Head Tables and Broken Cisterns Jeremiah 2:4-13, Luke 14:1,7-14
Here’s a factoid you didn’t expect on this Labor Day Sunday. I googled the phrase, “doesn’t hold water,” and there were 15,300,000 links. That’s a-lotta-leaky stuff.
From my cursory glance it appeared that the expression is usually used in opposing arguments or positions: this idea, statement, philosophy doesn’t hold water! It’s leaky, full of holes, far from air-tight. What’s so great about holding water? I’m quite glad that my basement doesn’t do it! …
The phrase comes from an era before plumbing. Holding water was mighty important. It was life itself. I don’t know for certain, but quite probably the phrase comes from Jeremiah: “My people have forsaken me, the spring of living water and have dug their own cisterns that cannot hold water.” This in an era when cisterns were the well of life, when entire villages and cities were built because of a spring, when the presence of water was never taken for granted.
Even today, we don’t take water for granted. None of you would trade indoor plumbing for a broken water bottle. But this is what Jeremiah says the people have done. They’ve traded a ready and ever flowing resource for a cracked pot.
Why would anyone do such a thing? Humans are notoriously short-sighted, but Jeremiah, are you sure? What’s the motivation for trading a spring for a cistern?... What if I offered you a bottle of water or a faucet? Logic might tell you the faucet, correctly attached to main, would be the way to go. But if you were thirsty, the water bottle would be awfully tempting. You can see, you can measure it’s a known and quantifiable reality. You never know when the faucet will be cut off, the spring dry up… you can’t see what’s there. The faucet requires faith.
The water bottle offers the mirage of measurability. Cisterns seem certain. You take a stick, and put it down into the water, and you know how much you got. You never know with a spring. It could dry up tomorrow. Cisterns, water bottles, reservoirs, those are the way to go… Jeremiah.
Unless they leak, the prophet says. Have you ever felt like your life was just not holding water… the will to act parched by leaky insight, the well of joy dried up by others who seem to poke holes in your reservoir, the tears of happiness desiccated by the arid wind of events beyond your control… your life’s just not holding water.
Here’s where the wisdom of the Bible is revolutionary. Your life isn’t supposed to hold water. We’re supposed to live at the spring. We don’t need a flawless cistern, a perfect bucket, a mind like a steel trap, a spirit that never tires, a heart that always holds… you just need to camp out at the spring.
You can see beyond the water… you don’t KNOW how long it might last, you can’t see beyond today, but is the only real source.
We are all so tempted to rely on the mirage of the measurable. ..I have X in my 401 K…I’ll be secure. I have these degrees. I’ll always find a job. When my bank account or my house reaches this number, then I’ll be happy.
The point is NOT that cisterns are bad, the point is it’s absurd to forget that the source of the water is the spring! You can’t measure it, you don’t know at what level it may flow… but it’s the only place you can get truly refreshing water.
About 10 years ago I was back in my home state, finishing up my dissertation, teaching at OK Baptist University. On one day I had lunch with a young friend who was in his mid-20s. The subject of discussion was the fact that he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life. That evening I went to dinner with an older friend in his mid to upper 60s. He had two kids, a grand-kid on the way, a nice life behind him, and he was about to go into retirement, with a decent income. The subject of our discussion was the fact that he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. I was 30, and for the first time in my life I realized you will never get it all measured, quantified, figured out. Our best cisterns will leak. The best we can do is to go daily to the spring.
Jesus is at a dinner party. I love this about Jesus. He seems to love eating. He’s always going to somebody’s for dinner, and in this case it was a prominent Pharisee, a well-respected religious leader. While at this elaborate affair, he was amused at the jockeying for position going on in the room. Everyone wanted the place of honor.
So Jesus does what he often does, he tells a parable. That’s what Luke calls it, even though it’s not like other parables. It’s pretty direct. He says: don’t be so crass as to assume the place of honor, in case you might have to be moved for someone more important, but let the host move you up. Given that this is stated at a Pharisee’s house… you can be sure the message is this: don’t be sure of your place in God’s hierarchy, until you’ve heard if from the heavenly host.
A few years ago Cecelia and I were invited to Costa Rica. We did a kind of tag-team effort for the International Baptist Church of San Jose. I did a three day Bible conference, and she did a concert in a local concert hall. At the end of our few days we were escorted over to a pacific resort where we spent the night in a beautiful spot. The next day we were taken to the airport where we boarded a plane back to Atlanta. We were flying on my sister’s passes. She is a Delta employee. Her passes allow us to fly in first class when there is room. There was room. So we were safely seated in first class, drinking our first class drinks, eating our first class meals, and most importantly sitting in those roomy first class loungers.
Life was pretty good. The concert had been a great success, my speaking seemed to be well-received, we had just spent a night at a lovely resort… my cistern was full, yes mostly of myself, but it was full. At least for about 20 minutes of the flight… until a particularly unhappy, frightfully malicious, attendant noticed my jeans. You see Delta had a rule – all pass holders in first class had to wear business casual. I had put on a blue blazer and thought they’d over-look my jeans. And indeed the nice gate agent did just that. But this attendant was Hilter’s granddaughter.
“You can’t sit here looking like that!” You are on a pass. So, mid-way over the Gulf of Mexico, we were kicked out of first class. In front of a plane load of people, we were asked to move to the back of the bus. It’s impossible to explain to a plane load of people, that the stewardess just didn’t like my jeans.
Jesus goes on to say, what he will say in other places. If you invite folks to your table who are nice and rich, and who will invite you back, you’ve got your reward. But when you give a banquet, invite those who can’t pay you back, who need love, encouragement, liberation. Then your reward will be eternal. Then your cup will truly overflow, you’ll be drinking at the spring.
This is why we do mission trips. This is why we operate the food pantry. This is why some of you are active in Friendship International. This is why we go to Cuba and Serbia. This is why we give a big portion of our budget to missions. This is why we are working on Hand On Kirkwood. This is why we want to intentionally and purposefully seek to become a missional church – where what we are measuring is hard to measure, but you know it when you taste it: faithfulness to our call to sacrifice our lives in service to Christ.
At the end of the day, the reason we like broken cisterns is the same reason we like head tables. We feel more secure when we can see our water or when we can sense that we are at the head of the pack. Both are by no means bad = cisterns are useful for storage, head tables are a great honor. But both are temporary and make poor substitutes for the ever flowing reality of serving living water.
I think the message of Jesus is this: you can spend your life collecting influential friends, piling up money, and storing up a nice net-worth. There’s nothing wrong with any of that, but if that’s all you got it won’t hold water.
Scott L. Stearman KBC Aug. 30, 07
From my cursory glance it appeared that the expression is usually used in opposing arguments or positions: this idea, statement, philosophy doesn’t hold water! It’s leaky, full of holes, far from air-tight. What’s so great about holding water? I’m quite glad that my basement doesn’t do it! …
The phrase comes from an era before plumbing. Holding water was mighty important. It was life itself. I don’t know for certain, but quite probably the phrase comes from Jeremiah: “My people have forsaken me, the spring of living water and have dug their own cisterns that cannot hold water.” This in an era when cisterns were the well of life, when entire villages and cities were built because of a spring, when the presence of water was never taken for granted.
Even today, we don’t take water for granted. None of you would trade indoor plumbing for a broken water bottle. But this is what Jeremiah says the people have done. They’ve traded a ready and ever flowing resource for a cracked pot.
Why would anyone do such a thing? Humans are notoriously short-sighted, but Jeremiah, are you sure? What’s the motivation for trading a spring for a cistern?... What if I offered you a bottle of water or a faucet? Logic might tell you the faucet, correctly attached to main, would be the way to go. But if you were thirsty, the water bottle would be awfully tempting. You can see, you can measure it’s a known and quantifiable reality. You never know when the faucet will be cut off, the spring dry up… you can’t see what’s there. The faucet requires faith.
The water bottle offers the mirage of measurability. Cisterns seem certain. You take a stick, and put it down into the water, and you know how much you got. You never know with a spring. It could dry up tomorrow. Cisterns, water bottles, reservoirs, those are the way to go… Jeremiah.
Unless they leak, the prophet says. Have you ever felt like your life was just not holding water… the will to act parched by leaky insight, the well of joy dried up by others who seem to poke holes in your reservoir, the tears of happiness desiccated by the arid wind of events beyond your control… your life’s just not holding water.
Here’s where the wisdom of the Bible is revolutionary. Your life isn’t supposed to hold water. We’re supposed to live at the spring. We don’t need a flawless cistern, a perfect bucket, a mind like a steel trap, a spirit that never tires, a heart that always holds… you just need to camp out at the spring.
You can see beyond the water… you don’t KNOW how long it might last, you can’t see beyond today, but is the only real source.
We are all so tempted to rely on the mirage of the measurable. ..I have X in my 401 K…I’ll be secure. I have these degrees. I’ll always find a job. When my bank account or my house reaches this number, then I’ll be happy.
The point is NOT that cisterns are bad, the point is it’s absurd to forget that the source of the water is the spring! You can’t measure it, you don’t know at what level it may flow… but it’s the only place you can get truly refreshing water.
About 10 years ago I was back in my home state, finishing up my dissertation, teaching at OK Baptist University. On one day I had lunch with a young friend who was in his mid-20s. The subject of discussion was the fact that he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life. That evening I went to dinner with an older friend in his mid to upper 60s. He had two kids, a grand-kid on the way, a nice life behind him, and he was about to go into retirement, with a decent income. The subject of our discussion was the fact that he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. I was 30, and for the first time in my life I realized you will never get it all measured, quantified, figured out. Our best cisterns will leak. The best we can do is to go daily to the spring.
Jesus is at a dinner party. I love this about Jesus. He seems to love eating. He’s always going to somebody’s for dinner, and in this case it was a prominent Pharisee, a well-respected religious leader. While at this elaborate affair, he was amused at the jockeying for position going on in the room. Everyone wanted the place of honor.
So Jesus does what he often does, he tells a parable. That’s what Luke calls it, even though it’s not like other parables. It’s pretty direct. He says: don’t be so crass as to assume the place of honor, in case you might have to be moved for someone more important, but let the host move you up. Given that this is stated at a Pharisee’s house… you can be sure the message is this: don’t be sure of your place in God’s hierarchy, until you’ve heard if from the heavenly host.
A few years ago Cecelia and I were invited to Costa Rica. We did a kind of tag-team effort for the International Baptist Church of San Jose. I did a three day Bible conference, and she did a concert in a local concert hall. At the end of our few days we were escorted over to a pacific resort where we spent the night in a beautiful spot. The next day we were taken to the airport where we boarded a plane back to Atlanta. We were flying on my sister’s passes. She is a Delta employee. Her passes allow us to fly in first class when there is room. There was room. So we were safely seated in first class, drinking our first class drinks, eating our first class meals, and most importantly sitting in those roomy first class loungers.
Life was pretty good. The concert had been a great success, my speaking seemed to be well-received, we had just spent a night at a lovely resort… my cistern was full, yes mostly of myself, but it was full. At least for about 20 minutes of the flight… until a particularly unhappy, frightfully malicious, attendant noticed my jeans. You see Delta had a rule – all pass holders in first class had to wear business casual. I had put on a blue blazer and thought they’d over-look my jeans. And indeed the nice gate agent did just that. But this attendant was Hilter’s granddaughter.
“You can’t sit here looking like that!” You are on a pass. So, mid-way over the Gulf of Mexico, we were kicked out of first class. In front of a plane load of people, we were asked to move to the back of the bus. It’s impossible to explain to a plane load of people, that the stewardess just didn’t like my jeans.
Jesus goes on to say, what he will say in other places. If you invite folks to your table who are nice and rich, and who will invite you back, you’ve got your reward. But when you give a banquet, invite those who can’t pay you back, who need love, encouragement, liberation. Then your reward will be eternal. Then your cup will truly overflow, you’ll be drinking at the spring.
This is why we do mission trips. This is why we operate the food pantry. This is why some of you are active in Friendship International. This is why we go to Cuba and Serbia. This is why we give a big portion of our budget to missions. This is why we are working on Hand On Kirkwood. This is why we want to intentionally and purposefully seek to become a missional church – where what we are measuring is hard to measure, but you know it when you taste it: faithfulness to our call to sacrifice our lives in service to Christ.
At the end of the day, the reason we like broken cisterns is the same reason we like head tables. We feel more secure when we can see our water or when we can sense that we are at the head of the pack. Both are by no means bad = cisterns are useful for storage, head tables are a great honor. But both are temporary and make poor substitutes for the ever flowing reality of serving living water.
I think the message of Jesus is this: you can spend your life collecting influential friends, piling up money, and storing up a nice net-worth. There’s nothing wrong with any of that, but if that’s all you got it won’t hold water.
Scott L. Stearman KBC Aug. 30, 07
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