Holy Fire Water

I just got emailed a little story that I actually was aware of because I watched Nightline last Friday. ( the show has really gone downhill since Ted Koppel left) I wasn’t going to even touch this one, but what the heck.

The last of the three segments on Nightline focused on Brian Germann out in Linden, which is just outside Sacramento, Calif. Mr. German is selling a bottled water called Holy Water. What makes it “holy” is the fact that they got two priests, one Anglican and one Roman blessing the stuff. They tried to get a local Roman priest to bless the water but after he refused, they brought in one from outside of the diocese. The concept, Germann says, is to be inspirational: Keep a bottle of Holy Water nearby and it might keep you out of trouble. "[By] drinking holy water or blessed water, they might just think and take a second thought before they take any kind of action that might be bad towards somebody else," he said. See the whole story here

Anyhoo, I don’t have the time or the patience to go into any lengthy discussion of what makes water holy today. The short answer is of course, the Word of God combined with a physical element, in this case water, is what makes the water of Holy Baptism holy. Since Christ didn’t say drink the holy water of baptism, there is no promised means of grace, and because of that, the water these fine folks are drinking is just as holy as the water I mopped the kitchen floor with.

But how about this…we start selling “fire” water as both a fund raiser and as a outreach resource to promote Ablaze!? Think about it, first, we would have receipts that would tell us how many people we’ve reached, after all, counting the unchurched and uncommitted is really, really important, or so we’re told. Second, doesn’t the Fire Water© brand just match perfectly with Ablaze!? Heck yeah!

And think of the added benefits. Any time we do or say something really goofy we could just fall back on “I forgot that we had confessions, I must have been hitting the Fire Water©" Or how about "I really thought we just another protestant denomination, I must have been hitting the Fire Water©.” If a synodical president just happens to get up on stage snaps his fingers in a slow cadence and says “every time I snap my fingers someone else goes to Hell because we haven’t done our job, all he would have to do to respond with is “ heck, I didn’t know what I was saying, I must have been hitting the Fire Water©.” As I said, think of the possibilities…

I’m more than willing to share with my brothers in our beloved synod any profits that are generated by this great evangelical outreach idea. Just give a me shout, as it turns out, I am very mission minded.

Thanks Dan!