Members of the Company and friends gathered at All Hallows by the Tower for the Myddelton Service for the Rededication of the Livery and the Rededication of the Company Cross. The Officiant and Preacher was the Revd Jennifer Midgley Adam and the Director of Music David Cook. We are grateful to them for leading us in music and word. Below is the very fitting sermon which Jennifer preached.
In the service we prayed for the Worshipful Company of Water Conservators and gave thanks for the gift of water and for the abundance of creation, for our environment and all that sustains it.
After the service members of the Company challenged the rain for pictures in front of the Tower of London before processing to Trinity House for a reception and lunch in the warm and dry.
The Worshipful Company of Water Conservators send their best wishes to the Revd Jennifer Midgley Adam in her new role as Assistant Priest at St Peter’s, Eaton Square.
Myddelton Rededication Service Sermon
Here at All Hallows we welcome several hundred people a day into our church. Some have come to visit the church, some the crypt (especially after Christmas when someone made a video about the church that went viral across several social media platforms!), and some people wander in because the door was open.
It’s always interesting to meet people who have walked past this church for years and never walked in. Depending on how the rest of the conversation has gone, I quite often reply – well, we’ve only been here for 13/14 hundred years or so. This usually gets a grin and we start talking about the rest of the church, a building that (apart from the great fire) – everything else that has happened to London has happened to this church. Fires, bombing, and all the rest. Our Anglo-Saxon archway that is dated around 675AD, the medieval walls, the post-war concrete roof … being the only part that leaks! And that there are now some 2024 roof fixes – solar panels on the south and a green roof on the north.
When the roof leaked, we filled many buckets a day. If we knew it was due to rain, the buckets would go out overnight in places of our best guess/memory of where the major leaks were before. Towels at the bottom of the wall where we couldn’t push the buckets, mops in the morning when, inevitably there was a leak in a new place over night. I’m sure you can imagine the state of the floor.
Now the roof is, we think/hope/pray, fixed we won’t have to put out the buckets, towels, and mop in the morning. We won’t have to double check the forecast in the evening on an afternoon when the sky looks suspiciously dark. It’s fixed, sorted … the water is now out of sight, out of mind.
I often see religion being approached in a similar way. When things are all good, life is ticking along just fine, the cracks of life are filled and we don’t need to worry, why would we need God? Why would we need a greater power to be there for us when life is fine?
In my time here at All Hallows, I’ve been in church over some major world events – the invasion of Ukraine (feb 22), the death of her late Majesty the Queen (sept 22), the coronation of His Majesty King Charles (may 23), the kidnapping of hostages in Israel (Oct 23).
After Her Majesty died, we went from a couple of hundred visitors a day to 8000 people over three days – people wanting, needing to be in a place that felt safe, a place they could come to to ask some big, heavy questions of life and death. After the invasion of Ukraine and the kidnapping of hostages in Israel, churches again were filled and looked to with questions and the age-old question of why there is evil in the world and if there is a God, then why is there suffering and violence. For the Coronation, many churches had big screens and permissions to show the coronation. Churches filled with people celebrating, people curious about what was going on, people asking all of the why questions that come with big state events like that.
But what happens after that? What happens after those big events? What happens after funerals of loved ones, we patch ourselves up and get on with our lives ‘as normal’. What happens after weddings and other celebrations? We take a few paracetamol, get over the hangover, and we get one with our lives ‘as normal’.
But do we really? All of these events in life, do we really ignore them and get on with our lives as if nothing has happened? Or does something inside us change or feel a little different? This deep down change, this need for something more – this thirst for what might be.
Thirsty
I wonder if you’ve ever been really thirsty? Not – I could really do with a nice cold (insert your drink of choice) … but the I really can’t think of anything else other than I need a drink. If I don’t have one now, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with myself. A feeling of desperation welling up inside you that starts to panic. You start to question your choices of how you’ve ended up in this state.
The gift of water at that moment, the feeling of it quenching your thirst is the most amazing thing you could have been given, in that moment the best thing that has ever happened to you. Water, the very lifeblood of our planet and of creation itself. You make the promise to yourself that you will never get yourself in that state again … Then the panic subsides and whatever you were doing takes over and life goes on.
Water as gift
In our reading today from the gospel of John, we encounter an image of water that is unlike any other—a water that is alive, transformative, life saving, life giving.
These words are spoken during the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot. In this festival Jewish people gathered and still gather today in gratitude to remember God’s provision when they were in the wilderness. Jesus, speaking in a thirsty, questioning, world—both literally and spiritually—invites all to come to Him, to drink of this “living water” that flows from God’s own Spirit. The living water He speaks of is not just for the body but for the soul; it is the life-giving presence of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, that nourishes, refreshes, and sustains us in ways beyond our understanding. This image of living water is as gift to all of us, a reminder that water is both essential for our physical survival and a metaphor of a deeper, life-sustaining, grace of God that flows through our spiritual lives. Just as the Spirit of God refreshes and revives, so too, water refreshes the earth, giving life to every living thing.
The reality of living water is also a call to action. As we receive this living water from God, we are entrusted with the responsibility to care for the water that sustains all life on earth. This is where the work of the Worshipful Company of Water Conservators becomes so incredibly important.
Water in Trust
Water is both a gift and a responsibility. We are called not only to appreciate its beauty and necessity but also to safeguard it, to ensure its availability and purity for all living beings. The diversity of life in God’s creation is sustained by water, and our own well-being is inseparable from the well-being of the earth. Just as the psalmist proclaims that God has given creatures their food at the proper time, so too, we are entrusted with ensuring that water remains accessible and clean, that it continues to flow freely for the flourishing of all creation.
Call to Stewardship
The living water of the Gospel and the water of creation are intimately connected. Both invite us to respond with reverence and stewardship. Water is a resource that is often taken for granted, yet it is more precious than any treasure, more fragile than we realize. The task before us is as stewards of this gift.
Your work, as members of the Worshipful Company of Water Conservators, embodies this stewardship in the most practical and impactful ways. You are on the front lines of a mission that is both urgent and vital: ensuring that clean water remains available for all people and creatures, that water ecosystems are protected and sustained, and that we, as a society, recognize the sacredness of this resource. In doing so, you reflect the calling that has been placed on all of us to care for the earth, to tend the world that God has entrusted to us.
Your work is a testament to the fact that we can make a difference, that we can be faithful stewards of God’s creation, and that we can ensure that the gift of water flows freely for all. In caring for water, we care for life itself.
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