Acts 16:9-13 A vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him, and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. So putting out to sea from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and on the day following to Neapolis; 1and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia, a Roman colony; and we were staying in this city for some days. On the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to a riverside, where we were supposing that there would be a place of prayer; and we sat down and began speaking to the women who had assembled.
Revelation 22
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of
life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through
the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree
of life
with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the
leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
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Far into the imaginary future, there is a
desert planet called Dune. With the exception of giant desert sandworms, it is
believed nothing else lives on Dune. It is believed there is no water. The only
commodity on this planet is an addictive spice which is mined from the sand.
But there is water on Dune - slowly and
painstakingly collected by desert dwellers called Fremen, hidden in large underground
reservoirs. This dry, desert planet was once green and fertile, till people destroyed
it with their desire to use its resources for their own wealth. Yet the Fremen
continue to plant hidden gardens, collecting dew at night and saving water for
the precious plants, and their plan is make the planet green again.
On this desert planet, the elusive Fremen
have learned that when the giant sandworms come in contact with water, they
fragment into tiny sandfish, which grow again into giant worms. In the process
of death their essence mingles with the water, which is collected and called
the “water of life”. If ordinary people drink this ‘water of life’, they will
die - only the religious Bene Gesserit sisters can physically transmute the
‘water of life’. Once this is done, it is not dangerous for others. ...and yet,
the sandworm, the spice, and water are all interconnected, and necessary if the
cycle of life is to continue.
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In a village somewhere in the mountains, a
beautiful tree grows beside a beautiful sparkling stream. Pilgrims on spiritual
quests, travellers who are weary and tired, come to this stream; they drink
from the well, rest on the green grass under the shade of the trees, take fruit
for their food. They leave again, refreshed, to continue their pilgrimage. The
people of the village, seeing a good opportunity for commerce, decide that more
benefit from this marvellous oasis should be garnered - so they install a gate
at the road, and charge a toll. As the procession of pilgrims continues to
come, they decide to brick over the stream, and charge even for a drink.
Eventually, the pilgrims continue on their journeys without stopping, the
travellers no longer come. The village is isolated; the inns and restaurants
close, the parks are empty, the stream gradually dries up, the fruit trees and
the shade trees die, the village dies. The river of the water of life no longer
flows - only a desert remains.
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Here on this earth, in this lifetime, water
brings both life and death. In the river flowing through the new creation, the
water is life itself. In the river flowing through Bangkok, human waste, food
waste and industrial garbage flow to the sea. In the rainy season, cholera,
typhoid and parasites are prevalent. In this same water, people bathe and wash
their clothes; the water is used for cooking. They are well aware that the
water which gives life for some, gives death to others. There is no choice. The
water of life is also the water of death.
In Ethiopia and Eritrea, trees have been so
consistently cut down for homes and fuel, that the desert has taken over - water
is a rare commodity. For years, rain has barely fallen at all. When the water
does come, disease is a very real problem. People die without rain, they die
with rain. A child’s life expectancy is about five years, if even that.
Recently, water in all its forms has been
the source of much death. A tsunami resulting from a Point 9 earthquake washed
around the world, killing thousands and destroying much that was once green.
All the way to the shores of Cape Breton this tsunami moved - in fact, it’s
reported that the wave went around the earth more than once. Levees broke in
New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, killing and washing away most of a city,
with the poorest of the poor suffering the most. Texas has been hit with some
of the most incredible flooding ever experienced.
In Canada, in a place called Attawapiskat,
people still have no clean drinking water. They are aboriginal peoples, and as
such have continued to be treated as last and least. “Let them move” people
say, instead of “Why are people in this country still without clean water?” Remember
the water in Walkerton, poisoned with E. Coli
we were outraged when people died from poor water in Ontario - shouldn’t
happen here, we said. The problem was addressed. Yet where is our outrage when
children die around the world for lack of clean water? When our native
communities are attempting suicide because they can’t cope any more? Flint
Michigan – water poisoned with huge amounts of lead and a bureaucracy which
knew perfectly well what it was doing, but letting it gobecause the people
mostly involved are black.
Michigan State University sits on top of
one of the largest garbage dump sites in the United States. The water in
student housing is said to be safe and drinkable, yet when we lived there, it
was almost impossible to get baby formula to mix properly, and boiled water
produced an oily slick on the surface and in the cup. Sometimes it came out red and sludgy, but was
still pronounced safe to drink. None of us did, of course.
The great company Nestle takes water out
the ground in California, even as California suffers one of the worst droughts
in its history. The CEO of Nestle has said that human beings don’t have a right
to water. And so water becomes a commodity to be bought and sold.
And yet water is also a
miracle..............
A few years ago, in an effort to find out
whether or not homeopathic remedies work, a study was conducted in variety of
substances were diluted in water, until there was no longer any molecular trace
of the original substance. A miracle - the water molecules had taken on the
properties of the substances - so the water molecules functioned like, for
instance the homeopathic substance arnica, but also the antibiotic penicillin.
Recent studies have again shown that water has memory.
Just outside Corner Brook in Newfoundland
is a place called Steady Brook. About a kilometre or so along the Trans-Canada
Highway past Steady Brook, is a stream which runs steadily year round. It is
absolutely pure clean water with no bacteria, and it keeps for months without
going bad. There are streams like that all over Newfoundland – and it’s far
safer than the city water, which often has to be boiled before drinking.
A human being can survive a long time
without food, but only two weeks without water. Water eases the pain of sore
and tired muscles, helps provide a means for healing of injury. Water soothes
us when we are tense or upset – a long bath can do wonders. Water and the smell
of green air rejuvenates us.
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Today, in this millennium, we are finding
ourselves in a desert wilderness of our own creation, not God’s. In our
destruction of the earth, we not only create a physical wilderness, but a
spiritual one as well. We read the papers and shake our heads, but our garbage
will still get shipped to someone else’s back yard. We are slowly beginning to
take seriously the connections between our actions and the results of our
actions, which have far-reaching effects.
In 1968 when our creed was written, there
was nothing about creation in it. Since then, the world around us and our role
in creation have come to further prominence. We have begun to realise that the
stories in Genesis were mistranslated - that we were not given “dominion” over
creation, but were asked to take responsibility - a word called ‘stewardship’. So, we added to our creed the line “to live
with respect in creation”.
Our Christian faith is also built on hope -
the kind of hope which says “Come to me, and I will give you living water.”
Scriptures which say “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living
water. “ This says to me, though, that
the physical renewal of the earth can only come about IF humanity has a
spiritual renewal. We have to drink the ‘water of life’ and undergo a transformation.
We are asked by God to be co-creators in a new creation. Our faith opens our
hearts like the rocks in the desert; the streams of living water, which renew
our souls, flow into the deserts. As the spiritual desert begins to bloom and become
green, then the water flows from us into the spiritual deserts of others - and
as that water flows, the physical desert again becomes green. We cannot
separate our faith from environment - and we cannot separate our environment
from our faith. The one thing critical to all the deserts in our creation is
the water of life.
Paul and Silas respond to a call – and when
they arrive in Philippi, they go out one morning to find a place where they believe
there will be a prayer service. They find Lydia, under a tree beside a river
which flows just outside the city. A river and a tree, a place of prayer and
spiritual growth. In the city of God, the river of the water of life flows
through the city; on each side is the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of
fruit, one for each month of the year. The river provides sustenance for the
tree, the tree provides food for the people, so there is no hunger and no want
any longer. Everyone will have access to the river of the water of life,
without having to pay for it. Everyone has the right to the water, spiritual
and literal. And the words are clear - No spiritual hunger or thirst, no
physical hunger or thirst. The Holy City is Eden recreated, the realm of God,
in the here and now. There is nothing accursed – no poisons, no disease, no
death – only abundant life. Paul and Silas found growth beside the river under
a tree, and helped someone else to grow; in the new realm, growth and new life
are found beside a river under a tree. Abundant life. May it be so.
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