Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Revelation 22:1-5
October 26, 2003
A week ago Saturday night, I told several tables worth of turkey eaters that what I knew about nature (as a kid) would have fit inside a baseball glove….which is where I would have carried such knowledge, had I had it, given that baseball was all I cared about or wanted to do in my free time. True, there was the occasional Scouting outing in the woods. But, as a family, we didn’t own a cottage. My father feared the water….any water….unless it came out of the freezer disguised as ice cubes. Nobody in my family hunted or fished. Forays into the country were few and far between. And vacations, almost non-existent.
I was a city kid. I played step baseball and street football. I also played kick the can in the alley and basketball in the church gym. For transportation, I rode as many buses as I did bicycles. My house sat on a small urban lot, meaning that I had a bit of grass to cut, but nothing to harvest. The apple tree out back was not something we ever thought to spray or prune. Meaning that its branches were better suited for climbing than were its apples for eating….unless you had a peculiar fondness for worms.
Yet, slow learner that I was, I came to appreciate nature, both for its surface appearances and its deeper meanings. Of which there are many….given that nature speaks both to us and about us. Consider the metaphors we employ. What does it mean, for example, to tell someone that “we are on cloud nine,” or that (by contrast) we are “lost in a fog” or “all at sea.” Moreover, lots of people claiming to be “on top of the mountain” aren’t up there literally. Nor is everybody “going through a valley” down there literally. But then, people “who can’t see the forest for the trees” aren’t necessarily out in the woods. Neither are all of life’s “deserts” filled with sand. And the “wilderness” into which children wander in ever-so-many fairy tales has more to do with testing than with hiking. I mean, nobody in literature who enters the wilderness carries a tent. No, what they carry into the wilderness is their innocence. Which, in one way or another, they are likely to lose before they exit.
While you’re thinking about such things (which I haven’t researched), let me tell you about rivers (which I have). For example, did you know that the word “river(s)” appears 117 times in scripture, not including those instances where a particular river is mentioned by name, or other references are made to such things as “streams,” “brooks” and “wadis.”
In one of the creation narratives, four rivers constitute the geographic boundaries of the entire known world. And in Genesis 15:18, Abraham is told that his descendants shall one day inhabit the totality of land from the “River of Egypt (obviously the Nile) to the Great River” (the Euphrates), which is quite a promise made to a man drawing social security, who has no children and a barren wife.
In Exodus 2:3, the river is a place of murder (when Pharaoh orders all Jewish boy babies thrown in the Nile to drown). But moments later we read that Moses (who will one day rise up as Pharaoh’s nemesis) has had his life spared as an infant by being floated to safety in a basket along the shorelines of that very same river.
There are any number of Old Testament passages which refer to rivers as being essential to irrigation. Isaiah 18:2 specifically refers to a river as a means of transportation. Leviticus 11:9 identifies which river fish can be eaten as “clean” and which cannot. And Exodus 7:18 reminds us that one function of the river was to provide drinking water (or at least this one did until cursed by Moses, turning it to blood).
Advancing to II Kings 5:10, we learn that healings took place in rivers, as when Elisha sent Naaman the king to wash seven times in a muddy river as an antidote to leprosy. And the River Jabbok became the meeting ground on the shores of which Jacob and the angel wrestled the night away (Genesis 32:22).
Rivers were for baptizing, as John the Baptist exhibited in the Jordan. Rivers were also for crossing, as Joshua exhibited at Jericho. Rivers were used as defense systems, as when the Prophet Nahum (3:8) described the “river as a rampart and water as a wall.” And rivers were common locations for synagogues, as when Paul went down to the river in Philippi to look for a praying congregation and encountered Lydia, a dealer in purple from Thyatira.
Today, when people go to Israel, one of the things they want to see is the River Jordan. As well they should. For not only was it crossed by Joshua (militarily) and entered by Jesus (baptismally), but today constitutes the long, meandering border between the nation of Israel and the nation of Jordan. Twice have I stood in that river—waist deep—lowering adult bodies in a somewhat spur-of-the-moment reenactment of baptism.
But all of this is just the tip of the iceberg. The idea of “the river” means ever so much more. In the Bible, the prosperity of an entire region (when blessed by God) is compared to a river. Read Isaiah 66:12 (“For thus says the Lord, I will extend prosperity to her like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream”).
Conversely, God’s abandonment of the nation is compared to the drying up of a river (see Isaiah 19:5), wherein the waters become foul, the banks parched, the fish lifeless, and the reeds and rushes rotted away.
Elsewhere, the river is a symbol for all that is just and good. Recall the dramatic utterance of Amos (5:24) crying out to a wayward people: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
And in Ezekiel 47:1-12, the river is nothing less than the “river of life”….a symbol of hope and promise….suggesting that when things finally become as God intends for them to be, the same river which once flowed from the unspoiled Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:10) will now flow in four separate directions, from no less a point of origin than the restored temple itself. Which is followed by this:
Then he led me back along the bank of the river. As I came back, I saw on the bank of the river a great many trees on the one side and on the other. He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah; and when it enters the sea (the sea of stagnant waters) the water will become fresh. Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swims will live, and there will be very many fish, once these waters reach there. It will become fresh; and everything will live where the river goes. People will stand fishing beside the sea from En-gedi to En-gelaim; it will be a place for the spreading of nets; its fish will be of a great many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea. But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they are to be left for salt. On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.”
Do you understand what he is talking about? He’s talking about nothing less than life coming back to the Dead Sea. I have been to En-gedi. God willing, I’ll go back there again. Maybe some of you will go with me. En-gedi is a village (of sorts) on the shore of the Dead Sea. There’s a spa and restaurant there. People change into bathing suits and enter the waters. But they don’t put their faces in the waters because the salt would burn their eyes. The salt is so concentrated (over 33 percent) that people actually sit in the waters and read newspapers. If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you pictures. But in this amazing passage, the prophet Ezekiel is suggesting that this all-but-dead body of water will once again teem with aquatic life. What a fascinating symbol for the New Age of God….a thriving, throbbing, pulsating, life-giving river community.
But I’m still not done. There’s even more. How fitting it is that new life should come via the river, since (for many) the river has also been seen as a symbol of death. Our hymnal is laced with such imagery. I grew up singing the words of Isaac Watts: “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all it sons away,” and (as I discovered) most of its daughters, as well. For Watts, the river carries one to death. For others, the river is death itself.
River Jordan is chilly and cold,
Chills the body, but not the soul.
And why is the river cold? It has nothing whatsoever to do with the temperature of the water when there is no warmth in it, but the temperature of the body when there is no life in it.
We sing about finding “rest beyond the river.”
We sing: “When my life becomes a burden, and I’m nearing chilly Jordan, O thou lily of the valley, stand by me.”
We sing about looking over Jordan “and what do I see….a band of angels coming after me, coming for to carry me home.”
We sing: “And then one day I’ll cross the river; I’ll fight life’s final war with pain.”
And the very first day I asked my wife for a date was after she sang a duet in church. And the song was “Deep river, I’m goin’ over Jordan; deep river, I want to cross over into campground.”
What rich symbolism. I could spend hours on such river talk. But I keep coming back to Norman MacLean and his great line: “Eventually, all things merge into one and a river runs through it.” I take that to mean that the river is the thread that not only connects life, but carries life. It suggests that life’s movement is not random, but directional. And it promises that life’s current is not so much undercutting as it is uplifting.
All of that came clear to me, some years ago, when I first read Bob Raines’ description of a family canoe outing on the Crystal River….that shallow, winding stream that flows through several meadows, shoots through a couple of culverts, and eventually empties into Lake Michigan. Raines writes:
It had been a while since I had negotiated a fast-flowing river in a canoe. So for the first few minutes (as the current caught us and whipped us around), I found myself shouting at my twelve-year-old: “Nancy, paddle on the right side. No. That’s too much. Stop paddling on the right. Switch to the left.” And to my six-year-old I screamed: “No, Bobby, let go of that branch. What are you trying to do? Turn us over?”
I chuckled because I have taught more than my share of teenagers to canoe. And that’s how they do it when they start. There is no rhyme or reason to their actions. They paddle hard on one side. Then they switch and paddle hard on the other. Their movements are frenzied. They lurch from bank to bank, bouncing off every rock in sight. They hang themselves up on old stumps and submerged logs. And they find every thicket of branches along the shore. They work their fool heads off, all the while shouting to (and cursing at) each other.
But it takes hardly any time at all to teach kids that the river knows where to go and how to get there. If they merely let the canoe take its own head, and are willing to follow the current of the stream, all it takes is a deft stroke here and a light touch there to negotiate the journey. It’s called “going with the flow,” and it is built upon the recognition that the river will operate in your best interest, if given half a chance. The river is for you, not against you. Sure there are rocks, branches and brambles. Sure there are shallow rapids and dangerous depths. Sure there are moments of being hung up, and moments of being forced to dig deep and hard. But the river will send you clues. And the river will see you through. It has been there before. And it has carried the likes of others before it has had to carry the likes of you.
Reflecting on all of this led Raines to ask: “What if we could come to believe….down deep….that the flow of our lives is not so much against us as for us?” What if we could believe that the Spirit of God is in the flux and movement of our journey? What if we could trust God in the rapids of change as well as in the calm of continuity? And what if we could begin to ride (rather than buck) the tides of tomorrow?
From time to time, I run into one of those people who come at you contrary…..who not only haven’t found the flow, but openly fight the flow. One of them even told me: “I don’t know what it is about me, Bill, but I’m just one of those guys who always has to swim upstream.” To which I should have said: “Well, if you’re bucking the crowd….the mob….or the flow of sewage down the toilet….more power to you, buddy. But if you’re bucking the calling and leading of God, you’re not only stubborn, but dumb.”
We’re commencin’ to do some financin’ here under the heading “This Is All You Really Need.” And, as I wrote in Steeple Notes, this year’s campaign is (in a nutshell) about basics. Which explains why this year’s “visual” is water. Because water is basic. Hence, today’s talk about rivers. Because, biblically speaking, the flowing river is synonymous with the Spirit of God (Revelation 22:1-5). And God is the “basic” we start with here. Not music. Not mission. Not ministers. Or even ministry. But God.
Get yourself some high-grade stripping compound, take a wide-bladed putty knife, and scrape away 182 years of churchy veneer off this congregation. And what do you get down to? God is what you get down to. Our search for him. His search for us. And moments of connection…. which happen unpredictably, but are both life-changing and life-sustaining when they do.
“You’re a pretty confident young man,” some lady said to me, not entirely complimentarily. The funny thing is, she said it last year, when I was neither. I used to be young. And I used to be confident. But along life’s way, I fell off the easy waves I was riding. Things I thought would always work, don’t. People I thought would always be there, aren’t. If there ever was a day when I was “captain of the currents,” that day has passed. The older I get, the truer the old spiritual becomes: “Sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down.” But to paraphrase the title line of another beloved hymn: “I’m bobbing on the buoyancy of God.” Which is my answer to the ultimate question about basics, namely: “Who floats your boat?”
I’m talking poetically, I know. But what other way is there to talk about the providence of God….which is not something to be explained, so much as something to be trusted. What am I trying to say? I am trying to say that there is a thread of meaning to it all….a thread which connects and supports us….which will see us through, and beyond. That thread of meaning is God, of course, not the river. The river is just a symbol. That’s all. It’s not the river that runs through it. It’s God who runs through it.
It had better be God. Because, as the hymnal suggests, the river can turn on you. Which it will. The day will come when the waters will turn chilly and cold. But I remember the story a black pastor told about the day he called on an old man in his church who was dying.
“The time has come for me to cross the Jordan,” the old man said.
“Are you afraid to cross the Jordan?” my friend asked.
“No way am I afraid,” came the answer.
“Why not?” countered his pastor.
To which the old man responded: “Because I believe that my Father owns the land on both sides of the river.”
My friends, go with the flow.
Use a light touch.
And trust that the God of the waters is also the God of the shores.
Both shores.
Note: The annual stewardship campaign at First Church is always visually arresting. This year is no exception. Lighted, bubbling waterscapes are clearly visible in both the narthex and the chancel….water being central to the campaign theme.
Some of my material about rivers was first researched (and shared) in a sermon from the early ’90s entitled “A River Runs Through It.” I credit all of the normal sources including, in this case, several biblical encyclopedias. It’s amazing what you can learn with a good library at your disposal.
As for Robert Raines, he is now the retired director of Kirkridge, a spiritual retreat center. As to where I first happened upon his Crystal River story, I can’t rightly say. But I think I have captured it accurately.
