Drink Deeply
Easter VII; May 20, 2007
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
“Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.” (v. 17d) Is that the image you have of the Christian Faith? I have not done a systematic study of why people raised as Christians have drifted away, sometimes into unfaith and sometimes into another sort of faith, but I have known a lot of “church alumni” over the years. My experience tells me there are two big factors in why people drift away; there may be more, but let’s focus on these two. Both of them result from the failure to drink deeply from the living springs of God.
One: people feel driven away because Christianity appears to be primarily concerned with making people conform. One family I know used to be members of a Presbyterian church – the children were all raised in the church – but by the time I met them none of them was involved in a church. Most of the family had simply drifted into “none” – you know, on a survey, asked what their religious involvement was, they would check “none.” Some of them had become neo-pagans. I asked one of them what had happened, and since he was a child when they left the church, he wasn’t certain, but he thought it had to do with his family not being quite acceptable to the powers that controlled that congregation.
It happens, brothers and sisters. It may not happen at Westminster, but it happens. I have to tell you that one of my moments of happiness was when I was visiting a Presbyterian church and was hanging around at coffee hour after the service. I drifted over to where a young man with an earring in his left ear and a spiked collar around his neck was talking to a perfectly dressed elderly lady about his Bible study. There were three elements in that picture that made me happy: he had no criticisms of the way she was dressed, she had no criticisms of the way he was dressed, and they were talking about Bible study. I daresay that in coffee hour at most churches you are more likely to hear people talking about their latest real estate deal, the price of gasoline or Friday night’s party than about Bible study.
To hear the political rhetoric, Christianity in the United States appears to be concerned only with two things: outlawing abortion and denying civil rights to gay and lesbian people. Where are the Christian voices clamoring for peace, for justice, for acceptance of persons? Is not the political force of Christianity in our country given largely to compelling people to conform, to making other people behave the way we think they should behave? You’re going to tell me that that is not primarily what we are about, and you are right, but that is our public image with those who do not know better. So people who might actually be interested in following the Prince of Peace, the Lord of Glory, the Son of God are driven away by the compulsion to conform.
Two: those who have drifted from Christianity into other religious traditions – sometimes the great Eastern religions, sometimes neo-paganism, and sometimes a loose “New Age” spirituality – often have left us because we are boring. “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” ho-hum. Go to church, dress right, be a good citizen, don’t make waves. For people who actually want to have an experience of the Divine, who want to believe that there is spiritual power let loose in the world and that God is living and active trying to shake things up, it doesn’t cut it to suggest that they join a church committee to decide what color the carpet ought to be.
Christianity is not, in fact, boring, although I have jokingly suggested sometimes that I would like to have a bumper sticker that reads, “Dare to be dull.” The thought that the Power that has cast the stars across the sky and has coaxed humanity out of billions of years of evolutionary process can be wailing on a cold night, wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger is hardly a dull thought, but perhaps it has grown too familiar and too cute to be as terrifying as it really is.
Have we really domesticated God as much as I fear? God has become a cross between Grandpa and Santa Claus, with a Son who avoids stepping on cracks in the sidewalk, in a Christianity that is far more concerned with what is nice and what conforms than with what is good and true and beautiful. And when Christianity is a wading pond rather than the great, wild ocean, no wonder people get bored and go looking for spiritual thrills in Buddhist meditation, Wiccan circle dances, or books about channeling.
Sigh. I have spent my entire life as a Christian, but have had enriching relationships with atheists, neo-pagans, at least one Buddhist and lots of “none of the above.” Every possibility has tempted me, of course, including other Christian traditions that seem a lot more exciting than Presbyterianism. A cartoon I love: a couple is seated on the floor on a rug, a hookah between them, and they are wearing kaftans. In the background is a boy, dressed in a suit, including a bow tie. The woman says to the man, “We have to deprogram Junior; he’s run off and joined the Presbyterians.”
The reasons I do not leave the Presbyterian Church for another Christian tradition are complicated and the subject of another discussion, but the reason I am a Christian and not a Buddhist, a neo-pagan, a New-Ager or “none of the above” is simple: the “root and descendant of David, the bright morning star” (v. 16b) How could I turn from the Lord Jesus? Sure, the picture of Jesus we have given the world is flattened and boring, but I know how to read: I started the reading the Bible for myself as a boy and I know that the dull picture we give the world is not the best picture.
I danced in the morning when the world was begun,
And I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun,
And I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth;
At Bethlehem I had my birth.
Dance, then, wherever you may be;
I am the Lord of the Dance, said He,
And I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be,
And I’ll lead you all in the dance, said He.[1]
This one verse from John’s Revelation (22:17) is a much better summary of the life of Christians in the world than anything we usually project. We are not primarily concerned with making people conform to something. We are not just ritual adherents to a dull, old tradition that will die of boredom with itself. This is what we are about:
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
Are you thirsty for living water? Are you thirsty for a connection with God, with a living God and not a stuffed figure we trot out on certain religious occasions? Are you thirsty for knowledge that your puny life on this tiny planet actually means something in the grand scheme of the cosmos? Are you thirsty for a sense of love? Are you thirsty for an assurance of life beyond the many limitations imposed on us and that we impose on ourselves?
Plunge in and drink deeply from the water of life. God offers a great fountain, splashing over our heads and around us, drenching us with the Holy Spirit, and mostly you and I sidle up, stick a hand into a corner of the flow and get a sip.
The word-picture is meant to stimulate your imagination, but I’ll make two specific applications to get you focused. First: come to worship in order to tremble before the living God. This is a holy place and this is a holy time. Throughout the Bible, do you know what people do in the presence of holiness? They remove their sandals, they shake, they wail, they cover their faces; also they dance, they sing, they shout, they raise their hands in the air. No, you do not have to be so physically demonstrative if you do not want to be; our Scottish heritage would not go for that. But you may need to work on your attitude. Do you realize that here you are in the presence of the living and holy God? Worship engages the mind, the body, the heart and the spirit in the presence of the Creator of the Cosmos. Do you come into this room with a sense that you are going to encounter the living God, through Scripture, sermon, sacrament and song? Come regularly, come often, come every chance you are given into the presence of the living God.
Second: pursue your uncomfortable edge. If you have settled into a nice religious routine without any spiritual adventure in it, then look for your uncomfortable edge. And, yes, I’m talking to all of you, including those over eighty. For example: perhaps you are afraid of Bible study because you don’t know anything about the Bible and you fear you will appear stupid. Nobody cares how much you know, not me and not least of all God; whether you are willing to open the Book and actually look for God in it is all that matters. One of the things I love about the men’s Bible study on Wednesday mornings is when I shut up and let the guys say something I will inevitably hear something I would not have thought of – after reading the Bible for myself for about forty years! If the preacher can learn something new, then so can you.
But, of course, Bible study is not my uncomfortable edge. I’m not sure what is, although I have some ideas. I will make a confession to you. I frequently pray for the Holy Spirit to come among us and move us into spiritual adventure. But I have my spiritual fingers crossed behind my back when I say that prayer. Why? Because the Holy Spirit may take hold of the people of God and move you to want to do things that will make me uncomfortable. Hey, I’m no more thrilled at the idea of getting out of my comfort zone than you are! But it is where God is to be met. So find your uncomfortable edge, when it comes to your spiritual life, and pursue it. That may be quiet meditation, it may be singing the hymns (instead of listening to others sing them), it may be talking to the Pastor or to a friend about your doubts, it may be taking a mission trip, it may be giving two hours a month to the Hospitality House or the Nodaway Valley Free Clinic. Whatever your spiritually uncomfortable edge is, start drinking there.
Worship the living God and pursue your uncomfortable edge. Don’t let our living tradition become a mere matter of social conformity and boring pseudo-religion. “Let everyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.” Drink deeply.
Lord Jesus, you have offered us yourself in the waters of Baptism and in the Bread and Wine. You come to us in the living Word. Give us courage to drink of the water you offer and then to turn to a thirsty world and say, “Come.” Amen.
Robert A. Keefer
Westminster Presbyterian Church
Clarinda, Iowa