Overview
This liturgy was originally written by M Jade Kaiser for a United Methodist service on Earth Day 2013 in Austin, Texas, and has since been adapted further. The version presented here is adapted (with permission) from one found on the web site of enfleshed, an organization that creates and facilitates spiritual resources for collective liberation.
Liturgy
Before the Service
The week before the service, make sure the congregation knows that there will be Water Communion during the following week’s service. Here is a sample announcement:
Next Sunday, our service will include a special water communion ritual. Prior to Sunday, we invite you to visit the nearest body of water to your home (it’s ok if that ends up being the kitchen sink, but we invite you consider where that water flows from) and bring a small container of that water along with you to worship. We’ll be remembering the gifts of creation, and specifically the waters of our community that bind our lives and life together—near and far, creaturely and plant, land and air. Join us as we gather in gratitude and solidarity with all the earth and every life that inhabits it.
The day of the service, make sure there is a container on or near the altar to receive the water—or, if the service will be celebrated in a sanctuary with a font, the water may be placed there.
Script
Introduction
As a Christian community we are accustomed to regular participation in the Eucharist. In that ritual, we are given a taste of Christ’s table where all feast together, in peace, in loving relationship, and in justice. This morning we enter that story again, from a different element among us.
We remember, today, the Spirit of God hovering over the waters from which things began. From and through a divine stirring, creation unfolds. From water, we are born. As the Lakota people have taught us, “Water is Life.”
Water reminds us of our limits—without it, our lives and communities cannot be sustained.
Water reminds us of what refreshes and renews our bodies and souls both spiritually and physically.
Water reminds us of our inseparability with all life. With land and other creatures. With eras before us. And those yet to come.
And water reminds us of our basic dependence on this resource and each other. While water is polluted for profit. Hoarded and privatized. But we all thirst. We remember it is our responsibility to share and protect this earth and its resources with all of God’s beloved creation.
This morning, as those who brought water with them come to the altar, not to receive but to offer a symbol of gratitude for all God’s gifts of creation, may we listen for God’s voice in the waters—water from [list local sources of water or ways of imaging ordinary uses of water]. The waters from all around our community unite as one again and remind us of our own connection—to the earth, to one another, and to God, our primary source of life.
Prayer
Creative One, we give you thanks for the wonder and power and beauty of this earth as you created it. How lucky we are to live as a part of this whole.
We ask your blessing upon the waters brought forth by this congregation and all the bodies of water they represent. You have entrusted us to care for creation, for the earth, and for water. Forgive us for the ways we mistreat this precious resource. We acknowledge the injustice of keeping access to clean water in the hands of the privileged and greedy. We acknowledge the ways we take for granted our access to water. We acknowledge we hide from our dependency on this source and other natural elements from which we are born.
Forgive us, O God, for all the ways we betray the gifts of water and its relationship to all life. As we bring our offerings from communities near and far, may we be reminded of how you weave our lives together, bodily, spiritually, relationally, ecologically. May we remember our baptism. May we remember our calling to resist evil together, to seek justice for all who thirst, and to protect people and land from corporations who threaten to steal or pollute bodies of water.
With joy and thanksgiving, we pray,
Amen.
Ritual
Invite the congregation to bring water to the communal vessel, and give any necessary directions about how to do this. Assure visitors and others without water that they are symbolically included—or perhaps have extra bottles of water on hand for them to use in the ritual.
Have musicians play music while members of the congregation bring their water to the communal vessel.
After all have poured their water into the communal vessel and have returned to their seats, signal the musicians to finish. Invite all present to share in a Time of Holy Silence—listening to the water. If the communal vessel has a fountain element in it that allows for “gurgling,” turn that on; or, select someone to slowly pour their water as the closing, making it intentionally loud and drawn out; or, consider another creative way of drawing out the sound of moving water.
Closing Prayer
God of Ocean and Sea, River and Pond, Rain Drops and Morning Dew, what grace your presence is among us. May we live in gratitude, through posture and action. May we be faithful in returning land to its tenders, returning to right-relationship with our own creaturely bodies, and returning our attention to the protection of this planet. That life may flourish, locally and globally. May it be so.