Acts 16:11-15
Revelation 21:22-22:5
Each day as I walk to work I cross Paradise Creek as it flows under D Street. Sometimes I see a muskrat diving under the water, and once in a while I'm delighted when a great blue heron lifts off and soars over my head. This spring the creek has been flowing fairly full. After several days of rain the waters rise and I check to see if they have filled the banks – so far that hasn't happened. By the end of
last summer the water was down to a trickle.
My walk to work in Vancouver will not take me past that city's river – the much larger Columbia. Maybe my new route will cross a smaller creek like
Paradise Creek but I'm not sure yet. Little as it is, I'll miss it.
Both of our readings this morning feature rivers. In Acts the Apostle Paul arrives in the Greek city of Philippi, along with Luke and perhaps some others. Luke, as you may recall, is the author of Acts. He says, "On the Sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer." Tradition says they went to the Gangites River, about a third of a mile outside of Philippi.
In Revelation the Evangelist John is shown a vision of a new Jerusalem, including, "the river of the water of life, bright as crystal."
A we reflect on those rivers, lets sing again the chorus from Hymn #723:
Yes, we'll gather by the river,
the beautiful, the beautiful river.
Gather by the banks of the river that flows from the throne of God.
Paul and company went outside the gates – they left the city itself. They went in search of a place of prayer. Likely Paul was looking for a synagogue. His pattern on entering a new town was to start at the synagogue where faithful Jews would gather, hoping to find some people interested in hearing his message about Jesus.
In Philippi – a Greek city, remember – he did not find a synagogue. He did find some women gathered for prayer. They were God-fearers, not Jewish yet interested enough to get together to pray and talk. A cool spot, maybe under some trees next to a river was an ideal location. The river would provide water for ritual cleansing, if needed.
One of the women was named Lydia. She was a businesswoman – an unusual thing for a woman of her day. She sold purple cloth – expensive and so only available to the elite who could afford to buy the fabric dyed from the shells of tiny sea creatures. Lydia herself was from Thyatira in what today is Turkey. She had apparently moved to Philippi – a couple of hundred miles away as the crow flies. Business must have been better there.
Lydia listened eagerly and soon became Paul's first convert on the continent of Europe. She and her entire household were soon baptized and she invited Paul and company to stay in her home.
Lydia's story is unusual not only because she owned her own business in a time when few women could do so; not only because she dealt in purple fabric; but also because Paul talked with women he did not know. He crossed a social barrier in order to spread the good news of Jesus.
And it all happened at a place by a river. Let's sing again:
Yes, we'll gather by the river,
the beautiful, the beautiful river.
Gather by the banks of the river that flows from the throne of God.
The river in Revelation is not an actual river we can chart or dip our toes into. It is a dream river. We often interpret John's vision to be that of the end times so that the river is a heavenly river. So much for heaven being fluffy white clouds. Here it is a river. It sparkles bright as crystal.
The end times John sees do not have to be limited to heaven, however. The end times can be a vision of the life we are called to live in the here and now, a life in which we bring into reality the future we await. There's more metaphor than mapping here, and more hope than H2O.
The river flows through the city: this one is inside the gates and not outside of it like Paul and Lydia's river. It flows from the throne of God.
We in the northwest like to tell how Lewis and Clark set out to find the source of the Missouri River. In the end Lewis and Clark followed the Columbia all the way to the Pacific Ocean to its ending.
Revelation does not tell us the ending of the river of life. It does tell us that God is the source. And it says, "On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations." Apparently the river not only flows through the city it flows through the tree – another clue this image is more symbolic than hydraulic.
To get at the full meaning of this river we need to go back to the beginning, not of the river but of the Bible. As the book of Genesis tells of the paradise that was the Garden of Eden, it notes, "A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches." Those four branches flowed to the four corners of the known historical world – to all the nations. As the first river watered Paradise itself so this final river waters the tree of life.
Yes, we'll gather by the river,
the beautiful, the beautiful river.
Gather by the banks of the river that flows from the throne of God.
So what are the lessons these rivers can teach us today, we whose river is a Creek called Paradise?
Like Paul when he went to Philippi, the church today must be willing to go outside the gates, to move beyond the establishment, to find the people who are thirsty for God. Today we'd call Lydia a seeker – someone who is looking for meaning in life and not exactly sure what that is or where to find it.
I'm not suggesting that we wander down the Chipman Trail to see if there's anyone sitting alongside Paradise Creek looking for God. I've enjoyed that trail. It's a great place to walk or bike, but it's probably not the most fruitful place for evangelism. What we do need to learn is how to move outside of the walls of the church building into the community. People don't often come looking for God in a church building anymore. We must take the church outside of the building to where people are. We might well find them next to Paradise Creek at Mountain View park for a soccer match or a baseball game.
When we were trying to start The Connection, our contemporary worship service, one summer we met on the first Sunday of the month at East City Park. It was a lot of work to set up there – and folks strolling through the park heard us sing. They heard us pray. We didn't convert anyone there and in the end that service did not continue – and I think worship in the park was a great idea.
Paul found a place of prayer outside the city gates. In Revelation the river of life flows from the throne of God in a new Jerusalem with no temple. In that future, which we are called to live today, God's presence cannot be confined to one place. God's presence flows through the communities in which we live, it waters the gardens we hope will sustain our families, it soaks the dry, parched places of human longing.
And there's the key to taking the good news of God's love beyond the walls of this building: we will find today's seekers in the dry places of longing. People who are thirsty for the water of life are very often people in transition. Some big change has happened in their lives. Perhaps they just moved to town, got married, had a child, got or lost a job, started school, lost a loved one. To reach such people you don't have to impose. Just listen and care. Reflect back what you hear them say: "new babies are a lot of work," "it's tough to find a job;" "I'm sorry for your loss." And then offer support: "would you like to join me for coffee?" "maybe we can trade babysitting?" and possibly even, "May I pray for you?" Even if you don't instantly convert the other person you might make a new friend, or convert yourself.
What are the rivers you cross? They just might be places of prayer.
Let's sing again:
Yes, we'll gather by the river,
the beautiful, the beautiful river.
Gather by the banks of the river that flows from the throne of God.