Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“‘Thus says the Lord, I have made this water wholesome; from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it.’ So the water has been wholesome to this day, according to the word that Elisha spoke.”
NL Daily Devotion for Tuesday, November 8, 2022
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
We’ll just set aside the bear maulings for this one [v. 23-35]. I wrote on that last time this text came up. This time, I’ll reflect on Elisha’s purification of the water and reflect for a moment on Flint, Michigan. You remember Flint—the city whose water was found to be full of lead eight years ago and which is still working to address the egregious harms caused by political negligence and exacerbated by racism. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if God could send a prophet to purify the whole system with a handful of salt?
But there are prophets at work in Flint, otherwise we would never have known of it in the first place. There are people working tirelessly to address the social and economic inequities right along with the infrastructure issues. And God is calling prophets to be water protectors, preservers, and purifiers all over the world, as this life-sustaining resource is continually under assault from environmentally-negligent businesses and communities.
I went with a group from my church to visit the water protectors’ camp along the Mississippi where Enbridge’s Line 3 was being tunneled underneath, to pray and sing for justice for this sacred river (and all rivers are inherently sacred), then on another occasion, marched to the capital in St. Paul in protest over the oil pipeline. I did not feel particularly prophetic, but in retrospect, I was doing my small part to walk in Elisha’s footsteps in order to keep the waters good for the health of all of God’s creation. Still, I wish I could simply toss a handful of salt into the river—into all the rivers of the world—and make them pure. Then again, we would just go right on making them impure again, wouldn’t we. I suppose a prophet’s work is never done.
When have I felt like I have acted in a prophetic way?
