Ezekiel 47:1-12 

47 Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple; there water was flowing from below the entryway of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east), and the water was flowing down from below the south side of the temple, south of the altar. 2 Then he brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that faces toward the east,[a] and the water was trickling out on the south side.

3 Going on eastward with a cord in his hand, the man measured one thousand cubits and then led me through the water, and it was ankle-deep. 4 Again he measured one thousand and led me through the water, and it was knee-deep. Again he measured one thousand and led me through the water, and it was up to the waist. 5 Again he measured one thousand, and it was a river that I could not cross, for the water had risen; it was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be crossed. 6 He said to me, “Mortal, have you seen this?”

Then he led me back along the bank of the river. 7 As I came back, I saw on the bank of the river a great many trees on the one side and on the other. 8 He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, and when it enters the sea, the sea of stagnant waters, the water will become fresh. 9 Wherever the river goes,[b] every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish once these waters reach there. It will become fresh, and everything will live where the river goes. 10 People will stand fishing beside the sea[c] from En-gedi to En-eglaim; it will be a place for the spreading of nets; its fish will be of a great many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea. 11 But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they are to be left for salt. 12 On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.”

When I lived in Poughkeepsie, I hated driving in New York City. The most frustrating thing was sitting at a long red light, only to have someone stop in the cross lane when my light turns green, and I can’t move. Horns begin to blare, fists shake, and the world’s most creative insults begin. This traffic phenomenon could shut down Manhattan. It reached its apex during the 1980 public transit strike, when it became known as gridlock. The word soon worked its way into common usage and dictionaries, to explain wider phenomenon than just traffic. Merriam-Webster says gridlock is “to cause to be in a state or situation in which movement or progress is stopped completely.” The word is frequently applied to Congress.

NY Traffic Commissioner Sam Schwartz coined the word to help people understand their maddening commute. He became known as Gridlock Sam for his relentless work to untangle city streets. Naming the situation was the first step toward finding a solution. Schwartz redesigned traffic flows through turning lanes, car-pool incentives, flexible rolling work hours. All these innovations helped, but his most successful innovation languished for 40 years, due to…well…legislative gridlock. New York City finally instated congestion pricing in 2025. Many said it was doomed to failure. But traffic now moves 23 percent faster through peak hours. Public transit use is up 7 percent, increasing revenue. And air pollution fell 22 percent in the toll zones after only six months. An act of imagination finally triumphed over gridlock.

Gridlock can occur in any human system; a family, a church, or a school board; when disagreement leads to inaction. Rabbi and family therapist Edwin Friedman wrote about how people became emotionally paralyzed by a problem because of anxiety and fear. Instead of solving problems, they got stuck in cycles of blame and nothing ever changed. Friedman felt the biggest problem was the gridlock of imagination. Problems aren’t solved by more yelling, or cutting each other off, or even getting more information. Groups only break free when they can imagine a different way to live and take a step in that direction.

The prophet Ezekiel must have understood this reality. When we read the book of Ezekiel, we encounter a creative, mystical poet who helped people see a different future offered by God’s goodness. Ezekiel wrote in a time of emotional, spiritual and theological gridlock. He was one of the exiles taken to Babylon. As a priest, he mourned the loss of the splendid Jerusalem Temple, where he would never preside again. As he served his flock in exile, he saw how people were stuck. They were shaped by loss and trauma, missing their home and grieving loved ones killed in the destruction. They were emotionally stuck between wanting to return home and trying to build a new life in a foreign land. Most powerfully, they wondered if God had abandoned them.

His most known vision described standing in a valley of dried bones of a dead multitude, where God asks, “O mortal, can these dry bones live?” Ezekiel is called to speak, and the bones begin to come together and gain sinew and flesh and become human again. It was a resurrection imagination.

Today’s reading is Ezekiel’s last hopeful vision of the future God intends for Israel. It begins at a new restored temple, with water pouring out under the door. We can’t get too literal here. I’ve seen water pouring across the floor into a Sunday School hallway, and it was not a sign of hope. It was a broken pipe and thousands of dollars in repairs. Ezekiel’s water is coming from an imagined spiritual spring.

What would Ezekiel’s audience understand from this strange and wondrous vision? The first profound feature is a great theological reversal, moving from the aching absence of God to a renewed, refreshing Divine presence. Earlier, Ezekiel gave the exiles some tough love. They wondered how such a terrible thing as conquest and destruction happen to them. Why didn’t God protect them? Maybe Babylonian gods were simply stronger. Ezekiel’s tough medicine is that God had left the Temple before the conquest. Like many prophets before him, Ezekiel says God has no interest in songs of praise or prayers when justice is neglected, when the poor are left hungry. So, God left the building, and more pointedly, they didn’t seem to notice God missing or the injustice.

But here at the end, Ezekiel sees God’s return, a living spring pouring out water from the Temple. I’m intrigued that the water is not contained in the Temple, but overflows from it. This vision reverses the theology of where God is. The old temple was built to contain God. The new one sees God’s refreshing grace flowing out into the world. God doesn’t just act inside the Temple, but the Temple must be connected to what is happening out in the world. In the old Temple, the focus was on worshiping in the right way, the new will focus on restoring and healing life.

Ezekiel’s vision shows a sweeping view of God’s restoring power. The water widens out like the headwaters of a great river, as Ezekiel is guided from ankle deep, to pulling up his robe at knee deep, to wading in at his waist, to being totally swept away. It’s almost a vision of the headwaters of the Mississippi River. At Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, you can walk across the knee-deep Mississippi. The river gains strength as it moves along, until you reach Lake Winnibigoshish, where it widens to eleven miles. The Temple is the source, the headwater, but the river becomes far greater than its source.

Ezekiel tells people that this isn’t simply a lot of water. It will transform things along the way. There will be fruit bearing trees, not just delivering an annual harvest, but offering fruit monthly. Fish will abound. But here is the most stunning part of the vision. The water is headed for the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is the lowest land on Earth, 430 meters below sea level. It is dead because it has no outlet. When the Jordan River flows into it, the only way out is evaporation. All the minerals from every drop of water to ever flow into the Dead Sea have been left behind. The saline content is 34 percent, ten times the saltiness of the ocean. That is great if you want to learn to float, but not so if you want life to flourish. The Dead Sea was the end of the line, not only for the River Jordan, but also for wayward people. The ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were located on the southwest corner. 

Ezekiel’s vision sees God’s presence flowing to the worst possible place as life giving water flows toward the lowest possible place. It is the greatest reversal imaginable. We can take this all as a metaphor for God’s overflowing love, but maybe we shouldn’t stop there. What if the vision speaks to us this way?   If we are touched by the presence of God, we too should flow out into the world. We are to be a part of the healing of all living things. We are called to care not just about the human soul, but the well-being of life; clean flowing rivers, fruitful trees, streams full of fish, and even the driest, deadest valley. Living water does not flow to a dead end and stop. It enlivens all things as it passes through. 

I’ve pondered this sweeping vision all week, feeling both enlivened but also uncertain on where to start. I feel the gridlocked imagination that refuses to take our climate crisis seriously. I can get overwhelmed by it all. Our reading group recently finished an enlightening book, Refugia Faith by Debra Rienstra. In ecology, a refugium is a place where life finds shelter when the larger environment becomes difficult or dangerous. After a blizzard or volcanic eruption, a small, protected place allows something to survive, recover, and eventually spread beyond itself.

That is one way to imagine our calling. We don't have to save the whole ocean. We don't have to solve the whole crisis. We can help create places where life can flourish.

A congregation can be such a place. A garden. A restored stream. A community gathered around a table. A child who learns to love the natural world. A patch of land where native plants return. A church that becomes a place of welcome, healing, and courage.

Ezekiel gives us a vision large enough to imagine a world transformed. But transformation begins in smaller places than we expect. Water finds a way. Life finds a way. We begin to break the gridlock of imagination by asking: Where can the living water flow through us? Where can we help make room for life?

Next week, we will follow that river all the way to Revelation, where the river of life flows through the heart of the holy city, and the trees on its banks offer healing for the nations.

For today, it is enough to imagine one place where life could flourish because we helped make room for it.