Shall We Gather at the River

Acts 16:9-15; Psalm 67; Revelation 21:10, 21:22-22:5; John 5:1-9

John the Revelator says, an angel showed me the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, and the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.

The last chapter of the book of Revelation describes this amazing vision that John the Revelator was shown of what the age to come looks like. It looks like a new Jerusalem, the city of God come down from heaven here to earth. A city that needs no temple or church or synagogue, because God will be fully present everywhere all the time. A city where no one is thirsty because the river of the water of life flows brightly, coming directly from God into the heart of the city. A city where no one is hungry or sick because, along the banks of the river of the water of life are trees bearing fruit all year round, with leaves full of healing for all peoples. A city where the gates are never shut, where everybody is welcome to come and receive fruit and healing and life and the presence of God, all the time.

John’s vision is expressed in poetry and image, of course – as Paul says, we see now darkly and through a mirror, and the full reality of what God has in store for us when we finally come to see God face to face is beyond anyone’s ability to describe fully. Yet this vision in the final chapter of the Bible has captured imaginations for centuries. Many of our classic hymns are inspired by this vision – “Shall we gather at the river? The beautiful, the beautiful river, that flows from the throne of God?”

This is the promise of the Word of God: that all people are invited to have direct access to the gift of life that flows from God, that provides us with nourishment and healing, that this gift will not be hidden behind a wall but will be open to everyone. And this gift of life will overcome everything that separates human beings from one another, so we can dream about how one day we’ll all gather at the river to be nourished and healed together by the grace and the goodness of God.

But this vision is not yet a fully realized reality in our world. Our Scripture readings today tell us about two very different gatherings by the river, both of which fall far short of John’s vision of the river in the new Jerusalem. And yet both stories show us the beginnings of John’s vision breaking though and becoming real and tangible here on earth. To help us learn how to participate in what one day God promises will be the destiny of us all.

The gospel reading today tells us of a place near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem called in Hebrew Beth-zatha (sometimes pronounced Bethesda, where the city in Maryland gets its name), meaning “The House of Mercy.” In the House of Mercy there is a pool of water that sometimes starts to move like a river. And apparently there is a legend that, when the water moves, the first person to get into the water will receive healing from whatever ails them. And so, as Jesus comes to the Sheep Gate one day, he finds the porticoes around the pool full of the infirm – the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. Desperate people hoping for a miracle.

I say quite deliberately that this is a “legend,” and not because I have any doubt that there can be healings and even miraculous healings. The Biblical authors never really ask how wondrous events are possible – but they know that wonders can come from God and that wonders can be done by spirits that are not from God, and the trick is to be able to tell the difference. 

I call the story of the alleged healing powers of the pool of Bethesda a “legend,” because it seems to me quite clear that these healing powers don’t in fact come from God. This healing is said to be available only once in a while and at unpredictable moments, when the water moves. And when the water moves, there is not enough healing for everyone, only for one person. And it sets up a competition – whoever moves fastest and gets into the water first wins the healing. In other words, healing is given as a reward for those who take it for themselves, and everybody else who’s a little slower has to fend for themselves.

It reminds me of the old joke about the two guys who see a bear in the woods. One says, “Let’s run.” The other says, “You’re crazy, you can’t run faster than a bear.” And the first one says, “I don’t have to run faster than the bear, I just have to run faster than you.” The legend says if I get into the water first before you, I’ll be healed; what happens to you is not my problem. And I’m sorry, but that’s not how my God works. My God insists that we are one another’s keepers; my God says the one who wants to be first must serve the rest, my God promises that the last will be first and the first will be last. This legend sounds more like something out of the Hunger Games movies than anything the God I know would come up with.

But when you’re desperate, you cling to any hope you can get. One man there has been trying for 38 years. He’s never going to win this lottery, but what’s his alternative? Until one day when the visiting rabbi from Nazareth says there is another way to be healed. No competition required. Jesus just raises him up. All he has to do is to believe the word of Jesus – to rise up, pick up his mat, and go home.

The mass of invalids gathered at the pool of Bethesda waiting for the water to flow are caught up in the legends of the old creation – dominated by competition for scarce resources and everyone out for themselves. Jesus comes to visit them and announces a new vision: where the gift of healing is given freely and anyone who believes can rise up and return home in peace.

Our other river gathering story today is from the Acts of the Apostles. Paul arrives in the province of Macedonia, in the city of Philippi – the congregation that will eventually receive Paul’s letter to the Philippians. According to Acts, Paul’s usual practice in coming to a new city was to go to the local synagogue on his first Sabbath in town and start proclaiming the message there. But in Philippi, Paul goes not to the synagogue but to some women outside the city, gathered … at the river.

Why doesn’t Paul go to the synagogue? For that matter, why are these women not in the synagogue – why do they gather for prayer outside the city gates along the river? Not because they prefer to find God in nature – that’s a modern conceit. It’s a fair assumption that they had to leave town to worship because they didn’t feel particularly welcome at the synagogue. These women who have gathered at the river have not come there with their husbands or their families, but they are independent and have come there on their own. And if you think ecclesiastical authorities, even in our own day, don’t have trouble dealing with independent-minded women, I invite you to take a look at today’s Washington Post.

These women, according to the text, are authentic worshipers of God – they want to know the real God, they are willing to gather at the river to pray, but – for whatever reason – the synagogue is not the place for them. But in the New Jerusalem there will be no temple or synagogue or cathedral or church anyway, and Paul senses that the riverside is where he, too, is called to be.

So he introduces himself to the women and tells them he has come bearing good news: the time of resurrection is here, the river of life that flows from God and that gives new birth in baptism is already flowing, the gates to the new Jerusalem are open to everyone. The good news is that Christ is risen and the gathering at the river of life has begun.

One of the women, Lydia, not only receives the message, but is inspired by the Spirit to offer her home to Paul and his companions. And this is how the church of the Philippians begins – Not in a synagogue, not in a church, but in the home of an independent woman who had not felt welcome in the existing organized religious assemblies of the city. And I think this is an important lesson for us – Paul did not come to Philippi, start a church or join an existing one, and then invite people to come join his church. Paul comes to Philippi and shares good news, and these women, these outsiders, invited him to join the community that they would host.

The legends that our culture tells, the institutions that human beings create that one day will pass away – these are not yet the city of God that John saw coming down from heaven. But Jesus has opened a new way for us. A way in which the new Jerusalem is starting to become real for us, little by little, as much as we can handle. He is the source of the river where we are truly meant to gather, and that is the place where we all will truly be at home.