Let me start with a confession.
I’m not much of a handyman. I try. I really do. I have a toolbox, I watch the YouTube videos, and I stand in the aisle at Lowe’s like I know what I’m doing, but often, I end up calling someone more competent to fix whatever I broke in the process of trying to fix it.
A few years ago, I noticed a little leak under the sink. Just a drip. So I thought, “How hard can it be?” I tightened a couple things, gave it a good wrench twist, and walked away proudly. The next morning? A puddle. I didn’t fix it. I made it worse. I ended up calling a plumber and paying for both the original repair and the damage I caused trying to go it alone.
Jeremiah 2 is kind of like that.
It’s God saying to Israel, “You had the real thing, you had Me. The fountain of living water! But instead of coming to Me, you went and dug your own wells. And not only that, your wells are cracked. They don’t even hold water!”
And friends, I don’t know about you, but that hits home.
Jeremiah paints a vivid picture: God is the “fountain of living water”, an image rich with meaning in the ancient world. In a land where drought was normal and fresh water was precious, a natural spring meant survival. It wasn’t a puddle or a pond, it was water that kept moving, bubbling up from the ground, clean and alive. That’s how God describes Himself. Not as a temple relic, not as a static idea or doctrine, but as a living, flowing, uncontainable source of life.
But here’s the problem. The people didn’t want something wild and flowing. They wanted something predictable. Contained. Easy to manage. So they said, in effect, “Let’s dig our own cisterns. Let’s build something we can control. Something that doesn’t move unless we move it.”
And don’t we do the same?
We take what was meant to be vibrant and dynamic (our relationship with God) and try to package it into something safe and manageable. We turn the wild Spirit of God into a weekly schedule. We confine our sense of God’s presence to a sanctuary or a hymnbook or a church committee. And before we know it, we’ve taken living water and tried to box it up in a stone jar of our own design.
Why do we do this? I think it’s because flowing water is messy. It floods when you least expect it. It carves new paths. It changes landscapes. And that can be scary.
It’s easier to build a system around God than to be swept up in what God is doing.
But Jeremiah reminds us: God isn’t asking to be preserved—He’s asking to be followed. And following the fountain means learning to live not with control, but with trust.
Let’s talk about Tupperware.
Now, I love Tupperware. I do. You can portion it out. Label it. Stack it neatly in the fridge. Leftovers? Handled. But here’s the thing: Tupperware theology doesn’t work with the living God. You can’t store the Holy Spirit like soup in the fridge.
You can’t label God’s power and grace and stick it in a drawer.
The moment you try to “contain” God, you’re no longer experiencing Him as living water. You’re experiencing Him as a memory of what once was.
And that’s what Jeremiah is calling out: “You’ve replaced Me with a system. A leaky one at that.”
And God doesn’t just say, “You built cisterns instead of trusting Me.” He adds, “And they’re cracked.” In other words, even the systems we build to replace God don’t work. They look secure. They feel productive. But slowly, quietly, they leak.
A cistern in ancient Israel was essentially a pit carved into limestone to store rainwater. Functional? Sure. But fragile. Over time, the stone would shift, cracks would form, and the water would seep into the ground. By the time you reached in with a bucket, it was half-empty or worse, stale and spoiled.
Now let’s think about what that looks like in our lives.
We build things to hold our peace: Our purpose, our identity. Sometimes it’s a career. Sometimes it’s a relationship. Sometimes it’s the illusion of control or the approval of others. And for a while, those cisterns seem to work. You get recognition at work. Your savings account grows. People tell you you’re doing great.
But life moves. Jobs change. Kids grow up. Health declines. Culture shifts. Churches go through transitions.
And the systems we’ve built, those neat little containers, start to crack. What used to work doesn’t anymore. What once gave you confidence now leaves you anxious. The bucket you used to draw from is coming up dry.
And here’s the spiritual truth in Jeremiah’s message: it’s not that the container is bad, it’s that life was never meant to be stored. God’s Spirit is not static. Grace doesn’t sit still. The Christian life isn’t a museum it’s a movement.
When we try to preserve faith in a system instead of participating in it through trust, worship, and service, it leaks. Because God didn’t design us to contain the Spirit. He designed us to be carried by it.
So if God is the fountain of living water, and our containers are cracked, what’s the alternative?
It’s not building better cisterns.
It’s learning to move with the water.
Our calling, both individually and as a church, isn’t to capture and control the presence of God. It’s to participate in it. It’s to live with open hands, listening hearts, and the flexibility to follow where the Spirit flows.
Now, this is where our United Methodist theology helps us. We believe in means of grace: things like prayer, communion, Scripture, acts of service. Not as rituals that trap God but as practices that help us stay in step with the flow of grace. They don’t “store” God like a container. They tune us into His movement.
You’ve probably heard it said that the Christian life is a journey, and that’s true. But we often want the journey to be a straight sidewalk with mile markers and predictable rest stops.
What we actually get? A river.
Sometimes it’s calm. Sometimes it’s rapid. Sometimes it’s murky and hard to navigate. But it’s always moving. And if you want to grow in faith, you’ve got to learn to float. To surrender control. To trust the direction. To get a little wet.
To accept that God might take you somewhere unexpected, but never somewhere unsafe.
Our calling is not to map the whole river.
It’s to get in the boat, pick up the paddle, and say yes to the movement of grace.
Because the places where the water leads? They’re always where life is found.
There’s a church I visited once that had their baptismal font sealed shut. Beautiful marble. Ornate cover. Gold cross. And no water. It was symbolic, they said. A reminder of baptism.
But baptism is not just a reminder. It’s a declaration that we are a people of water. People of movement, flow, renewal. People who expect to get wet.
Jeremiah 2 invites us to ask: Have we sealed the font? Have we turned the wild river of God into a museum display?
Or… are we ready to let the Spirit flow again?
Here’s what I hope you’ll take with you today:
You were not made for dry religion.
You were not made for cracked systems.
You were made for the water. The wild, moving, uncontrollable grace of God.
If God is a fountain of living water: fresh, flowing, always moving, then your spiritual life can’t stay stuck in old routines, rigid systems, or past experiences. You were made to move with God.
So here are three questions to take home:
Where have you been building cisterns?
What are the systems, habits, or mindsets you’ve created that might be leaking? Places where you’re trying to contain faith instead of live it.
Where do you see the water flowing right now?
Is there a relationship God is calling you to invest in? A new ministry nudging at your heart? A spiritual practice you’ve avoided because it might stretch you? Pay attention. The Spirit rarely shouts, but it does flow.
How can you step into the stream this week?
Pick one act of trust, one moment of surrender. Maybe it’s praying honestly. Maybe it’s serving where it’s inconvenient. Maybe it’s letting go of a plan that’s no longer working. Whatever it is, choose motion over maintenance.
Because here’s the promise: When you stop trying to trap the living God in a container, and start flowing with Him in trust, you’ll find life again.
Not stale water. Not religious routine. But real, abundant, refreshing life.
