Exodus 17 and John 4: Looking for a Big Nose

Everyone needs drinking water. Whether you are wandering through the wilderness (Exodus 17:1-7) or through the Samaritan countryside (John 4:5-42), you are going to need water. So you are always looking for a well or a river or some other way to stay hydrated. Clean, drinkable water means survival. No water...no survival.

In Rome, Italy, you won't need to look hard for clean, drinkable water. Around Rome are more than 2,500 public drinking fountains called nasoni (literally "big noses"). The fountains were first placed in the early 1870s. The nasoni are made of cast iron and deliver fresh, cold water that travels through 70 miles of channels from the Peschiera reservoir to and through the city of Rome. The water is free for everyone - fill your water bottle or drink from the fountain (you can plug the spout and the water will come out a small hole in the top like a drinking fountain). The column-shaped fountain like you see here is a mass-produced design from the 1930s. There were originally a number of sculptural spouts, including the she-wolf who represents Rome's beginnings, though many of those are no longer extant.

In the two texts for Lent 3A, one story tells of finding no water, the other tells of finding not only drinking water but eternal water. The nasoni would have solved part of the water issues facing the people of Exodus and John. There would have been no need to strike a rock. No need to pull up a bucket from a well. There's still only one source for that living water, though.

If you are headed to Rome, try the apps I Nasoni di Roma (Apple Store) or Fountains in Italy (Google Play) for a guide to nasoni locations.

For additional thoughts on Exodus 17, click here.
For additional thoughts on John 4, click here.

Through the Waters

Images of the baptism of Christ often show Jesus standing in gently rippling water - sometimes up to his waist, other times only ankle deep. John stands beside him pouring a gentle stream of water onto Jesus' head, often from a scallop shell. The waters of baptism as related in the text (Luke 3:15-22) are carefully controlled by the artist so as to not detract from either the Savior or his fur-clad cousin. It's a far cry from a situation that would lead God to promise that "when you go through the waters I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you" (Isaiah 43:1-7). It's hard to imagine that God would need to promise to be with anyone in ankle-deep water. But the path through those waters of baptism led to the cross and Jesus' anguished cry that God was nowhere to be found.

As artists have managed their images, perhaps we in Christ's church have managed baptism to the point that its waters no longer seem even dangerous enough to warrant our careful attention. We use a careful dribble of water or step down smooth-surfaced steps into a carefully filled pool. And we believe these tidy, manageable actions symbolize our being named as Christ's own and grafted into the body of Christ. Annie Dillard wrote about worship: “On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”  [Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), pp. 40-41.]

Perhaps we would be better served (and have more truth in advertising for the claims baptism makes on our lives) if our baptismal images were more like Maggi Hambling's "Wave" paintings. Hambling's paintings are inspired by the artist's experience of the gigantic waves that crash onto the sea wall in Southwold, Suffolk, England. The paintings are often large, measuring over six by seven feet, allowing viewers standing in front of the paintings to feel the size and power of the waves. This is no ankle-deep wading. These are waves that threaten to overwhelm. This is the voice of the Lord that is over the waters, thundering over mighty waters (Psalm 29:3). This is drama and danger enough to make one search for and be grateful for the ongoing presence of God.

Top: Maggi Hambling. Wall of water V. 2011. 78 x 89 inches. Bottom: The artist in the "Walls of Water" exhibit at the National Gallery, London, England. 

For additional thoughts on baptism and the baptism of Christ click here, here, or here.

For an interesting illustration of Isaiah 43:1, see this week's Art&Faith Matters' Facebook post.

Isaiah 64.1-9: Rain, Steam, Speed

The words of the prophet Isaiah are featured the first three weeks of Advent in year B of the Revised Common Lectionary. For Advent 1B, the specific text is Isaiah 64:1-9. In this passage Isaiah prays that God will tear open the heavens, come down, and perform the awesome deeds for which God is known. Those awesome deeds seems more frightening than comforting: the ground shakes, nations tremble. The prophet offers the descriptive parallel of water made hot enough to boil. The combination might truly be terrifying.

Though it does not especially look like it, English painter J.M.W. Turner captured an experience that was literally as ground-shaking as the prophet calls for. The painting Rain, Steam, Speed captures a time when the railroad was changing England. Where development of cities and civilization had previously required access by navigable waters, the railroad made it possible for industry to develop in non-waterside locations. Goods and people could be transported by the railroad. But Turner gives the train more symbolism than that.

J.M.W. Turner. Rain, Steam, Speed. c. 1844. London: National Gallery. 

For Turner, the train tears through the landscape, a dark gash against blue and gold. The bridge and train separate a man in a boat on the river (to the left of the bridge) from a farmer plowing his field (to the right of the bridge). At the left is the increasingly irrelevant road bridge that crosses the river. The boat is powered by the man; the plowing is powered by the animals. The train, of course, is powered by steam. Small bits of red and white paint on the engine are not realistic - there was no way to see through to the engine's firebox. But those paint smudges symbolize the fire that burns, causing water to boil and turn to steam which is harnessed, powering the locomotive.

The train thunders across a bridge (traditionally identified as the Maidenhead railway bridge, across the Thames between Taplow and Maidenhead). Passengers sit in open-air cars behind the engine. They can feel the mist of the steam and the rain as they travel at 50 heart-stopping, breathtaking miles an hour.

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down. Mountains quaking, fire kindling, water boiling. And God's presence is known. Heart-stopping. Breathtaking.

You have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.

One of the details that easily escapes notice in the painting is the rabbit. Yes, there is a rabbit. It is running directly in front of the train. What exactly does the hare mean? Is nature going to be vanquished - or at least forced to succumb to "progress"? Is technology about to run over the rabbit? Have we been delivered into the hand of our iniquity? Or is the rabbit still faster than the train? Can we see it as God working for those who wait for God?

Rain. Steam. Speed. Torn heavens and quaking earth. Kindled fire and boiling water. And the first Sunday as we wait for the God who is to come. Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.


For thoughts on the gospel lesson for Advent 1B, click here.
For additional thoughts on the impact of steam and the earth, click here or on the Facebook link below.

God Turn All Things to the Best

The readings from Hebrew scripture and the gospel for Baptism of Christ C (Isaiah 43:1-7 and Luke 3:15-22) should remind us of the power of water. The waters of a baptismal service are usually manageable. A font, a bowl or a pool is filled. The waters are calm and controllable. We dip out the water to be poured or duck under the water in an organized fashion.

But there are times when we are reminded of the power of water. Currently the waters of the Mississippi River are flooding riverbanks and breeching levees from Illinois to Louisiana, and the soutthern locations are still seeing rising water. And unless you are in or near one of those places it's easy to remain unaware of what that looks like. 

One night in 1525, German artist Albrecht Durer dreamed about water. When he woke from the dream he attempted to put down in writing and capture in paint the image that had so frightened him in his dream. The image was this:

Albrecht Durer. Dream Vision. 1525. Watercolor on paper. Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna.

In the painting, gigantic falls of water fill the sky. The landscape is dotted with trees and rises in the land. A towered city is in the distance. One plume of water has reached the earth, crashing into the horizon with deep blue color and creating an earth-bound cloud of water. Imagine the force of that water as it hits the earth. This is not a gentle rain that refreshes the earth.

Beneath the picture Durer wrote: “In the year 1525 between Wednesday and Thursday (7-8 June) after Whitsunday during the night I saw this appearance in my sleep, how many great waters fell from heaven. The first struck the earth about four miles away from me with a terrific force, with tremendous clamour and clash, drowning the whole land. I was so sore afraid that I awoke from it before the other waters fell. And the waters which had fallen were very abundant. Some of them fell further away, some nearer, and they came down from such a great height that they all seemed to fall with equal slowness. But when the first water, which hit the earth, was almost approaching, it fell with such swiftness, wind and roaring, that I was so frightened when I awoke that my whole body trembled and for a long while I could not come to myself. So when I arose in the morning I painted above here as I had seen it. God turn all things to the best.”

In Durer's vision the water was significant - even terrifying - enough that it caused him to think of God. Perhaps it also caused him to remember the promise of Isaiah's prophecy that rivers would not overwhelm and that in deep waters God would be there. Those are promises worth remembering on the occasion of Jesus' baptism and on every baptism celebrated in a family of faith. The waters of baptism can be deeper and more consuming that the basin or drops or carefully clear pool would suggest. And for each person who goes through those waters, we pray that God will turn all things to the best.

Business as Usual at Horeb?

The elements are familiar: Moses, rock, water, people prepared to receive the water. But you might not expect to see the episode of Moses striking the rock as a monument in a public park. This particular statue, dedicated in 1893, is in Washington Park, Albany, NY.

Often in pictures we see Moses standing beside a rock, more in the pose of Christ standing at the door and knocking. Here, though, Moses will be more in the way of Nanny McPhee, tapping her cane on the ground to effect action. Here Moses is standing on the rock, though the Exodus passage tells us that God has promised to be standing on the rock (Exodus 17:6: I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink). Additional bronze figures on the lower part of the statue represent stages of human life - infancy, maturity, youth, old age, reminding us that all people need to drink of this water.

The statue (both rock and bronze figures), designed by John Massey Rhind, is also called the King Memorial Fountain. Commissioned by Henry King as a memorial to his father, Rufus King, the chosen subject was the Rock of Horeb. The subject was chosen not for its demonstration of faith in God's providence but rather, apparently, as a comparison to Rufus King's skills in banking and commerce. A general interpretation is that the people were "able to drink" of progress, because of Rufus King's skills.

Is that a comparison we would make today? The water from the rock...as commerce? In other times and places, the rock at Horeb has served as a typology for poets and for the resurrection. What might the act of getting water from a rock symbolize for us today (in addition to drinkable water, which remains out of reach to many people in the world)?

For additional information on the fountain, see:  http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2011/04/18/the-moses-fountain-in-washington-park. For additional information on the rock at Horeb as symbol/typology, see: http://www.victorianweb.org/religion/type/moses.html and http://www.victorianweb.org/religion/type/ch2.html

For thoughts on John 4 and Exodus 17, click here.