The Waters We Name
Year A, Lent 4
March 15, 2026
St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church
Central Mississippi River watershed
Minnehaha Creek watershed
Biscayne Aquifer
Flint River basin (GA)
Turtle Creek - Trinity River watershed
Rio Grande watershed
Chicago river
Upper LA River watershed
Strait of Hormuz
Litani River
Jordan River
These are the names of bodies of water and watersheds that have stood witness to state-sanctioned violence, death, and acts of war in recent months. Knowing a name is the beginning of relationship. Knowing a name can open channels for communal empowerment — consider the underlying force behind the phrase, “say their names.” Currents of electricity seem to jolt us to attention whenever it’s invoked. Knowing a name gives grief and lament (and rage) a place to land. And, as we’ve seen throughout the history of this nation, the flip side to “Say their names” comes with the power to re-name something or someone. Just look to Denali . . . Or is it Mt McKinley?
And so, anytime a body of water is named in Scripture, our ears should perk up even a little, and our minds should snap to attention. This water has a role to play. To read the gospel sacramentally, invites us to remember our baptism.
This sermon is a tale of two baptisms. The first offers a reflection on the story of a man born blind who encounters Jesus, and is told to wash in the pool of Siloam. The second is a cautionary tale of our current context as a baptism into violence done in the name of “security,” and even “peace.”
One baptism brings sight and enlightenment to a man born blind, moving him toward faith in Jesus and a life transformed. The other baptism initiates US into a world where death is seen as part of the divine will for the good of a nation. Unlike the baptismal movement from death to life through water and Spirit, this other baptism appears to be a folding in of the social body to the point of near-total breakdown. We are witnessing an acceleration of authorized violence against citizens and unauthorized acts of war against other nations. . . . (Not exactly witnessing?) Or, if you're like me, peering out through clenched fingers, catching glimpses of what’s happening one headline at a time.
The chapter opens with a decoy question from the disciples demonstrating the common belief that health and status are gifted by divine fiat. (Or, to put it in contemporary terms, fitness is next to godliness.) “Who sinned?” the disciples ask. I can almost see Jesus shrug as he answers, neither. Instead of addressing the question, the gospel writer pivots to themes of day/night, light/darkness: daytime being the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry, that is shadowed by his impending death when the world will go dark, even just for a moment.
Jesus bends down, makes mud with some dirt and his spit, puts it on the man's eyes, then tells him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. Like the story of Naaman, who is told by Elisha to wash in the River Jordan, the man born blind is told specifically which body of water to wash in, in order to be healed, or cleansed, depending upon how one might interpret the action.
According to Raymond Brown whose two volume commentary on John sits on my bookcase, dust jacket well faded from someone else's ill placed shelf -- Brown states this, “the story in [chapter 9] illustrates the healing power of water. The Gospel pauses to interpret the name of the pool … the explanation that the name means ‘one who has been sent’ clearly associates the water with Jesus.”
(Now) The first dozen or so times when I read the gospel writer's parenthetical explanation of the name Siloam, I assumed that the connection had to do with the man born blind and others who would encounter the water and be healed—as in, those who enter the waters are sent forth from them (and they are transformed). The gospel text simply has Jesus saying to the man, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” followed by the explanation “which means Sent.”
But in his commentary, Brown is saying that the waters are called “sent” just as Jesus is the One who is sent (by God). In other words, the man born blind is not the subject of a sending action. Rather, the water’s identity is ’Sent’, just as Jesus is ‘sent’. Such a close association between water and Jesus takes us back to the beginning—when God hovered over the watery depths before time; when the Logos was with God and the Word was God; and it takes us to the Jordan, when Jesus was in the water and the dove-like Spirit descended. It’s as though wherever Christ is, there is water.
Such a close association between Jesus and the healing waters means something. And it imparts meaning on Jesus' action of making a "sacred mud pie ritual.”
Do you sense that subtle shift of meaning? It’s a matter of where we place the weight of significance. Is the water that means ‘Sent forth’ weighted with the left foot, say, connected with the experience of human creatures? Or is the water weighted with the right foot and the divinity of Christ, deserving of its own healing agency? (Yes, perhaps both)
After revealing this close association of Jesus with the waters, Raymond Brown goes on to say within the same paragraph, that based upon other watery narratives in John’s gospel, Jesus [alone?] “was now the source of life-giving water.” Suddenly, water's material heft in the story evaporates .. which is often what happens when we seek to identify a singular, overarching message in the gospel. The name of the pool recedes in the light of Jesus the wellspring of eternal life; in favor of a more ‘spiritual’ understanding. Yet the waters of Siloam still shimmer and sparkle with healing agency.
Here in this first baptismal tale, I see the gospel story as being distinctive for its baptismal gifts, for the water that is named, and a strong example of whose authority is worth following.
There are certain key elements in the narrative that relate it to ancient Christian practices and early theologies of baptism. The first has to do with the man born blind going to the waters to receive sight. The pool of Siloam, in Jesus’ time, was already associated with cleansing and healing rituals. The waters of baptism are for healing and cleansing. Restoration of sight—or, in this case, the gift of sight to a man born blind, often has to do with conversion experiences.
Conversely, spiritual blindness falls upon the religious leaders by the end of chapter nine, when they entrench themselves into their beliefs.
Sight and blindness in John’s gospel have everything to do with themes of daylight and the dark of night. Divine activity is happening in the daylight—which is Jesus’ earthly ministry—before night falls and Jesus’ death inaugurates a whole new era. Here in this pre-Pentecost moment, the man born blind receives a gift of sight and, with each inquisition, moves closer to Jesus, closer to faith in the Son of Man. The Holy Spirit has not yet been poured out but is active in the work that Jesus and his disciples are doing. Thus, a second key element is this gift of enlightenment. Many ancient Christian writers described the receiving of the Holy Spirit in baptism in terms of enlightenment, and a gift of faith.
Finally, as readers, we hear the way the gospel writer overturns systems of authority, opening a path for listeners to (re)align their allegiance with Jesus of Nazareth. Through the series of inquisitions and examinations — which, I hope, seem vaguely familiar from the rite of Baptism [recently held at the church, Feb 1] — the man born blind first declares that Jesus healed him; then states that he is (or must be) a prophet; and finally, after turning the religious dogmatism of the authorities on their heads, submits himself to Jesus. “Tell me” he says, “[who is the Son of Man], so that I may believe in him.” As the man born blind moves toward faith, having received the gifts of physical sight from washing in Siloam, and spiritual enlightenment, we witness the religious leaders become (spiritually) blind as they adhere to their own beliefs. To their eyes, they are the foremost authorities when it comes to knowing who God is and what God does.
The significance of this passage is demonstrated by its inclusion in ancient Christian funerary art and in baptismal homilies. In those first centuries, baptism was closely associated with a believer’s end of life. Burial sites included watery scenes like the pool of Siloam and the well of John 4. Following Jesus into death was considered just as significant as living one’s life as a believer—at times moreso, depending upon who was ruling in Rome. Fourth century writer Gregory of Nazianzus recounts another “kind of baptism: that conferred by witness and blood, by which Christ himself was baptized.” Similarly, though (I hope) less gruesomely, for Martin Luther, baptism’s fulfillment arrived with death. Our 1979 Book of Common Prayer expresses this in the funeral rites, with the Apostle’s Creed, where it says, “In the assurance of eternal life given at Baptism, let us proclaim our faith...” Yet the nature of death in these contexts—ancient martyrdom, and a life of faith lived out to the fullest—is different from what we are witnessing today.
We have reached a point in the sociopolitical evolution of this nation when we are undergoing a massive stress test — only, it isn't a test.
As we saw in John chapter nine, baptism into the way of Jesus Christ was marked by washing clean, a gift of real and spiritual sight, and a (re)alignment with divine authority over religious intractability. One way that we could read this passage in our current context of governmental overreach, fed by Christian nationalism, would be to interpret the role of the spiritually blind religious leaders as illustrative of current leaders. We could explore that route: how some of our Christian siblings appear to be blinded by their own ideologies as they entwine themselves with political power. However, for me, that seems too easy .. too comfortable.
In this sermon that is a tale of two baptisms, what I propose is that we are witnessing a total inversion of baptismal theologies in such a way that we cannot remain somehow ‘outside’ of or apart from the situation. We ourselves are being baptized into a worldview that—speaking for myself and many of my colleagues—feels like it’s the wrong-way out. It grates against our sense of a common good.
Where baptism into the way of Jesus Christ makes us a new creation, washed clean and made whole for the journey of faith, its inversion is marked by the defilement of humanity and categorical de-humanization — not only of those who are harmed, but (as a prerequisite) those who are enacting harm. I’ve heard discussions for some time now about the stresses imposed by modern society on everyday people. So, the fact that there are groups of individuals who have no qualms about enacting violence on others should, by now, sadly, come as no surprise. And every day I have to ask myself, do I still see the human behind the mask?
With the story of the man born blind, we noticed a key element of baptism in the gift of enlightenment, the gift of the Spirit. At our baptism we are united with Christ in water and Spirit, meaning that no matter what, the Spirit of the triune God is within us, filling our hearts with courage and new life. .. (Yet), as we witness the occupations in Chicago and Minnesota, and hear about retaliations closer to us, in Portland and even down the street; as we follow the news of wars abroad and hear local stories of the impacts government cuts have on our neighbors living on an edge . . . There is only so much our hearts can take. To stay informed is soul-numbing. I confess, when I don’t feel angry, I retreat into ruts of despair. Where is the light? Where is the Spirit at work?
Related to that, I start to wonder, what good does it do me to proclaim my faith in Jesus, to pray to our Triune Creator for mercy, when others have already claimed an unrecognizable face of Jesus as fulfilling “God’s will” upon a nation? We have already seen, repeatedly, that certain religious leaders are allowed into the halls of power, while others are gassed and shot with “nonlethal” (yet still quite harmful) munitions. Baptized into the way of Jesus Christ, we must continually reaffirm our faith in the One who was sent into the world (cosmos) as a child, who was himself a refugee, who did not seize authority, but who gave himself up to be crucified. Others may try to enforce an allegiance to a Jesus that we don’t know. But, my hope is that, for as long as we remain his sheep, we will know his voice.
We are witnesses to an upside-down world that seeks to baptize us in the blood of innocent (and some not-so innocent) persons. And while we may want to avoid the news, or see what’s happening around the nation only through a dark glass, we cannot abandon our own baptismal journey into the way of Jesus Christ. Anyone who is baptized in water and Spirit is baptized into a communion and a community much greater than we can imagine — starting with the water. The pool of Siloam offered healing. The river Jordan received Jesus and, as many traditions assert, all waters were sanctified at the descent of Jesus into the waters with the Spirit. There is something sacred about knowing and naming waters.
There is power in naming that reality. There is power when we say their names. And, when power attempts to erase names, we must call upon our baptism to resist.
Comments