“Water for the people!“– It is not the polluted “pool of religion” that can quench the thirst of those wandering in the desert, but only the “living water” that springs forth from solid rock.
As the environmental and political climate becomes increasingly heated, desertification becomes an apt term that is not only descriptive of the changing environment, but the social landscape, where true believers in turn may be the only fount for miles around. “While the water that flows through us is for ourselves,, the water that flows out of us is for everyone else.” (Hagin)
The term Living Water, or the absence thereof, serves not only a spiritual barometer regarding our own spiritual state, but “Turtle Island” (a water nation). Sink or swim, it’s not too late to drink from your cupped hand, or alter the state of affairs, and for Native believers that state is the land we walk on. Although not yet a done deal, the future of the world hangs in the balance, with those who walk in balance being the only ones that may yet turn the tide. Yet, for that to happen we must first become wellsprings of living water ourselves, not empty cisterns or “clouds without rain;” all promise and no downpour.
But, lest we become too self-absorbed by our own significance, as Christians, we might well reflect upon the fact that there remain “…other sheep who are not of this fold.” (Jn. 10:16) And, identifying as Native people, many of who still adhere to the “original instructions” reiterated in the Noahic Covenant, the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, whether in defense of culture, land or self-determination, a case can be made for a convergence of collective thought, resulting in a bottom-up, radicalized Christianity. A revitalized Christianity capable of bringing the heat to historical faith institutions, whose spiritual mendacity and social timidity has closed door to the downtrodden; causing many to realize that the common denominator of the Christian faith has been and will continue to be a proposition of liberation. Let us then consider those who labor alongside us, continuing to evidence the same hard-core idealism and pragmatic realism needed to engage our common adversary – the world, writ large.
Yet in answering that call, the Indigenous remnant might offend well-meaning, Christians, who continue to labor in their own delusions. As for those, they might do well to remember the Lord’s rebuke when he spoke to the prophet Ezekiel, saying: As for you, my flock, behold, I shall judge not only between rams and goats, but between sheep and sheep, between fat sheep and lean sheep. You who have foraged in green pastures, yet trampled what remained for the hungry; you who have drunk of the clear waters, yet fouled the very pool at which my flock drinks…” (Ez. 34:17). And, as for the history of the Indigenous America’s, there are not only parallels with Israel, biblically, but practically. As the Lord said: “…The time is approaching when I will judge all those who have caused destruction upon the earth.” (Rev. 11:18)
CoupStick Chaplain 