Outdoor Ministries Connection Great Gathering

Nov. 10, 2025 at Lake Junaluska Conference Center

Ezekiel 47:5-12

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.”

Water is complex, especially when I am addressing outdoor ministries professionals. I will be leaning into the life-giving parts of water but know that there are chaplains here. Please take care of yourselves and one another.

The river Ezekiel describes flows from the temple, starting as a trickle, but it in my imagination, it is a merger of the rivers and waterways that have shaped my life. It is the creeks of my childhood in the Black Hills flowing into the Cheyenne River and then into the Missouri. It is the waterways of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ontario, especially the St. Croix River and the Boundary Waters and Quetico. There is nothing quite so wonderful as paddling a wooden canoe on one of those northern rivers. Birchbark canoes give you a different access to the river, its shore, and the loons, heron, moose, beaver, and fish.

Ezekiel’s vision makes me recall the Red River of my college years in Moorhead, nourishing trees with fall foliage so different from the Ponderosa pines that I grew up with. Finally, I recall the frigid mountain river I was introduced to while working at camp Christikon in Southern Montana, the kind of river, as Norman Maclean wrote, which “runs over rocks from the basement of time.” I did not spend a lot of time in the Boulder River, but campers and I followed it home and relied on its waters, boiled or treated with iodine, for nourishment. 

In many ways, the Boulder is like so many of the rivers I now drive by as a bishop in Idaho, Eastern Washington, and the Western edge of Wyoming. Preparing this sermon, I realized that so much of my first half of life was spent near waters that eventually flow into the Mississippi. Now all the rivers of my life are part of the Snake and Columbia watersheds, which pour into the Pacific. 

Proximity as an adult to the Nez Perce, Shoshone, Northern Paiute, Kootenai, and Couer d’Alene tribes of today’s Idaho has taught me that Salmon will also be plentiful in any vision of the future God intends. In a world created and healed by God, flourishing will include an abundance of beautiful and diverse salmon running upriver to spawn and I imagine that most of the current dams have been removed.

Ezekiel knew rivers himself: the Gihon Spring that feeds a stream flowing into the Kidron Valley. Beyond Jerusalem there was the Jordan river. And in Babylon he perhaps lived along the Chebar (Kebar) River, an ancient canal. How did these rivers sustain a prophet struggling to respond to the catastrophe of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, a prophet called by God to condemn idolatry and faithlessness through parables, images, and direct scolding? There are 39 chapters of scolding and lament in the book that carries the prophet’s name.

One example some of us might be familiar with is his oracle against the leaders of Israel, “Woe, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? ³ You eat the fat; you clothe yourselves with the wool; you slaughter the fatted calves, but you do not feed the sheep. ⁴ You have not strengthened the weak; you have not healed the sick; you have not bound up the injured; you have not brought back the strays; you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them.” Neoliberalism, anyone?

Or consider Ezekiel’s diatribe against Tyre: “I will hurl many nations against you, as the sea hurls its waves. ⁴ They shall destroy the walls of Tyre and break down its towers. I will scrape its soil from it and make it a bare rock. ⁵ It shall become, in the midst of the sea, a place for spreading nets.” (26:5)

Contrast the bare rock and a place for spreading nets to the Dead Sea transformed into a fisherman’s paradise in the vision we heard this evening. Fish of every variety would flourish in its waters. Trees would bear fruit that could be harvested every month, and its leaves had medicinal properties. The entire barren area would undergo a miraculous transformation. 

Ezekiel’s vision encompasses every aspect of life, including economics and what we would call ecology. People are restored to their own productive land and reconciled with God. It should be noted that this vision is fantastic, not attainable through merely human effort, and yet it shows also the most basic practical concern for human welfare. This is expressed in one small detail in the picture of the Dead Sea region: “It’s swamps and its marshes shall not be healed; they will be given over to salt [production]”. 

Genuine prophetic vision must answer to real material need. Here we have received a vision of the Great Economy of the world created and healed by God, who alone guarantees long-term human flourishing.

It’s impossible for me not to connect Ezekiel’s vision with the glimpse of God’s reign that all of you collectively give to people week in and week out (and lots of weekends too). Every single camp (secular or religious) has the chance to give people a vision of humans living together with equity, gaining a sense of belonging, unplugged from all of the electronics and algorithms. For a few days or multiple weeks, people get to give up virtual reality for the natural world. 

But you church camp professionals, gathered in this space, get to do something more, you get to talk and sing and live out the radical love of the triune God at camp! Jesus, who tells us that he came to fulfill the law and the prophets, speaks his own vision of the reign of God through his blessings and woes, his parables, his prayers, and his daily ministry. Here is my one plea for the evening: I don’t think anyone here is considering this, but do not concede Jesus and do not concede the gospel. The life-giving gospel we know is needed now more than ever.

As with the anonymous messenger who is Ezekiel’s guide, you collectively are a guide for a vision of an alternative way of being, a way where life is abundant. Relationships are built around the campfire, on a rainy hike, splashing in the lake, when campers just won’t fall asleep because they are suddenly free to ask the big questions about God and scripture and faith. Go deep in the waters with your campers’ and staff members’ questions about faith, and hear a grateful church say “Thank you! Thank you! For your ministry of equipping embodied and lived faith!” 

Plenty of people think camp is an escape from the real world, a bubble. My dad, whose career was in outdoor ministry, thought differently. He died in 2020 and today would be his 99^thbirthday. In his book The Common Book of Camping, he wrote “We have seen a glimpse of the of the kingdom. We have seen a bit of life as it should be. Working together, we create places where people can come, learn, and go out into the world to make it as it should be.”   

When you have experienced Jesus’ love, acceptance, courage, curiosity, and real community, how can you not want to share it and replicate it? Sometimes, as a parish pastor in Iowa and Idaho, when I was making an argument for investing in camperships, I would quip “How can we expect people to help bring in the reign of God if they have never had a glimpse.”

Now I shepherd 80 congregations across a vast territory, and they also can give people a glimpse of the reign of God. In fact, we say that everything we do as a synod is so that ministry sites can be wellsprings of God’s love. And yet, outdoor ministries, because of your proximity to God’s natural creation, give a glimpse of God’s reign and economy even closer to Ezekiel’s fantastic vision of the trickle of water becoming the great river of life.

We hear rich symbolic language of water healing and bringing life and fertility to the wounded earth. Ezekiel’s vision recalls the great water source that fertilized Eden, flowing out in four branches around the inhabited world. I like to imagine that Ezekiel also thought of Hagar’s well, Moses getting water from the rock, and Namaan healed in the River Jordan.

It was inevitable that early Christian writers would associate this great life-giving river with the water of baptism. I do too, perhaps because I find myself leaning on the promises made in holy baptism more than ever right now. I can’t say what each of you brought to this space personally or professionally—overwhelm of a new job, a new diagnosis, broken relationships, fresh grief of a loved one who died, struggles with staff, boards, constituents as you navigate your future. 

But I know that we are all living through a time of deep polarization, violent extremism, the wealth gap growing ever wider, the dehumanization of immigrants and trans neighbors, and an allegiance to a theocracy which looks nothing like the gospel you and I profess. 

Holy Baptism carries the renunciations of evil, the marks of discipleship named so clearly, and the promises made by God and the assembly. These are all gifts for the baptized. Through water and the word, you were trusted by God and entrusted with God’s own love and mercy. You were sealed by the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that is with you still. It is that same Spirit that frees you today to see God in the face of the other: stranger, friend, neighbor, and in your own face.

In the Mountain West, because all the mainline denominations are religious minorities, we swim in deep ecumenical waters, just to continue our metaphor. This has led me to revisit The World Council of Churches historic 1982 document Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, the foundation for all our full-communion agreements and so much of our ecumenical work. It states, “God bestows upon all baptized persons the anointing and the promise of the Holy Spirit, marks them with a seal and implants in their hearts the first instalment of their inheritance as [children] of God.”

John of Patmos incorporated water into his own vision of the transformed world which lay beyond the suffering and evil of the present age. Toward the end of Revelation, we read: “Then the angel^[a] showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ² through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life^[b] with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” 

This is a week for learning and relationship building and growing skill sets. Our theme is to Reimagine a Way in the Wilderness. Loons, beavers, salmon—maybe your river includes crayfish and is lined with cypress trees. 

You can reimagine because you have been united with Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit. You have all you need and you worship the God who is the source of living water. 

Verses later, John of Patmos says to you and me and all who follow Jesus Christ, “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.” That gift is for you, always and forever. Amen.