On July 30, Pastor Jim preaches on Jeremiah 2:4-7, 11-13.

In Aesop’s fable “The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs,” a farmer is blessed with a goose that lays golden eggs. Go figure!

After intensive research (Google), I learned that a golden egg would be worth $114,500 today. Assuming an egg arrived each day, that’s 10 times what a UT head coach makes! Cowabunga!

Anyway, you know the story. The farmer gets tired of waiting for the eggs to come. He assumes that the goose must be filled with gold and decides to cut to the chase and cut the poor creature open. Alas, it’s a normal goose inside. He traded a steady supply of gold for a dead bird.

In our Scripture for Sunday, God is described as “the fountain of living water,” which is a wonderful image, though one that requires faith. As long as the fountain is flowing all is well, but suppose one day the fountain dries up?

At my house we have a well. Cool, albeit hard, water is pumped from the aquifer below. We count on it for sustaining life. We drink it, cook with it, clean with it, and bathe with it. However, suppose the pump breaks? Ah, we are ready for that. We have a storage tank.

This is the imagery Jeremiah uses to describe the idolatry of the people of Judah. They could not trust the living fountain of God so they took matters into their own hands and relied on cisterns, and leaky ones at that. They forsook the God who had saved them in the past and dumped their hopes and faith in false gods that didn’t hold water.

Of course, we moderns would never do that. We’ve moved beyond the trap of idolatry. Right?