Community organising begins by naming two realities: the world as it is, and the world as it should be. The first requires honesty about injustice and failure. The second requires imagination; the capacity to see beyond the limits of the present and picture a better future.
This is exactly what the Book of Revelation in the Christian Bible does. John of Patmos looks the world as it is straight in the face: an empire built on greed, violence, and exploitation. But he also dares to sketch the world as it should be: a renewed city, where the nations are healed, where gates are never shut, where water flows freely, and where light is shared by all.
Imagination is not an optional luxury. As any architect will tell you, if you cannot first picture a different structure, you cannot begin to build it. Revelation is architectural in this sense: a blueprint for human community reimagined.
With this frame in mind, two images from Revelation’s closing chapters speak directly to our present moment.
A Light That Guides Every Nation
Revelation 21.23–26
“The city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light.”
A River for All Who Thirst
Revelation 22.1–3, 17
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb... The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations... Let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.”
Water for the Common Good
As Thames Water teeters on the edge of collapse, many are asking whether it’s time to take back public control of our most essential resource. Across London, and the UK, millions rely on clean, affordable water every day. But right now, too many are being let down by a system that puts private profit before public need.
At moments like this, we need more than crisis management. We need vision: something that can guide us toward long-term justice.
Revelation offers one. Its vision is of a city that shines not with scarce or privatised light, but with brightness that illuminates the streets for all. Its river flows, not through gated pipelines or private meters, but as a gift, clean and abundant, “for everyone who thirsts.”
These are metaphors, but they carry real-world implications. We all know the difference between systems designed for the public and systems run for private gain. Streetlighting is a simple example: it illuminates the whole road, not just the stretch outside one person’s house. The system only works when it works for all.
Water should be the same.
Yet our current model is failing. Many water companies in England are owned by distant investors who prioritise profit over people. Sewage pours into rivers. Infrastructure decays. Bills rise. The most vulnerable are hit the hardest. This is not just poor service, it is a failure of imagination.
Imagining and Building the World as It Should Be
Revelation invites us to dare to imagine differently. Essential services like water work best when designed for the common good, not private profit. This is not nostalgia; it is a vision of the world as it should be, and a call to organise for systems that guarantee life’s essentials to all, regardless of wealth or postcode.
The world as it is can feel entrenched. But the world as it should be can be pictured, and therefore built. Revelation’s city of light and water calls us to that task.
If we can imagine it, we can begin to build it.
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