Forever in Flow

Isaiah 55; John 7:37-39

Pentecost 2014

            When a woman named Cathy Sky was forty years old, she found herself totally stressed out trying to complete her Master’s degree thesis.  That’s quite understandable whether you’ve been through the same experience or not.   Miss Sky woke up on one of those muscle-knotting mornings determined to loosen her writer’s block.   So she turned on the television and tried to channel surf the stress away. 

            Suddenly, she found herself having an unexpected reunion with a comforting, very wise friend known best to her back in her childhood.   All kinds of tensions subsided upon seeing the soft-blue sneakered man wearing the red cardigan knit by his mother.    Mister Rogers.   He was working on a greeting card craft.   In that gentle yet profound way of his, he offered these words to his through-the-television screen neighbor – “It’s fun when you have a project.  You have an idea for something to do, and the think about how you want to do it.  It takes a lot of planning.  I know it’s hard work.  And I’m so proud of you for trying.”

            Cathy Sky immediately interpreted this as no coincidental encounter.  She quickly understood it to be a living, loving, compassionate, and totally empowering word from God.  The empowering words nestled deeply and wonderfully within her heart.   She was able to start writing productively once again.   In the space between the television screen and her La-Z Boy recliner, she was certain the very real power and presence of God flowed to her through the spiritual gifts of Fred Rogers.

            Having been trained and ordained as a Presbyterian Minister, the late Reverend Rogers knew a lot about heavenly flow.   He believed it happens as the Holy Spirit works within, through and around us all.   He trusted that his good words of affirmation, education, and character formation would be used by the Spirit in the lives of all who heard them.    He perceived this world as thirsty for the living water of Jesus Christ and believed the Spirit slaked the thirst of and flowed forth from faithful hearts. 

 In Mister Rogers neighborhood of the heavenly kingdom, God’s Word was streamed through countless encouraging, caring, Spirit blessed words.   These did not return empty.  They accomplished the good purpose for which they were sent.    “I’m so convinced,” he once said, “that the space between the television set and the viewer is holy ground.  And what we put on the television can, by the Holy Spirit, be translated into what a person needs to hear and see, and without that translation, it’s all [rubbish] as far as I’m concerned.”   

I don’t think there could be any clearer words on how much he depended on the Spirit!  When you and I independently and collectively study the Bible, the same holds true.  We do so while standing upon the holy ground through which flows the Spirit-driven Good News of our Risen Lord.

            On this Pentecost Sunday, I felt drawn to today’s text from John’s Gospel.  Perhaps it’s because it’s the time of year when many of us spend more time beside and in and on bodies of water.   Of course, the beautifully rich symbols of fire, dove and wind are also outstanding teachers of the third person of the Trinity’s power.   Throughout the Bible, the dove symbolizes God’s peace and covenant with all creation; fire represents being led, inspired and refined by God’s wisdom and will; wind represents the creative breath of life.

When thinking of the Spirit as a river of living water, it’s helpful to reflect on the geographic fact that ancient Israel had numerous dry river beds.  The only time water flowed through them was when there was runoff from rain.   People waited and waited and waited.   This wasn’t something that could exactly be predicted and planned upon in that pre-scientific time.  The image of dried up rivers was therefore often used by religious teachers as an image of drought – the physical kind and it’s damage to life-sustaining vegetation, as well as the  spiritual kind and it’s damage to hopefulness.   Have you ever experienced either or both kinds of drought? 

But the despair of droughts would simultaneously yield a deep longing within people for the arrival of a mighty flow.   Ancient preachers therefore also spoke of them to inspire hope.  They preached that living a righteous life is like a mighty, ever-flowing river … a life convinced that God does not abandon God’s thirsty children to dry riverbeds of despair and death.  In addition to today’s Old Testament lesson, Isaiah spoke of this in the following way – “The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places … you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.” (Isa. 58:11)

            It’s not surprising at all that on the last day of a great Jewish festival celebrating God’s provision and care for our lives, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me.”     In other words, anyone feeling parched in spirit, abandoned by God on some dry, cracked stretch of life.  All were invited into the holy flow of Jesus to be rejuvenated and sustained.   

Earlier in John’s Gospel, we are told of a time when Jesus demonstrated what this experience was like.   It happened after Jesus approached a foreign woman.   She was a Samaritan, part of a people long despised by upstanding Jews.  She was regarded as no cleaner and no more significant than a wild a dog.   And, more generally, as a woman she suffered the oppressions of a male-dominated culture.   Talk about living in a parched place.   Rabbis certainly did not approach Samaritan women.   Yet Jesus did, as she stood by a well.  Then he made a promise to her saying, “The water I will give you will become in you a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”   

Even as he proclaimed this to her, and declared a related message to his disciples on the last day of the Festival of Tabernacles, Jesus knew the day was coming when he would no longer be physically present.   He knew what his death, resurrection and ascension would be like for his followers.    He knew how much anxiety they would have that the holy flow of his teaching and healing and loving would evaporate and leave the world behind more arid than before his miraculous arrival.  

But Jesus also knew his full identity.  He knew he was in complete accord with the Trinity.   He knew the life-sustaining power of the Spirit that had been flowing through him on earth had been doing so since the beginning of time.   It had touched many lives before him, though never as fully.   Our Lord understood his death would not stop the forever flow of the Spirit.    And he knew that the only way to really flood this love-parched, sin-dehydrating world was for this power to flow through and beyond the Cross and the tomb.    As one man, living in one region, at one time in history, Jesus of Nazareth was limited.  However, as our Savior, and in the Spirit, there are no bounds.   Like water and rain coming down from the sky, the Spirit of the Living God’s reign brings forth flourishing buds of new life, peace, and joy.  What fresh buds are you in need of today? 

This is what we celebrate every Pentecost.   It’s what quietly rushed through Mister Rogers with way more might than the Mississippi River.   It’s what covers the sacred space between pulpit and pew, between all our faithful conversations.   It’s what fills and unites us as we share in communion.   In the Spirit, we are all pipelines of God’s redeeming power in Jesus Christ!   Where will you help direct the flow today?   Amen.