Living Water - A Sermon by Ginny Royston

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Words from the reading from this morning’s Isaiah reading.

The Season of Creation theme for 2026 is ‘Living Water’ which is particularly apposite given the shocking floods in Tibet and Nepal that have been unfolding in the past couple of weeks. Those events have been shocking and terrifying. And it is now being taken as read that this disaster is most likely to be due to human induced climate. In addition, we have all seen the effect of the lack of rain locally leading to the first hosepipe ban for 50 years in Bristol and surrounding areas.

A couple of weeks ago I watched the partial eclipse and was very moved. I’m not sure why but I think for some reason I felt so much more connected to the sun as source of our life and our sustenance.

One of my unforgettable memories as a child was the lunar landing in 1969 and seeing the earth as a whole from the moon – a view which seems commonplace now. The earth- our common home.

But if you look closely at a satellite map the Earth, you don’t see arbitrary political borders or centres of power. You see veins. You see the deep blue arteries of rivers, the pooling basins of lakes, and the vast expanse of the oceans. Water is the infrastructure of life.

So today when we think about the theme of ‘Living Water’, we are not simply talking about environmental ethics as an afterthought to our faith. Because the bible tells us that our world is where we find Jesus Christ.

From the very first page of the bible, we read that the earth is important to God. The short reading from Isaiah echoes the involvement of God in the whole of creation-mountains sing, trees clap their hands. And that chapter is shortly followed by our responsibility to maintain justice and do what is right.

And then in the reading from Colossians we are told how intimately the whole of creation – not just our tiny planet -is connected and suffused with the love and involvement of God. ‘For in Christ all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things’.

I recently watched the Chris Packham programme on evolution. He is never afraid of expressing a sense of wonder at the miraculous-seeming nature of it all.

John’s Gospel echoes this perfectly: ‘In the beginning was the Word and all things came into being through him.’

I find something profoundly comforting when I read this chapter. At its most fundamental it is about the collision of two stories. The first is the story of our world and the second is the story of what it means to be a human being –our own stories- unique and individual and precious So let’s just think of our world and its story.

It seems likely that once all of space was contained in a tiny point which exploded about 13.8 billion years ago- and that point has been expanding ever since. And in a nutshell, an unusual, perhaps unique, set of biological and climactic conditions came about to make the beauty and fertility of the world as we know it. That’s the story of creation- the beginning of the world we find ourselves in.

It’s a story that is epic in scale. It’s about billions of years, about indescribable distances, details and dimensions and discoveries. But there was also an instant in time when the cosmic story and the fleshly story became the same story. The God of heaven and eternity, the God beyond and above and forever – took up residence in the world of passion and suffering, anger and hatred, and self-giving love.

The word became flesh in Jesus Christ. God and humanity were forever connected. That means that when we pollute the water, when we neglect the soil, when we allow rivers to choke on sewage or oceans to fill with plastic, we are damaging the gift that was given to us. Environmental degradation isn’t just a political crisis; it is a fracture in our relationship with God.

Part 3: Living Water for a Thirsty Earth

And never is this more obvious than what we see in front of our eyes with dry rivers and lakes. The living water that is our focus this Creationtide looks very ill.

In the Bible, water is always doing double duty. It is a physical reality, but it is also a spiritual mirror. The prophet Ezekiel envisions a stream flowing from the temple that gets deeper and deeper, turning stagnant, salty water fresh and bringing life wherever it goes.

Jesus stands up in John’s Gospel and invites anyone who is thirsty to come to him and drink for sustenance and hope.

Right now, our physical world is thirsty. Climate patterns are shifting, droughts are lengthening, and clean water is becoming a battleground. But our culture is also thirsty. We can be dry from consumerism, isolated by technology, and exhausted by anxiety about the future.

But there is hope. The whole of Jesus’ ministry was about reconciliation - not just with each other but the whole of creation now being renewed and transformed whether on earth or in heaven -the dirt of the earth, the trees and the water. To me it is such a miracle to see the brown earth in the garden become green after just one night of rain. That’s not to trivialise the world leaders who hold invested power to maintain the status quo. But one of the most powerful witnesses as individuals and communities is to never buy into a narrative of despair or hopelessness. We are not people who have no power or agency.

So, how do we respond this Sunday?

This week let us see water as a gift: the simple grace of clean, running water.

We need to see it as a responsibility and continue to commit to a concrete action. Whether it’s supporting our diocese’s Net Zero targets, cutting down our reliance on single-use plastics, taking part in direct action, writing to our MP, or joining a local river clean-up, our care for the earth needs to be seen as part of the working out of our faith.

I’ll finish by repeating the collect for creation Sunday:

“Almighty God, you have created all things through your Son Jesus Christ, and in him all things hold together: grant us so to treat the world as your gift and responsibility, that we may be good stewards of your creation, and witness to your renewing love; through Jesus Christ our Lord”

Amen.