one that holds space with cosmology?

If the former and we take this passage literally, how then do we reconcile the inconsistencies between the two different creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2? Or if we only look at it scientifically, how does it speak to our deeper longing for meaning and purpose?
 
The Apostle Peter reminds us that God doesn’t wear a wristwatch. He writes, “With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day” (2 Peter 3:8–9). That’s neither literal or scientifically possible.
 
However, you see this great mystery, Genesis says when God speaks…things happen. The light is divided into day and night. And time begins to tick.
 
All of creation keeps pace with this holy and sacred rhythm. The moon waxes and wanes with quiet faithfulness. The oceans follow causing the tides to rise and fall in rhythmic harmony.

Trees keep this sacred beat going too. They don’t bloom on demand. But rest and toil in seasons. Their rings don’t grow in deadlines — they grow in circles, marking the slow and steady pace of growth.

Bears or cicadas don’t need an alarm clock to come out of hibernation. That knowledge is already built into them. And into us – our breath, heartbeats, menstrual cycles, circadian rhythm are not set by the Atomic clock, but by the natural pulse God spoke into creation.
 
There’s a time to plant and a time to pluck what’s been planted. A time to live and a time die. And the time between these seasons? A time of holy waiting, growing, becoming, being.
 
Out of everything that God created, and called good, we’re the only ones who wake up with to-do lists. And fall asleep worrying if we did enough. Time isn’t slipping away, we are.
 
We weren’t made to be machines. Instead, we were made to be mindful. Alive in the present, right here in the space between that God declared good.
 
Jesus understood this. He moved through the world not with urgency, but with awareness. He lingered at tables. Paused for children. Stopped to be with those who cried out to him.

Jesus used his time to “bring good news to the poor, freedom to the captives, sight to the blind, liberty to the oppressed” (Luke 4:18).
 
With Jesus, love isn’t in a rush. It’s the unfolding of God’s glory in every second of life.  The story of Lazarus makes that clear.
 
When Jesus learns his dear friend is sick, he doesn’t panic … or drop everything and run to him. He waits. Not an hour. Not overnight. But four days. When he finally arrives, Lazarus is already rotting away in a tomb.
 
His sisters, Mary and Martha, don’t understand. Their grief is thick. They cry out to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here…” Yet Jesus waited, not just to reveal the glory of God, but something more subtle and just as profound: Love doesn’t live by the tyranny of the clock. 

Sometimes, love waits. Sometimes it sits. And weeps before it calls forth life.
 
Henri Nouwen reminds us that, “waiting is a period of learning.” But we don’t like to wait…do we? We tend to see it as wasting valuable time that could be better spent doing something more productive. But all of life is set by God‘s clock, not ours.
 
Waiting isn’t a waste of time it’s “actively entering into the moment, fully ready to receive what is hidden there.” That’s how Jesus lived—Christ, in the flesh, fully present and awake in every moment—never rushing into the next before fully entering the now.
 
When Jesus says, “Are there not twelve hours in the day?” He not offering a productivity hack. He’s reminding us to use this gift of time to do what truly matters in the kingdom of heaven. Love.
 
This begs the big question: Why would we waste a single second on anything less than love?
 
I have sat with people in their final days of life. Not once did someone ask for more time to check one more thing off a list. They asked for the time to hold someone’s hand. To hear another song. To feel the quiet joys that make life worth living.
 
In his Sacrament of the Present Moment, Brother Lawrence wrote, “We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work but the love with which it is performed.”
 
Time is not our enemy. It’s a gift given to us to love God, love others and serve both. This is how life is blessed. And how a lifetime becomes sacred. We might do well by slowing down, not the clock but our need to rush ahead. Jesus showed us, love doesn’t move at the speed of efficiency. It moves at the speed of presence.
 
I was reminded of that last Thursday, while leaving the nursing home where I preach each week. A resident I barely knew stopped me and asked for prayer. But the prayer quickly invited something deeper—the sharing of her life; a confession of the loss, abuse, and grief she’s been carrying for years.
 
Yes, this moment took more time than I had to spare. Yes, her story made me miss an important call. And yes, being present set me behind schedule. But in that moment, kneeling by her wheelchair, I didn’t feel frustrated or rushed. Only peace and presence.
 
Sometimes, the holiest moments happen when we let go of the schedule—and simply show up.

As I thought about this experience on the way home, I realized: You don’t put love on the calendar, you place it where it’s needed.
 
If we’re going to build a community of love together, then we need to be people who honor time not as a taskmaster but as a temple where God’s Spirit dwells. Every second we give over to love is a second that doesn’t slip away.
 
This week, Sean was part of the leadership team at a spiritual retreat. He constantly had to keep telling the kids, “Participate. Don’t Anticipate.” In other words, don’t worry about what’s next on the schedule. Just be present with what God has placed in front of you. This mirrors what Jesus said, we can’t add a second to our life by worrying about tomorrow. There’s enough to do today (Matt. 6:34).
 
If trees can flourish and oceans can move without clocks…so can we. I hope you’ll remember this as you go out into a world ruled by time.

Go, not beholden to a stopwatch. But as God’s beloved creation. Life is not a race where the first one wins it all. It’s a slow and steady pace where love declares, the last will be first in the kingdom of heaven.
 
We are only guaranteed this moment—that’s it. There is no past, no future without the now. Each day, each holy and sacred breath of creation, quietly asks: How will you spend this precious gift? Angry and at odds with each other? Or as loving co-creators in the kingdom Jesus has opened to us?

Time isn’t something to outrun. It’s a gift—given to us by God, to make a difference, to show up, to be present.
 
In her poem ‘The Dash,’ Linda Ellis poignantly reminds us it’s not the years on our tombstones that matter—but how we live that tiny dash between. The quiet space where day by day we choose to make love grow.
 
Steve Miller wasn’t wrong to sing, “time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping.” And in a way, the Stones had it right too—because when we walk in God’s rhythm, time really is on our side.

As every sunrise and sunset reminds us, today is the day to be who God made you to be. The beloved.
 
We may not know the exact time life came into being, but we do know this eternity doesn’t begin later—it begins now.


Work Cited
Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, trans. John J. Delaney (Image Books, 1977), 77.
Linda Ellis, The Dash: Making a Difference with Your Life from Beginning to End (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2004).
Henri J.M. Nouwen, Waiting for God (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2001), 13.

erScripture begins with the Spirit of God sweeping over the waters. No land, no sky—just deep, swirling mystery stirring with the promise of something new.

God speaks and there is light. And then God speaks again, and the waters begin to gather. Dry land appears. Space opens for life to emerge. And there is sky and earth.
 
Now here’s something I find interesting. In Hebrew scripture, water is never just water.  In fact, the word used for “deep waters”--tehom—also means chaos.

Like Noah’s flood or the crossing of the Red Sea, water keeps showing up - wildly and recklessly as both death and renewal.
 
And we’ve recently seen this paradox play out in real life. In Texas and North Carolina where unexpected floods swallowed neighborhoods, families, and dreams.  Water gives life—and takes it. It both quenches—and overwhelms. It blesses and disrupts.
 
But here, in the beginning, it appears so quietly it almost goes unnoticed. Then God speaks, and amazing happens.
 
The early rabbis spoke of water as the “womb of creation”—the place where life first began. And modern science, in its own way, agrees. Life emerged in water. Which means each one of us carries a part of that first ocean within us. Before we ever take our first breath, we spend months floating in a sacred space filled with…water.
 
It’s shouldn’t surprise us then, that Jesus begins his ministry—at the water’s edge. His baptism becomes a retelling of the Genesis story.

As he steps into the Jordan, the waters of chaos beneath him, the heavens open above, and the Holy Spirit hovers over the water like a dove. Then God speaks—declaring Jesus “the Beloved.”
 
In her book An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “Water holds everything together: your body, the planet, the cells of every living thing. It baptizes you every time you drink it, bathe in it, or weep.”  

This brief paraphrase of her work reminds us that every time we get wet, we are met with God’s presence. Let that soak in.

​Every glass of water a waiter pours for you, every tear you shed, every time you wash your hands God meets you, reminding you of your belovedness. This is the holy work of water.
 
Perhaps that’s why St. Gregory of Nyssa described the baptismal font as “an abundant fountain of divine life, quenching every thirst.”

Or why the Gospels are full of stories about Jesus and water. He turns it into wine, calms it during storms, uses it to wash tired feet, offers it to the thirsty, and even bleeds it from the cross.
 
There’s a story in John’s Gospel where Jesus meets a woman at a well —a woman who knows deep spiritual thirst. She’s been through heartbreak, shame, and isolation. And has no right to speak to, muchless argue with, a holy man like Jesus. But instead of condemning her, or shaming her further, Jesus invites her: “Come, drink.”
 
He offers her, and us, a promise: “Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.” Jesus tells us, the water he gives becomes “a spring of water welling up to eternal life”  (John 4:13–14).

Just as it was in the beginning, Jesus invites us into a new kind of life. A life where our chaos is finally met by something holy. And transformed into something everlasting. Jesus invites us into the divine flow of God’s grace. There’s no magic words or preconditions needed. If you’re thirsty—come, drink.
 
How does this invitation speak to the space you're in? Do you find yourself thirsting for something more than the world can promise? Maybe you’re experiencing a dry season—emotionally, spiritually, or creatively.
 
But let me ask you this: What if that longing wasn’t a dark, hollow void, but a time of preparation? A space between what was and what can be, where something beautiful and sacred is waiting to emerge.
 
Picture the Atacama Desert in Chile; one of the driest places on Earth. Beneath its cracked, barren surface lie dormant seeds of all kinds of wildflowers. Each one waiting for rain. And when it finally comes, the entire landscape is transformed blooming wildly in brilliant color. What seemed empty and lifeless wasn’t at all—it was simply waiting for its hidden beauty to be revealed. (McWherter)

I think that’s how it is with us. But unfortunately, we’re impatient most of the time. We don’t like doing the hard work of waiting.
 
Abba Moses, one of the most well-known desert fathers, often compared one’s spiritual journey to digging a well in dry land. This journey of understanding and discovery that we are on takes patience, steady work. And the willingness to dig through the hard ground of the heart to find the sacred water within.
 
Most of us, however, are only skimming the surface when God’s calling us to dig deeper, past the noise, down to that sacred space where living water flows.

This echoes what the great Spanish mystic, St. Teresa of Ávila, taught. She believed each of us carries a deep wellspring within that must be drawn from daily; with prayer and acts of love.
 
At the end of the day, we don’t just drink the water Jesus offers—we are to become living water… a source of refreshment for others. That’s our calling— to become water people. A community soaked in love and service where others can draw freely from a deep well of grace. A space that surprises and refreshes like church sprinklers on a hot, summer morning.
 
But here’s the thing, a sprinkler system doesn’t work if the water is shut off. Likewise, we can’t pour water from an empty cup. We can’t offer mercy to others if we haven’t learned to receive it ourselves. Jesus is making us an offer, but we have to make the choice to accept or not.
 
Jesus tells us, “Whoever believes in me, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” (John 7:38)

This isn’t an insurance policy, it’s a calling. Our ministry starts at the well, drawing from his water before we can share it with others. To follow the way of Jesus means allowing God’s Spirit to flow freely and wildly through us.
 
In Proverbs it’s written, “The purposes in a person’s heart are like deep waters, but the one with insight will draw them out” (Proverbs 20:5).

Wisdom means going deeper—naming the currents beneath our lives and letting God redirect them toward love. Jesus teaches us that love is the current which moves the flow of grace towards our neighbors, our enemies, the strangers in our land.
 
I’ve told the story before of when Colleen was little and noticed a day laborer digging a trench outside in the sweltering summer heat. Without overthinking it, they went inside, grabbed two bottles of water, a cup of ice, and brought it to him. Thirst meeting thirst. Love sharing love.
 
This is how we build a community of love together in the space between. And how we are to follow Jesus who welcomes us saying, “Come, you that are blessed, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; ... I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink” (Matthew 25:34-35).
 
There’s a wellspring in everything God has made—in you, in me. In us and them. In the calm and the chaos. This water has a name: Christ the divine flow of all that is sacred and holy which God has soaked into everything.

Just as it was at the beginning of this story, God’s Spirit still hovers over us; drawing out our hidden divinity from our humanity and sending us to quench the thirst of the world longing to bloom.
 
This week, I invite you to dig deep into that well. With every glass of water you drink whisper, “Satisfy my thirst, O God.” Let each sip remind you of the grace that flows in you.
 
When you turn on the faucet to splash water on your face, let it remind you to be the flow of God’s love that surprises others with unexpected joy.
 
When your heart starts to harden—toward neighbors, strangers, even yourself—stop and pray, “Lord, let your mercy flow instead.”
 
In the end, it’s not about being thirsty. It’s about learning where to bring our thirst. And becoming people who help others do the same.
 
As we leave here today, let’s go with open hearts and open hands, to allow God’s love and grace flow through us like a wild and powerful river.
 
Where weary souls are refreshed. The thirsty are welcomed. And every heart blooms like wildflowers after a rain.

Work Cited
Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith (New York: HarperOne, 2009), 137.
Glen McWherter, 8 Moves, accessed July 13, 2025, https://8moves.com.
St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Baptism of Christ, in Select Writings and Letters, trans. and ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 5 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), 519.

Of course, family reunions aren’t always picture-perfect. It’s hard to watch my parents age. And each time we come back to visit, more relatives have left this place and taken the train to a heavenly home further down the road.

They are the ones who have carried us and our stories from Scotland to here. And now, that torch is slowly being passed. Now it’s our turn to carry the history, and the hope, forward. That responsibility can feel heavy. But it’s also sacred.

And isn’t that what church is too?

An imperfect, holy family where we carry the story together. This is where we gather around tables and tears and celebration and song. Where we pass the peace and pass the faith. Where we welcome each other—not for who we should be, but for who we are. It’s here, in this sacred space, this community of love in the space between, that everyone is made to feel like they belong. Where the weary, the joyful, the curious, and the hungry all hear the same thing, over and over again: “Welcome home.”