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I have been thinking about the word “pour” a lot lately. I am wondering about what I pour into the world.
I watched a friend raise her children. She was and is such a good mom. Her children are adults now, all grown up doing what adults do, working in their professions as caring people, being good neighbors, and making their way in this confusing world. My friend blushes when she talks about them. She is embarrassed by how proud she is of them. “You poured so much love into them,” I remind her. “They are now pouring that love into the world.”
Another friend is concerned about our government. In conversations, he often “pours” out his criticism. I agree with many of his positions, but too often the “pouring” opens a spigot of outrage which becomes ranting and occasional snarky character assassinations. This sort of pouring out absorbs a lot of time and doesn’t seem to make much difference in the world. I imagine you’ve witnessed “political pouring out” too. Confession: I am not just a witness. I am a participant sometimes too.
To “pour” means “to dispense from a container,” and “to cause to flow in a stream.” We human beings are containers. We are filled with our own temperaments, our backgrounds, our unique experiences, and our emotional spectrum. As we go about our lives, we pour ourselves out into our conversations. We tell our stories and share our observations. We pour our energies into our work. We pour our hope into our relationships. What we pour out flows into the communities that surround us.
One friend pours out love. The other friend pours out disgust and anger. What we pour out becomes the stuff the next generation wades through, a nurturing stream, or a muddy ditch.
The word “pour” appears more than 200 times in the revised standard version of the bible.*
God spoke through the prophet Joel promising
“I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
Imagine a waterfall of grace flowing from heaven. God pouring God’s self into us. God’s dreams and vision filling us.
Jesus poured water into a basin and washed the feet of his disciples. He didn’t ask who those feet belonged to or where they had been. There was no requirement for confession. He just took them in his hands and washed them. He was a servant pouring out an expression of love.
At his last Passover meal, Jesus poured wine into a cup. (Let yourself imagine the sound of wine filling a chalice.) Then he lifted the cup and said that this was his blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins. That forgiveness still flows to us.
The “pouring” that compels me the most is in Philippians 2. Paul describes Jesus as emptying himself, pouring his life into ours. This is the pouring of the eternal beyond-our-imagination grace of Christ into the world.
The world seems a sad place just now. There is too much violence. We are at odds with each other in so many ways. Millions of people are living as refugees generation after generation. Those of us who live in privilege seem to be blind to what we have and unable to be content with less. In our political divisions, we are afraid to talk to our neighbors. You probably have your own list of things that are wrong with the world, things you would change if you could.
I have been thinking about what I pour into the world. Compassion or criticism? Mercy or mess? Healing or hurt? Imagine humanity as a terrarium. What if we pour too much anger into it, and it tips out of balance, and everyone suffers? What if we pour out the grace we have been given and everyone thrives?
I don’t want to be a wide-eyed ineffective optimist about this. What if it were really true that filling our lives and our communities and even our politics and economics with the grace we have received could create a better world for everyone? The war in the Mideast, racism, climate change, food insecurity. What if grace was our first response? What if we paused for a day, an hour, three minutes before we react or rant and allowed grace to fill the cracks created by our fear and hurt? How would that change things?
I think about my friend and her children and the clear evidence of love. I think about the tsunami of grace that is Christ. I want to live a fluid life, one of God’s grace generously given, joyously received, AND poured out freely, even in the places where anger and outrage tempt.
I have a collection of pitchers. I never meant to collect them. They just all ended up at my house. One is a cream pitcher my grandmother used on the farm. Another is a pitcher my mother filled with home-made chocolate syrup as a topping for ice cream. Another was a wedding gift. They all open wide at the top ready to be filled. They all have a spout for pouring out. They are useless when they are empty. Fill them with something good and they can be poured out in purpose. I smile when I discover them in my cupboard.
Fill me, Lord, and let me pour out your grace.
Today’s word is “pour.”
*I did not personally review the bible for the word “pour.” I simply went to Biblegateway.com and searched for the word. You can do this too. It’s an interesting way to follow a theme through the bible. Just a tip for fellow bible nerds.
Cindy Hickman
The Rev. Cindy Hickman
The Rev. Cindy Hickman is a retired elder having served three amazing churches. She is now "a free agent for grace." She spends her time reading and writing and is grateful for both. She resides with her husband and their hound dog Ike in West Des Moines. Subscribe to From Exile to Hope