Water Towers of Hope

Towers are evocative images for us. From the tower of Babel to New York’s Twin Towers. From the Two Towers of Tolkein’s Middle Earth to Oral Roberts’ Prayer Tower. From the towers on medieval battlements to fire lookout towers deep in the forest wilderness. Towers can be symbols of overweening human pride or truly remarkable testaments to human ingenuity and creativity. They can be places to seek enlightenment or spread enlightenment. They can provide for a community’s safety or launch destruction on an enemy. A place to get away from the world or a place to get a whole new view of the world. Towers are interesting and mysterious places. And yet amid all of these intriguing and powerful images of towers, the image I want you to conjure in your minds and hold on to this morning is the image of a water tower. An everyday water tower. Like the one standing on stilts at the corner of Wallace and Sterling here in Flossmoor. Or like the 110 year old wooden Thomas Hill standpipe that overlooks the city of Bangor, Maine. Or like the classic bulbous shaped water towers that mark every small cluster of human settlement dotted across the great flat dry plains of the Midwest. Water towers.

The principle of a water tower is so simple and the function so essential. They are just reservoirs, reserves of water, water stored in reserve. Stored at higher elevation so that gravity can deliver that water at adequate pressure when needed. Water towers provide a constant source of water at adequate pressure. Real water towers are not infallible or miraculous, of course, but for illustrative purposes, imagine that water towers provide a constantly available source of water at strong pressure. No matter what the external circumstances may be. Water constantly, always, available to us—at good pressure. Water towers may not be the most intriguing of towers, but they serve us well.

It was, believe it or not, the letter to the Colossians that led me to think about water towers. One phrase in this morning’s reading caught my attention. Scholars are divided on whether or not Paul himself wrote this letter. But in it Paul, or someone who thought a lot like Paul, talks about "hope laid up for the Colossians in heaven." Hope laid up in heaven for them. I understand that the Greek verb used here, translated as "laid up", is a common business term, frequently found in documents of the day… storage receipts indicating grain "laid up" or stored in a granary, books "housed" in a library or treasures "kept" in the temple. Resources stored or kept in reserve until they need to be made available. Paul says that Christians have hope laid up for us in heaven. We have a reservoir of hope stored, kept in reserve, just for us. Stored at an elevation as high as heaven, but there is a conduit, a pipe we might imagine, that brings that hope to us in our lives. Christ built that conduit. Christ is that connecting pipe. Christ is the link between that heavenly reservoir of hope and the needs and actions of our daily lives.

It’s like a water tower. A water tower filled with hope. Right in the midst of us. A constant, eternal source of hope—at strong pressure—ready to supply each and every one of us. We don’t have to go out and find this water of hope; we don’t have to dig for it; we don’t have to pump it or collect it; we don’t have to guard it or ration it or even pay for it. We just have to open the faucet. A constantly available, eternally vast, reservoir of hope piped at good pressure straight into our souls. If we just turn on the faucet.

Paul talks about the nature of this hope. It is the Gospel, God’s truth and grace. Hope, more than anything else, defines us as Christians. Listen to these other descriptions of the Christian hope. First, it is helpful to remember that the Christian hope is a worldview, not a feeling or a personality trait. One commentator writes: "The Christian hope is not man-made, but God-given. It is not the product of a resolute spirit, nor or a naturally happy and buoyant disposition. It rests on what God is eternally, on what he has done in Christ, and on what he will do when ‘the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord.’ Two things follow: (a) salvation is assured because God has underwritten it in Christ… and (b) In every [person] as a child of God there are unlimited potentialities" (G. Preston MacLeod in The Interpreter’s Bible).

Salvation lies ahead. In every child of God there are unlimited potentialities. This is a worldview that will affect how every minute of our daily lives unfolds.

The Book of Common Prayer gives a more brief definition of the Christian hope. The Christian hope, the Catechism tells us, "is to live with confidence in newness and fullness of life, and to await the coming of Christ in glory, and the completion of God’s purpose for the world" (BCP, p. 861).

The Christian hope isn’t about always feeling hopeful. But it is about always looking forward.

It is about a worldview, a particular conviction, that guides and affects every choice we make… The Christian hope is the conviction that newness of life awaits us at every turn. At every moment, with every breath, with every word, we have the potential to choose new life. Salvation always lies ahead. This is the Christian hope.

To live with that hope, to follow that conviction is to choose—consciously choose—to act in our lives in ways that always seek the good, the creative, the life-giving. I hope that no one here consciously acts in ways that seek evil, but all of us do make choices in our lives that deny the Christian hope. We do it every time, for example, our actions or our choices are governed by fear, fear of loss, rather than commitment to God-given potential. We deny the Christian hope whenever we seek to guard or defend what is "ours", rather than create what is God’s. Whenever we covet security more than newness and fullness of life, we deny the Christian hope.

Consider the familiar parable we heard in this morning’s Gospel. What world view lay behind the priest’s and the Levite's decisions? A worldview in which the fear of ritual defilement (by touching a wounded man) was more powerful than the potential for reconciliation and healing… A worldview in which protecting personal status or security was more important than sharing God’s life-giving love. And then there is the Samaritan who chose, not to defend or protect or avoid, but to seek out newness and fullness of life for himself as well as the man who lay beaten. A powerful example of someone who drew upon, acted upon, the Christian hope.

New life awaits us at every turn. Not the same life, but new life. This Christian hope is not always an easy conviction to live by. As it was for the priest and the Levite, it can be a difficult challenge to us in times when we feel comfortable, when we covet old life more than new life. Yet remember that the Christian hope is also a profound source of comfort when we find ourselves in life’s difficult or dark places. New life awaits us at every turn. Even from the cross, new life is born. Even in the midst of illness, despair or death, God’s light shines and leads us forward. Every child of God at every moment in time has infinite potential—ahead—in God’s kingdom. That’s a worldview to hang on to. The Christian hope.

If it seems impossible to hang on to that hope, to live according to that hope, day in and day out… If it seems impossible, it is. On our own. Don’t forget the water tower. The water tower of hope standing in the very center of all of our lives. The Christian hope is God given; it is supplied to us by God, in and through Christ. God is the source, the giver, of the Christian hope to us. And the reservoir of hope that is available to us is as vast as heaven itself. It is there for us at every moment of every day, more than sufficient to guide and sustain us through every choice and every circumstance of our lives.

All we have to do is turn on the faucet. We do have to open the faucet. We have to open our hearts and souls and minds so that God’s hope can flow in.

Just before the Prayer Book Catechism defines the Christian hope, it poses this question: "How are the sacraments related to our Christian hope? Answer: Sacraments sustain our present hope and anticipate its future fulfillment." Participation in the sacraments, regular participation in the Holy Eucharist, opening our soul to Christ’s presence in the bread and wine served at this table… That is one way to open the faucet.

Another, of course, is in prayer. Daily, individual, intentional prayer. Prayer in which we listen as well as talk. Think of that prayer time as time in which God’s hope flows into us, replenishing our hearts with the conviction of God’s purpose for us and for the world.

And study the Word of God. Study Holy Scripture! Reading it is good, but studying is even better. As Deuteronomy says, the Word of God is not in some distant place where we cannot find or hear it, where some extraordinary effort is required to attain it. "No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe." Or, it can be. If we break open the Word and study it, we will find there the resources of wisdom and guidance we need to pursue the Christian hope.

Think of a water tower. Filled with the Christian hope. An infinite supply of hope, at good pressure, always available, to flow into our hearts and minds and souls. All we have to do is open the faucet.

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