The late novelist David Foster Wallace, in 2013 at Kenyon College, gave the most quoted commencement speech of the last five years. It is known now as the “What is water?” speech. At the beginning of the speech Wallace tells a story. It seems that two young fish are swimming along nicely and an older fish swims by and hollers, “How’s the water boys?” as the young fish swim off one turns to the other and says, “What the hell is water?” The young fish did not know they were swimming in water.
Wallace’s point: we are oblivious to the cultural forces we swim in- the way our culture values money and power, defines beauty and success, exalts the self centered self above God himself, acts out a practical godlessness which gives no thought of eternity, redefines morality as living “authentically” without regard for a moral order, and generally creates a never ending anxiety. We are not only swimming in this water. We are drinking it. We believe it’s lies. This culture tricks us into thinking we have “choices.” In fact we do what the sexy, loud commercials tell us to do!
Wallace,who was not a Christian, went on to say, “In the day to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as an atheist. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” He goes on to argue that humans should worship a God such as Jesus Christ, Yahweh or Allah because “pretty much everything else you worship will eat you alive.” He admits as a non churchgoer that “the whole trick is keeping the truth up in front of consciousness.”
It will will take more than a trick to keep the truth up in front of consciousness. We will need to be embedded in a powerful Jesus dominated counter culture in order to swim against the cross-currents of the culture of death. Many of us who confess Jesus as Lord believe we are doing just fine all by ourselves out in “the water.” Though we may go to a church, in order to be totally free to keep on making our “choices, ” we maintain a safe distance from a knit together church. We are in church but often leaning out, confident that on our own we are just fine.
Yet Jesus was only confident about us living out God’s purposes in his new community. Otherwise, we are prey to the predators. He said plainly, “Upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” Jesus is declaring that when a new community is built on the mutual confession that Jesus is Christ and Lord the gates of hell will not prevail against it. But the confession that Jesus is Messiah and Lord does not take the place of Church. It is the foundation of real church. Neither death nor principality nor power can prevail against the knit together Spirit filled Body of the One who defeated death.
Jesus had no confidence that a couple of fish could all by themselves navigate the cross-pressures of the “water.” Jesus is saying that we win, are formed and finally live out God’s purposes inside His new community or not at all. Church is the only place that empowers us to swim in the water without drinking it. The church is the only place where the truth is told and a counter culture exists that is stronger than “the water. “
So if we seek to be spiritually and morally formed into the image of Christ we will submit to Jesus as Lord, pray for the Spirit’s filling and vow to become “members one of another” till death do us part. Then and only then will the little fish overcome all the sharks in the sea.