If you wanted a river to wash in, you would not choose the Schuylkill; nor the Delaware, most likely. Rivers are not for washing in anymore. Indeed, rivers aren’t what they used to be; or at least they don’t mean what they used to mean. Rivers today are often reminders of our capacity to ruin what God has given us.
But in the biblical mind a river is, if not everything, at least almost everything. One of my favorite verses from the Psalms, for sheer poetry and compact density of meaning is Psalm 46:4, “There is a river the streams whereof make glad the city of God.” The creation story in Genesis 2 tells us that “a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.” Of course the people of Israel had to cross the river Jordan to make their way into the promised land: the same river in which, many generations later, John would baptize Jesus. In Ezekiel’s vision of God’s healing and restoration, a river flows out from beneath the temple. And in the last chapter of the last book of the Bible, we read of “the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.”
God accomplishes God’s work by causing rivers to flow. God gives life by the currents of rivers. God fulfills God’s promises when we cross the rivers that we must cross. And God gives new life when we are buried with Christ in the waters of baptism - a river that makes its pools in fonts like ours and in churches everywhere, all over the globe. A river is everything, or nearly everything.
Most of us have been taught that the importance of rivers, once upon a time, (and maybe even a little bit today) was their role in enabling commerce and industry. And, no doubt, this is an accurate reading of history. But it is a partial reading of history, shaped by our preoccupation with the marketplace and its transactions.
But faith is supported by religion, and religion is shaped by shared symbols of rich meaning. And a river is not merely a byway of commerce and industry; a river is a shared symbol of rich meaning through which faith is conveyed. But these days, when we would not dare wash in Schuylkill, and when the Delaware is not what it once was to this city, we hardly know what a river is or what a river could mean.
This was not so for Naaman, the commander of the Syrian army. Naaman knew what a river was, and what a river was for. Naaman knew how a culture, a people, a faith, and a religion could be described by a river, and fed by a river. And Naaman was a great man, in high favor of the king. He knew the importance of a river.
And when he arrived more or less at the doorstep of Elisha the prophet, he was not expecting to be directed to a river. Rivers he knew: in Damascus, the rivers of his own people, his own city, his own king. Naaman was not in search of a river to wash in. He had leprosy, and he was in search of someone, anyone, who had the power to make him well. He was a man of power in search of power.
An interesting thing about this story is where the power is located. And if you look closely at the story, you see that power is never found where it ought to be found. To start with, we are told that through Naaman the Lord had given victory to Aram (which today we’d call Syria). God had given power, not to his own children, his own nation; not to Israel, but to Syria - we don’t know why.
Next, there is the young girl who has been taken captive. Other translations call her a “little maid.” But let’s be honest, she’s been captured in warfare and forced into slavery. She is nothing; she is nameless; she is powerless. But God has work to do through her, and so she has power that she could not otherwise have. It’s this little maid who knows where healing is to be found for Naaman; it’s her intervention that gets the entire narrative going.
Next we see that the king of Israel already knows himself to be powerless. The only thing he can imagine is that the Syrians are spoiling for another fight, looking for a pretext for more conflict, in which they are sure to prevail. But the king of Israel is powerless.
Elisha, the man of God, knows that power lies in his own hands. But when Naaman arrives with his horses and his chariots - with all the trappings of his power - the man of God will not come out to see him. He sends a messenger, a powerless servant, to see him instead.
In this story, power is never to be found where it is expected; instead, power is nearly always found where it is not expected. Power is held in the hands of slaves, and servants, and messengers. Power is carried in the hands of of the weak and the nameless.
Nothing could make that message clearer to Naaman than to be told by some servant of Elisha’s to go wash seven times in the Jordan River. Naaman flies into a rage, as only men of power can do. “Are you kidding me!?” he roars! “I will not be sent by some lackey to go wash in the River Jordan! Rivers I know! Rivers I have! Rivers run through the streets of Damascus: rivers that make the Jordan look like a creek! Send the man of God out here! Have him call upon the Name of the Lord his God! Have him wave his hand over my awful, flaking, scratchy, itchy, sickening skin, and have him cure this leprosy! I know what a river is, and I don’t need your river!”
Power, you see, doesn’t always know power when it sees it, especially the kind of mystical power that is often cloaked in weakness. And again, the story confuses us, by locating power in the voices of the servants of Naaman, who urge their master to calm down and reconsider, and just try to do the simple thing, and wash in the Jordan River, as the servant of the man of God has directed.
And so, Naaman, who is a great man, much in the favor of the king; following the advice of his servant, on a journey that had been launched at the suggestion of a slave girl, with only the instructions of the messenger of the prophet to go on, dips himself seven times in the waters of the Jordan. And there, in the river, he is healed.
God’s power is not found where we expect it to be found. And we do not know what a river is for.
Come with me all the way to the New Testament now. Throughout St. Luke’s Gospel, the evangelist tells us in detail of the movements that Jesus makes through the regions of the Galilee and in Jerusalem. Now, I don’t for a moment think that St. Luke intended it like this, but if you chose to read it this way, I wonder if you could hear St. Luke describing Jesus’ movements as though he, Luke, is describing a river; and as though that river is Jesus, coursing through a holy land.
The evangelist describes the path of Jesus’ movements as he travels. And if you drew these movements on a map in light blue ink they might look like a river. Jesus goes to Nazareth and to Capernaum. He flows into and out of the lake. He passes through grain fields, irrigating them. He flows into the mountains, and then back out again like a stream. He meanders, during the course of his ministry, into and out of villages, towns, and cities. He is moving, flowing, “bringing the good news of the kingdom of God” with him.
In chapter 9, Luke tells us that Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem,” sending messengers ahead of him. His course is clear. It’s not until chapter 13 that Luke describes Jesus’ progress again, telling us only that “he went on his way through towns and villages… journeying toward Jerusalem.” In chapter 19, the blue line flows through Jericho. And then, eventually in that chapter Jesus draws near to Jerusalem and weeps: his tears the only suggestion that he is a river flowing into the holy city.
Back in chapter 17, St. Luke tells us that “on the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going [flowing] through the region between Samaria and Galilee,” and then he entered a village where ten lepers approach him. It’s leprosy that links this story to the story of the healing of Naaman. And the people who make these decisions must have paired these two passages together for that reason, I am sure. And it’s that pairing that allows me, in my fanciful reading of the text, to see Jesus as a river. No prophet has sent the ten lepers to the river, but the lepers have come to him nonetheless, because they have heard of his healing powers. They come to the river of Jesus’ love, and all they have to do is get close to be washed by the power of his grace. They are healed in his presence.
I don’t know whether to belabor the point or to let it sit lightly, since it’s kind of a kooky suggestion to say that Jesus is a river. But just as we hardly know what a river means anymore, so many of us don’t know what Jesus means anymore. We struggle to see how God accomplishes God’s work in sending Jesus to flow among us; how God gives life through Jesus; how God fulfills God’s promises in Jesus; that the river of Jesus’ love is nearly everything: maybe it is everything.
It would almost be easier if there was just an actual river we had to go wash in. But it’s not too much more complicated than that, as the ten lepers found out. Jesus passes by - a river of love and healing grace - and all you have to do is come near and seek him out. And he will make you well. You don’t even have to be grateful for his gift. You certainly don’t have to pay for it; you can have it for nothing.
And along the banks of this river, power - real power that transforms people and the world we live in - God’s power is not to be found where power is usually located (among the powerful), but with the nameless and the weak; with those who have been forced into slavery; with the servants and the messengers who are easily dismissed, disregarded, and ignored.
So, yes, it might be a little kooky to ask you to see Jesus as a river. But to me, considering the condition of the world we live in, it seems hopeful to remember that a river can be almost everything. It sounds like good news to me that there is a river of love that we can still go to and find healing and grace. And that river is not a feature of geography, but a flowing spirit that knows no bounds. To me, it sounds promising to recall that God gives power where we least expect it, and consistently to those who are otherwise powerless.
And I, for one, am grateful for this river of grace and healing and love. And I want to encourage you to be grateful too - to offer thanks for all that God does for us, as he sends his Son - a river of love and grace and healing - to flow through us, among us, with us.
A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden.
The people of Israel crossed the river Jordan to make their way into the promised land. And Naaman washed himself seven times in that same river.
A river flows out from beneath the temple bringing healing wherever it goes.
And in the new Jerusalem, the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb.
A river is everything, or nearly everything.
There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God… and the Name of that river is Jesus!
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
9 October 2022
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia
The Schuylkill River