Going to the Lake
September 28, 2008
Rev. Susan Gilbert Zencka
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Texts: Psalm 104:1a, 5-13, 31; Luke 5:1-11
I must confess that beginning this sermon on Lakes has been more difficult than I thought – on the one hand, as it happens, the Bible says almost nothing about lakes per se, except for 11 verses in the whole Bible, 5 of which are passages about a lake of fire in Revelation that I was pretty clear was not the direction I wanted to take. This is not to say that the Bible doesn’t discuss WATER – it talks about seas, rivers, streams, the waters, and living waters. It gets kind of poetic at times, as in the section of Psalm 104 that Ned read.
Of course, perhaps part of the reason that the Bible doesn’t discuss lakes too much is that the Bible was written in a drier part of the world – that part of the Middle East is not exactly northern Wisconsin or Minnesota. There aren’t a lot of lakes in that part of the world. While the Bible doesn’t have much about lakes, there is a tremendous amount of important information about lakes: freshwater is only 3% of the earth’s water, the rest is seawater. Of that 3%, nearly 70% has been locked up as ice and snow, although that may change. Another 30% of fresh water is stored as ground water and within rocks. Only 0.3% of fresh water is available in rivers and lakes.
We are part of the Great Lakes region, and the Great Lakes contain 1/5 of the world’s fresh surface water. These five lakes, Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario and Superior, are bounded by 8 states and 2 Canadian provinces. They provide drinking water to about 40 million people. The Great Lakes Waterway is a significant maritime resource for commerce – when I worked in the steel mill I used to stand out at night by the overhead cranes and watch the iron ore be unloaded, that had been shipped from the Iron Range in northern Minnesota. And think of all the recreation in and around the Great Lakes!
Recently, the eight states and 2 Canadian provinces that surround the Great Lakes worked to develop the Great Lakes compact which would preserve this important resource. The U.S. Congress has approved the Great Lakes Compact this last week and President Bush has promised to sign it.
The Great Lakes are certainly enormously significant, and it is a tremendous achievement that this Compact has been achieved to protect them for years to come. But beyond all these facts and figures about lakes, many of us find that we have a strong personal bond to some lake or another. Anyone who has lived in Chicago has a heart connection to Lake Michigan – and folks have similar connections to the other Great Lakes. But many of us have been nourished by smaller lakes. My folks built a cabin on Whitney Lake in the Pocono Mountains in 1963 – it’s a small lake, only a mile long and half a mile across, and I spent most of many summers there as a child, and part of every summer there. I caught 64 salamanders one summer, and helped Harold Lampe catch 23 snakes another summer. I learned to row, canoe, sail, and fish there. I taught lifesaving to several of the younger kids there one summer when I was in college. My own children have spent many extended vacations there – and Jason and Shen honeymooned there. When I think about “going to the Lake,” it’s Whitney Lake I’m thinking about. I am already planning to spend three weeks there next summer, as it has been too long since I’ve been to the Lake. Lakes get into your soul that way.
The passage today in Luke seems to have some of those same themes. When Jesus first comes to the lakeshore, he’s looking for space from the crowd. He is already attracting large crowds, and he needs more elbow-room when he’s teaching than he can get in their midst, so he asks Simon Peter to take him a little ways from shore in his boat…and then teaches the crowd from there. Many of us find that special places – a lake, a river, the woods, the ocean, the mountains – can help us create a little space from the crowded parts of our lives too, whether they are crowded with people, or with tasks, pressures, temptations, or distractions.
Somehow, if we have a special place, it really can become a sanctuary for us, a sacred place, where we can strengthen our connection with God, and that which is essential in our lives and ourselves. People like me, whose special lake is almost 1000 miles away can find other places where we can get a little sacred space in our lives – when I ride my bike in the woods of Iverson Park or walk in the woods of the Green Circle trail, I have that same experience. We need to have places where we can experiences some spaciousness in our lives.
The second dimension in today’s story is that Jesus led Simon Peter, James and John to an unexpectedly abundant catch. There are riches in the waters…and in the woods, the mountains, the ocean, and so on. The earth is full of God’s good gifts. Lakes are wonderfully rich habitats – as our liturgy described, they are home for plants and animals in, around and near them. The plant life within lakes is substantial, many species of fish abound in lakes, and animals live on the shore, or fairly nearby, as the water supply is essential to other species as well as humans. I remember at the Lake when I was a child seeing beaver dams, herons, dragonflies, snapping turtles and a host of plants I never saw in the Philadelphia suburbs during my childhood. My sense was always that the Lake was a wonderful kingdom for plants and animals. The marshy corners at one end held even more treasures, and the picture on the front of our bulletins is accurate – there’s a whole lot of life in a lake.
And there’s a lot going on that we have no idea of. In the summers when I swam in the Lake, when I’d dive off the rafts at the swimming area, and go through the warm water to the chilly water down deep, I had no idea that I’d experienced the thermal stratification of lakes in summer. The water along the bottom of the lake in the summer is the hypolimnion – it stays cool constantly. Less deep is a layer called the thermocline, and at the surface is the epilimnion, the warm surface water. When it gets really interesting is in the autumn, when the cooling surface waters begin to mix with the waters below as the temperature differences even out – it’s known as the fall overturn. And for a while, the lakes are isothermal – all one temperature from surface to depth – and then in the winter there is an inverse stratification as the top waters are colder than the waters below. Lakes are not only rich but complex habitats. The difficulty in today’s sermon is not only that the Biblical material is sparse but that the secular material is so rich -- from science to commerce to politics to our own lives, there is a lot to consider with lakes.
The Biblical story continues, and the lake becomes a place of call for Peter, James and John – this gets to the heart of one of the essential dimensions of our theology – these disciples are called and end up, as Jesus says, fishing for people. Their call is not only for their own benefit – they are called to service as well as to a richer, deeper life. And so are we – our faith is not just about our own inner lives – our sense of purpose, our inner peace, our questions and struggles. Our faith is also about how we interact with the world – as some of the most interesting and complex dimensions of a lake are at its shore where herons wade, and otters swim, where amphibians live in both worlds – so too are we spiritually amphibious, and some of the richest dimensions of our faith are how we are called to be with others: our friends, our neighbors…especially in our era when all the world is our neighborhood.
Peter, James, and John quickly learned that Jesus didn’t just enter their lives for his ability to get away from the crowds or for their ability to draw net-breaking yields from the lake. Jesus called them to engage with those on the lakeshore and beyond – Jesus drew them from the lake even as they drew the fish – though with far different results, for Jesus led them to a fuller life, not the end of life. And this is an important thing to remember in a world where so many people seem to think that our faith is all about the end-of-life. It’s not. Jesus rarely spoke of the end of life, but he taught all the time about living life. Our faith is about what we are doing in the here and now, not only for ourselves, but for other people in this world as well. And not only the people.
As I considered what scripture to use today considering lakes, I kept thinking about a small story in Matthew that doesn’t mention lakes at all. Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of heaven, he was not speaking about afterlife issues – he was speaking of God’s realm, in all time.
As I reflected on lakes and their riches, both in terms of the ecosystem, as well as what they contribute to our culture and commerce, I was so struck by how important they are, that they are indeed like a pearl of great value, that we should cherish and keep safe. Like the rest of the world God made, lakes are increasingly at risk from the world of human endeavor, and while the Great Lakes Compact is an important action that we should celebrate, it should also inspire us to take seriously our stewardship of the earth. It is our home and our hope, and God has entrusted it to our care. We are called by God, not only for our own sake but for the sake of the world.
One summer when we went to the Lake, new homes at been built on the shore by what had been the marshy cove where we caught salamanders. The marsh had been cleaned out and dug a little deeper to create a clean shoreline where docks could be built. Even on that little lake, human progress had changed the habitat. There are still marshy coves around the Lake, and eventually, all the homeowners on one side of the Lake bought up the undeveloped land on the other side of the Lake to protect it, and preserve some wild space. So the heron, the beavers, and even the salamanders still have a home on that small lake. May we always be mindful of the sacred space and the riches of God’s lakes, and our own call to protect and preserve the lakes. Amen.
----------------------------
1 These figures come from Alastair Fothergill’s plant earth as you’ve never seen it before, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, p. 198
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Texts: Psalm 104:1a, 5-13, 31; Luke 5:1-11
I must confess that beginning this sermon on Lakes has been more difficult than I thought – on the one hand, as it happens, the Bible says almost nothing about lakes per se, except for 11 verses in the whole Bible, 5 of which are passages about a lake of fire in Revelation that I was pretty clear was not the direction I wanted to take. This is not to say that the Bible doesn’t discuss WATER – it talks about seas, rivers, streams, the waters, and living waters. It gets kind of poetic at times, as in the section of Psalm 104 that Ned read.
Of course, perhaps part of the reason that the Bible doesn’t discuss lakes too much is that the Bible was written in a drier part of the world – that part of the Middle East is not exactly northern Wisconsin or Minnesota. There aren’t a lot of lakes in that part of the world. While the Bible doesn’t have much about lakes, there is a tremendous amount of important information about lakes: freshwater is only 3% of the earth’s water, the rest is seawater. Of that 3%, nearly 70% has been locked up as ice and snow, although that may change. Another 30% of fresh water is stored as ground water and within rocks. Only 0.3% of fresh water is available in rivers and lakes.
We are part of the Great Lakes region, and the Great Lakes contain 1/5 of the world’s fresh surface water. These five lakes, Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario and Superior, are bounded by 8 states and 2 Canadian provinces. They provide drinking water to about 40 million people. The Great Lakes Waterway is a significant maritime resource for commerce – when I worked in the steel mill I used to stand out at night by the overhead cranes and watch the iron ore be unloaded, that had been shipped from the Iron Range in northern Minnesota. And think of all the recreation in and around the Great Lakes!
Recently, the eight states and 2 Canadian provinces that surround the Great Lakes worked to develop the Great Lakes compact which would preserve this important resource. The U.S. Congress has approved the Great Lakes Compact this last week and President Bush has promised to sign it.
The Great Lakes are certainly enormously significant, and it is a tremendous achievement that this Compact has been achieved to protect them for years to come. But beyond all these facts and figures about lakes, many of us find that we have a strong personal bond to some lake or another. Anyone who has lived in Chicago has a heart connection to Lake Michigan – and folks have similar connections to the other Great Lakes. But many of us have been nourished by smaller lakes. My folks built a cabin on Whitney Lake in the Pocono Mountains in 1963 – it’s a small lake, only a mile long and half a mile across, and I spent most of many summers there as a child, and part of every summer there. I caught 64 salamanders one summer, and helped Harold Lampe catch 23 snakes another summer. I learned to row, canoe, sail, and fish there. I taught lifesaving to several of the younger kids there one summer when I was in college. My own children have spent many extended vacations there – and Jason and Shen honeymooned there. When I think about “going to the Lake,” it’s Whitney Lake I’m thinking about. I am already planning to spend three weeks there next summer, as it has been too long since I’ve been to the Lake. Lakes get into your soul that way.
The passage today in Luke seems to have some of those same themes. When Jesus first comes to the lakeshore, he’s looking for space from the crowd. He is already attracting large crowds, and he needs more elbow-room when he’s teaching than he can get in their midst, so he asks Simon Peter to take him a little ways from shore in his boat…and then teaches the crowd from there. Many of us find that special places – a lake, a river, the woods, the ocean, the mountains – can help us create a little space from the crowded parts of our lives too, whether they are crowded with people, or with tasks, pressures, temptations, or distractions.
Somehow, if we have a special place, it really can become a sanctuary for us, a sacred place, where we can strengthen our connection with God, and that which is essential in our lives and ourselves. People like me, whose special lake is almost 1000 miles away can find other places where we can get a little sacred space in our lives – when I ride my bike in the woods of Iverson Park or walk in the woods of the Green Circle trail, I have that same experience. We need to have places where we can experiences some spaciousness in our lives.
The second dimension in today’s story is that Jesus led Simon Peter, James and John to an unexpectedly abundant catch. There are riches in the waters…and in the woods, the mountains, the ocean, and so on. The earth is full of God’s good gifts. Lakes are wonderfully rich habitats – as our liturgy described, they are home for plants and animals in, around and near them. The plant life within lakes is substantial, many species of fish abound in lakes, and animals live on the shore, or fairly nearby, as the water supply is essential to other species as well as humans. I remember at the Lake when I was a child seeing beaver dams, herons, dragonflies, snapping turtles and a host of plants I never saw in the Philadelphia suburbs during my childhood. My sense was always that the Lake was a wonderful kingdom for plants and animals. The marshy corners at one end held even more treasures, and the picture on the front of our bulletins is accurate – there’s a whole lot of life in a lake.
And there’s a lot going on that we have no idea of. In the summers when I swam in the Lake, when I’d dive off the rafts at the swimming area, and go through the warm water to the chilly water down deep, I had no idea that I’d experienced the thermal stratification of lakes in summer. The water along the bottom of the lake in the summer is the hypolimnion – it stays cool constantly. Less deep is a layer called the thermocline, and at the surface is the epilimnion, the warm surface water. When it gets really interesting is in the autumn, when the cooling surface waters begin to mix with the waters below as the temperature differences even out – it’s known as the fall overturn. And for a while, the lakes are isothermal – all one temperature from surface to depth – and then in the winter there is an inverse stratification as the top waters are colder than the waters below. Lakes are not only rich but complex habitats. The difficulty in today’s sermon is not only that the Biblical material is sparse but that the secular material is so rich -- from science to commerce to politics to our own lives, there is a lot to consider with lakes.
The Biblical story continues, and the lake becomes a place of call for Peter, James and John – this gets to the heart of one of the essential dimensions of our theology – these disciples are called and end up, as Jesus says, fishing for people. Their call is not only for their own benefit – they are called to service as well as to a richer, deeper life. And so are we – our faith is not just about our own inner lives – our sense of purpose, our inner peace, our questions and struggles. Our faith is also about how we interact with the world – as some of the most interesting and complex dimensions of a lake are at its shore where herons wade, and otters swim, where amphibians live in both worlds – so too are we spiritually amphibious, and some of the richest dimensions of our faith are how we are called to be with others: our friends, our neighbors…especially in our era when all the world is our neighborhood.
Peter, James, and John quickly learned that Jesus didn’t just enter their lives for his ability to get away from the crowds or for their ability to draw net-breaking yields from the lake. Jesus called them to engage with those on the lakeshore and beyond – Jesus drew them from the lake even as they drew the fish – though with far different results, for Jesus led them to a fuller life, not the end of life. And this is an important thing to remember in a world where so many people seem to think that our faith is all about the end-of-life. It’s not. Jesus rarely spoke of the end of life, but he taught all the time about living life. Our faith is about what we are doing in the here and now, not only for ourselves, but for other people in this world as well. And not only the people.
As I considered what scripture to use today considering lakes, I kept thinking about a small story in Matthew that doesn’t mention lakes at all. Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of heaven, he was not speaking about afterlife issues – he was speaking of God’s realm, in all time.
As I reflected on lakes and their riches, both in terms of the ecosystem, as well as what they contribute to our culture and commerce, I was so struck by how important they are, that they are indeed like a pearl of great value, that we should cherish and keep safe. Like the rest of the world God made, lakes are increasingly at risk from the world of human endeavor, and while the Great Lakes Compact is an important action that we should celebrate, it should also inspire us to take seriously our stewardship of the earth. It is our home and our hope, and God has entrusted it to our care. We are called by God, not only for our own sake but for the sake of the world.
One summer when we went to the Lake, new homes at been built on the shore by what had been the marshy cove where we caught salamanders. The marsh had been cleaned out and dug a little deeper to create a clean shoreline where docks could be built. Even on that little lake, human progress had changed the habitat. There are still marshy coves around the Lake, and eventually, all the homeowners on one side of the Lake bought up the undeveloped land on the other side of the Lake to protect it, and preserve some wild space. So the heron, the beavers, and even the salamanders still have a home on that small lake. May we always be mindful of the sacred space and the riches of God’s lakes, and our own call to protect and preserve the lakes. Amen.
----------------------------
1 These figures come from Alastair Fothergill’s plant earth as you’ve never seen it before, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, p. 198