VISIONS…LEADING TO THE RIVER
Scripture: Acts 16:9-15
Revelation 21:10; 22-22:5
There are several network TV shows this season that are really putting the “vision” into television. Patricia Arquette as Allison DuBois on “Medium” talks with ghosts and constantly has dreams about past and future that help her boss, the District Attorney, solve crimes. Jennifer Love Hewitt as Melinda Gordon is a “Ghost Whisperer” on the CBS show of that name which, according to a CBS press release is “inspired in part by the work of famed medium James Van Praagh and of Mary Ann Winkowski, a real-life communicator with spirits”. On the New CW channel there’s “Supernatural” – even though that’s not a program that very many choose to watch, even if it is right after “Smallville” – in which two fairly ordinary guys seem to have all kinds of connections to supernatural events. And most recently in a quirky show that seems to have come and gone rather fast (only seven episodes were produced) Jeff Goldblum plays the title character “Raines”, a detective who thinks he sees dead victims, even though these are but imaginary manifestations of them in his own mind in order to help him sort out for himself what has happened in a case.
Clearly, we as viewers must enjoy seeing shows that posit being able to have visions of life after death – of supernatural beings – or producers wouldn’t keep throwing them at us. I guess these kinds of programs are supposed to be the antidote to so-called “reality” television programming.
Now, I would rather imagine (although I suppose this is an assumption that should be tested) that no one in this room has experienced any of these kinds of visions coming to us from an afterlife. Right? Those who have visions – in the sense that we’re using it here -- are thought of as kooky if not downright deranged, and certainly they would be a bit off-putting in polite society. (In the season finale of “Medium”, to air next Wednesday, Allison’s strange powers are exposed, and she is denounced by the press, for example.) We are, perhaps quite rightly, suspicious of those who would claim to have visions that come to them from another world…or from God. It would take a lot of convincing to make you or me believe that someone else’s vision of the afterlife has a basis in reality.
And yet at another level, while this is a perfectly comfortable 21st century attitude to take from a scientific worldview, it might be considered odd for the Christian. The Bible is full of stories of people with visions. Our two scriptures that were read today tell of two of them. In the book of Acts a vision comes to Paul (as with, say, Allison DuBois, it comes at night – which seems to be the usual thing for these kinds of visions) of a man from Macedonia pleading with Paul for help. Paul is convinced that this is a vision that has been sent from God, and so he makes plans to go to Macedonia. Now, this is decidedly a non 21st century response – to believe so strongly that a vision has come from God that it must be immediately acted upon would land most anyone in the loony bin. Yet, for the Biblical writer this is all stated quite matter-of-factly, and Paul continues then to describe the result of his voyage.
The vision described in the book of Revelation is considerably more grandiose. The passage that we read comes right after the more familiar one at the beginning of Chapter 21 which speaks of a vision of a new heaven and a new earth “for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…” and a loud voice calls, “’See, the home of God is among mortals….. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’” The author (presumably John of Patmos) then goes on to describe a vision of the New Jerusalem, which is depicted in grand and flowery language. Again, this is not the kind of a vision that our 21st century sensibility finds to be very credible.
Several of you have talked with me about the book of Revelation and how or whether its strange images and visions do indeed have an impact on our lives today. For the most part the author of Revelation is using metaphor as a way of envisioning the new realm of God over all the earth, and these concepts – especially the fabled “number of the beast” (666) -- are not to be taken literally. Nevertheless, it might be worthwhile to have an extended study of the book of Revelation for those who would be interested.
Intriguingly, both of these scriptural accounts of visions lead Paul and the author of Revelation to a river. For Paul it was to baptize a woman named Lydia and her household. For John it was the more metaphorical “water of life”. I’ll come back to the meaning of these rivers at the end of this sermon.
But first I want to expand on our concept of “vision”. I understand that last week this was a topic for the adult church school class, and that members of the class were talking about which kind of a vision we have or could have for our church. This takes the idea of having visions – like the characters on the television shows or Paul or John of Patmos – to quite a different level. It has to do with envisioning – with creating a concept about what the future could hold and then finding ways to work toward that as a reality. It is what Martin Luther King Jr. was talking about when he proclaimed, “I have a dream”. This was no dream of supernatural beings but rather one of a more glorious future that encompassed racial harmony. These are the kinds of dreams that each of us want to have as we shape and create and bring into being our vision for the future.
You have heard, I am sure, the phrase “without a vision the people perish” or “where there is no vision the people perish” which is the language of the King James translation of the Bible. This is a verse that appears in Proverbs (29:18), and it has led to countless sermons on this idea. Indeed, when I Googled the phrase on the Internet I came up with quite a handful of sermons or speeches that I could have cribbed from to illustrate this point. For example, here is Quaker Richard Poole introducing this concept as it applies to his group, the Society of Friends: “When I think of the word "vision" in relation to organizations, I think of something that keeps things together. Something that keeps things moving in the same direction. Like gravity pulls the water in a stream down the mountain. Or like an area of low pressure pulls the wind relentlessly in a particular direction. We need to have something that binds us together. Something that keeps us moving in the right direction. If there is not, we will all eventually wander off and go our own way.” Poole also quotes the dancer Michael Flateley from a film documentary where he said, "if you can see clearly where you want to get to and are prepared to work hard you will get there in the end". The important part of that comment is obviously “if you can see clearly…..” The rest follows quite naturally: taking a vision of where we can be going and making of it not a dream but a reality.
Except that it doesn’t always quite happen that way, does it? Richard Poole and Michael Flateley are perhaps being a bit too overconfident in asserting that having a vision and acting upon it will get you to where you want to be in the end. One of my favorite interpreters of Biblical texts is Walter Wink. In his take on “without a vision the people perish” he tells the story of Black Elk and what happened to his vision:
“At the age of nine, Black Elk, a Native American of the Oglala nation in South Dakota, had a powerful vision. It spoke to the future, not only of his own tribe, but also of all living things. For years he told no one, even though keeping the vision bottled up inside him was making him desperately ill. Finally, when he was 17, a wise medicine man induced him to share the vision that he had been given, convincing him that if he did not, the vision would kill him. When the medicine man heard what Black Elk had seen, he looked long at the boy and pronounced in wonder, ‘You must do your duty and perform this vision for your people on earth.’
“So Black Elk shared his vision with the whole tribe, which then carefully enacted each detail. The tribe gathered 16 horses, four black horses representing the west, four white horses for the north, four sorrels for the east, and four buckskins for the south, all with riders painted accordingly. Then the dance began, wheeling from one quadrant to the next, drawing in everyone until everything converged on the center where a stick was planted that would flower as a sign of life and hope for this desperate community.
“They needed hope, for the white soldiers, in violation of every treaty the Indians had signed, were hunting them down like buffalo. Not long before Black Elk’s vision dance, General Custer had attacked the Sioux and had been killed. Not long after the dance, companies of soldiers attacked the band, slaughtering women and children as they sought to flee along the gulch. This massacre at Wounded Knee effectively ended Indian resistance and the people were herded into concentration camps, euphemistically called ‘reservations.’
“To Black Elk it seemed as though his vision had failed, but that isn’t the way to put it. He never doubted his vision. He knew it was true because it depicted the real possibility of harmony and life and he knew that was what the Great Spirit wanted for its children. So instead, Black Elk blamed himself.”
Now, that’s a pretty powerfully negative view of what can happen to a vision. But Walter Wink doesn’t leave it there. He goes on to interpret what happened to Black Elk and his people this way: “In fact, of course, neither the vision nor Black Elk had failed; it was the powers-that-be, what the Bible calls ‘the principalities and powers.’ These institutions, systems, and structures organize human existence and rob our lives all too often. It is these powers that block both the vision and its recipient making it impossible to fulfill the vision.”
In other words, to have the vision and to hold to it is the important thing, even if the “powers-that-be” do everything possible to tear it to pieces. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” was articulated in 1963, and 44 years later much of that dream remains unfulfilled – but that doesn’t make the dream any less real. John of Patmos’ New Jerusalem and new heaven and new earth have not come to fruition after 21 centuries of human striving – but that doesn’t make God’s hope for humanity any less possible. The vision we have for what this church may become could be years in the unfolding – but that doesn’t make the necessity of putting that vision together any less important.
When you look at more contemporary translations of this verse from Proverbs you get a somewhat different take. Both the Revised Standard Version and the NRSV render it, “Where there is no prophecy, the people cast off restraint;” and the New English Bible puts it even more colloquially: “Where there is no one in authority, the people break loose.” And one of my favorites: in something called Young’s Literal Translation the line is, “Without a Vision is a people made naked.” In other words, not to have a vision and not to articulate it for others invites anarchy – allows everyone just to do their own thing rather than seek to work and struggle and dream together. The people may not “perish” literally, but their hopes soon die. As the poet Langston Hughes has said, “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?... Or does it explode?” We must not let our dreams – our visions – be deferred.
Along about now some of you may have been wondering why I have taken this tack in exploring these scriptural passages instead of a more typical Mother’s Day or family-oriented sermon. Yet, for me the tie-in is fairly obvious. Mothers, fathers, parents, extended family members all have visions for their children and what they will become. These visions may turn out to be unrealistic or, in some cases, counter to the vision a child has for him- or herself. Sometimes it takes real work and compromise to make a parent’s vision for their child and the child’s vision for themselves mesh. But for any parent worth their salt having that vision for the child is the all-important beginning – and that’s why, in large measure, we celebrate Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
Paul’s vision leads him to Macedonia where he meets a mother, Lydia, who is also referred to as “a worshiper of God”. She brings her whole household with her to the river – which, we can assume, would include all of her children. There they were baptized – a first step in realizing the dream she has for all of her household. The river becomes for them a river of life. And Paul’s dream of bringing the gospel of Christ to Macedonia is also thus realized. He has followed his vision and made it become reality.
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal…..” Our vision, when it is well formulated, leads us to this same water of life, and the promise held out to John of Patmos, with all its glorious imagery, is the same promise held out to us: “And there will be no more night; they need no light or lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.”
Amen
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church/United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
May 13, 2007