You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Many churches don’t talk much about mission these days – that’s something for “missionaries.” But as we become more intentional about seeing ourselves as agents of Jesus Christ, we can see opportunities every day to proclaim the Realm of God and offer healing love. Jesus’ instructions to his followers as he sends them out in mission tells us a lot about how we might go out in his name in our own places and times.
After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."
This sending comes after a foray undertaken by the twelve, Jesus’ closest disciples. That was a successful initiative, judging from the elation both they and Jesus expressed upon their return. Now he’s scaling up the operation – seventy (or 72 in other versions) are being sent on mission. They are to go in pairs – no one walks alone in God’s realm – and they do not go to random places. They go to each place Jesus intends to go. This suggests to me that they went out as his “advance team,” to size up a community, see what opportunities there might be for proclaiming the Good News, and assess what obstacles might be set in their way.
Political advance teams arrive ahead of candidates to do that kind of reconnoitering, and to prepare the populace for a candidate’s message. They set up communications, build a grassroots operation, generate anticipation and enthusiasm for the candidate’s arrival. The prepare the ground for planting, as it were, making everything ready for a successful campaign in that place.
What if we saw our missional activities in such a light? We can assume Jesus wants to arrive at every place, every person, every heart. So what communities or people are you being assigned to prepare? We do this advance work by speaking naturally of our own experiences of love and freedom and healing through Christ. We invite people to consider learning more about him as he is revealed in the Gospels – and in our own lives, as we’re willing to tell our stories. We might even create some grassroots energy by inviting people into small groups for bible study or prayer or spiritual conversation.
Who were the “advance teams” that came into your life inviting you into a deeper relationship with Jesus? Who planted seeds in you that resulted in your coming to faith more fully and profoundly?
This wording also reminds us that we don’t create the mission. God has already designed it, and will reveal to us more explicit instructions as we go. And we do need to go, even if we don’t leave home. Many of us have a huge reach online – don’t be afraid to be your spiritual self in digital space. Find a buddy and hit the road.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-27-25 - Don't Look Back
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Jesus was in a tough mood the day he was vetting would-be disciples. Not only did he tell folks not to run home to bury their dead ; he didn’t even want them going back to say goodbye before they threw in their lot with him: Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Okay – I get that our life as agents of God’s Realm of power and love may need to come before our other commitments. But do we have to throw away our other relationships completely? Just abandon our families?
As with everything else in the Scriptures, we have to hold this statement in tension with the other things Jesus is recorded as having said and done. I pray there is more than one pattern to becoming a disciple. If we take ourselves off the “judgment hook” this statement can generate, we’ll be better placed to find the good news in what Jesus said. We all recognize the tendency to want to look back; where do we find life in not giving in to that impulse?
For me, it comes back to this: the life of God is always forward, always ahead of us on the road. What has been is real and important and shapes where we are now, but we do not need to look back at the last place we encountered God. We are to trust that those encounters will multiply as we follow Jesus – as we spend time with him in prayer; learn from him in scripture; work with him in apostolic action. The more we move forward, the less we need to look back.
And what about those goodbyes? Don’t they need to be said? Perhaps – and maybe we are invited to trust that we will encounter those beloveds again in different ways. Maybe we don’t need to spend a lot of energy on goodbyes, because in God’s economy we remain connected in spirit to those whom we love, even if we’re not with them in body.
Earlier this week we heard from the Shirelles and U2. Today, let’s give the last word to Peter Tosh and Mick Jagger (also frighteningly young in this video) doing “Don’t Look Back.” This song is NOT about following Jesus, but let’s just focus on the chorus, on the walking and not looking back part. God will take care of what’s behind us as we look forward.
So if you just put your hand in mine,
We’re gonna leave all our troubles behind;
We gonna walk and don’t look back!
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Jesus was in a tough mood the day he was vetting would-be disciples. Not only did he tell folks not to run home to bury their dead ; he didn’t even want them going back to say goodbye before they threw in their lot with him: Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Okay – I get that our life as agents of God’s Realm of power and love may need to come before our other commitments. But do we have to throw away our other relationships completely? Just abandon our families?
As with everything else in the Scriptures, we have to hold this statement in tension with the other things Jesus is recorded as having said and done. I pray there is more than one pattern to becoming a disciple. If we take ourselves off the “judgment hook” this statement can generate, we’ll be better placed to find the good news in what Jesus said. We all recognize the tendency to want to look back; where do we find life in not giving in to that impulse?
For me, it comes back to this: the life of God is always forward, always ahead of us on the road. What has been is real and important and shapes where we are now, but we do not need to look back at the last place we encountered God. We are to trust that those encounters will multiply as we follow Jesus – as we spend time with him in prayer; learn from him in scripture; work with him in apostolic action. The more we move forward, the less we need to look back.
And what about those goodbyes? Don’t they need to be said? Perhaps – and maybe we are invited to trust that we will encounter those beloveds again in different ways. Maybe we don’t need to spend a lot of energy on goodbyes, because in God’s economy we remain connected in spirit to those whom we love, even if we’re not with them in body.
Earlier this week we heard from the Shirelles and U2. Today, let’s give the last word to Peter Tosh and Mick Jagger (also frighteningly young in this video) doing “Don’t Look Back.” This song is NOT about following Jesus, but let’s just focus on the chorus, on the walking and not looking back part. God will take care of what’s behind us as we look forward.
So if you just put your hand in mine,
We’re gonna leave all our troubles behind;
We gonna walk and don’t look back!
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-26-25 - The Walking Living
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Oh, man! We missed by two weeks having this gospel reading fall on Father’s Day. What fun preachers might have had dealing with Jesus’ words about wasting our time burying our fathers: To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
Sound a bit harsh? Isn’t it normal, a way of honoring your father and your mother, to give them a proper funeral? What kind of child would say, “Sorry – too busy,” to such a life moment? Well, maybe Jesus would answer, “The kind of child who sees himself first as a child of God. The kind of child who knows she is my follower first, and puts every other relationship second.” Does this sound like a cult? No doubt some of the families of those who left everything to follow Jesus did think they’d joined a cult. No one knew this “cult” would last 2,000 years and turn the world upside down.
What did Jesus mean by “Let the dead bury their own dead?” He meant that those who have been born anew in the Spirit are the living, and those who operate only out of their human, natural, “fleshly” life are as good as dead. (Perhaps he would also suggest that the energy and resources we put into tending and laying to rest the bodies of our loved ones after they have ceased to inhabit them is a misplaced priority for those who are called to proclaim life…)
Jesus was always redefining family values. Over and over he taught that the company of those who believe in him is the first family for his followers. Our primary job as followers of Christ is to proclaim the kingdom of God – the realm of God-Life. In the course of doing that we live in relationships with the people around us, including our families of origin, but we are not to value them more highly than we do our families of faith. And when our biological families distract from our discipleship, or worse become active obstacles to following in the Way of Jesus, we are to put Jesus first.
What reaction does this remark of Jesus’ provoke in you? Would it make you want to turn away and not follow him? Where might we see the life in his invitation to put our families of faith first?
It’s not all or nothing – at least I hope not. As we claim the Life of God already given to us we become not the walking dead but the walking living. And as we get about the business of proclaiming that Life of God unleashed in this world, and as we experience that Life, our priorities will be quite naturally reordered. Love is love.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Oh, man! We missed by two weeks having this gospel reading fall on Father’s Day. What fun preachers might have had dealing with Jesus’ words about wasting our time burying our fathers: To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
Sound a bit harsh? Isn’t it normal, a way of honoring your father and your mother, to give them a proper funeral? What kind of child would say, “Sorry – too busy,” to such a life moment? Well, maybe Jesus would answer, “The kind of child who sees himself first as a child of God. The kind of child who knows she is my follower first, and puts every other relationship second.” Does this sound like a cult? No doubt some of the families of those who left everything to follow Jesus did think they’d joined a cult. No one knew this “cult” would last 2,000 years and turn the world upside down.
What did Jesus mean by “Let the dead bury their own dead?” He meant that those who have been born anew in the Spirit are the living, and those who operate only out of their human, natural, “fleshly” life are as good as dead. (Perhaps he would also suggest that the energy and resources we put into tending and laying to rest the bodies of our loved ones after they have ceased to inhabit them is a misplaced priority for those who are called to proclaim life…)
Jesus was always redefining family values. Over and over he taught that the company of those who believe in him is the first family for his followers. Our primary job as followers of Christ is to proclaim the kingdom of God – the realm of God-Life. In the course of doing that we live in relationships with the people around us, including our families of origin, but we are not to value them more highly than we do our families of faith. And when our biological families distract from our discipleship, or worse become active obstacles to following in the Way of Jesus, we are to put Jesus first.
What reaction does this remark of Jesus’ provoke in you? Would it make you want to turn away and not follow him? Where might we see the life in his invitation to put our families of faith first?
It’s not all or nothing – at least I hope not. As we claim the Life of God already given to us we become not the walking dead but the walking living. And as we get about the business of proclaiming that Life of God unleashed in this world, and as we experience that Life, our priorities will be quite naturally reordered. Love is love.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-25-25 - Following Jesus
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Whether it is the Peggy March singing “I Will Follow Him, ”or Bono and U2 (appallingly young here) doing “I Will Follow," we have a rich soundtrack for our gospel story. When our hearts are full of love for someone, it is natural to proclaim our everlasting allegiance and intention to be with them wherever they go. Witness Dead Heads, ParrotHeads, and others who follow their favorite bands wherever they play.
So it was one day as Jesus walked with his followers toward Jerusalem. Even strangers got caught up in it: As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
Jesus was saying, “You want to follow me, it comes at a cost. Things won’t be comfortable or predictable or stable. Wild creatures will have more security than you will.” We see in the gospels Jesus living a very peripatetic life, ever on the move. We hear about his being “at home in Capernaum,” but he doesn’t seem to have spent much time there.
American Christianity has not followed this “I will follow you wherever” pattern. Other than traveling evangelists (often suspect characters in books and movies...), we prefer to do our following inwardly, quietly, spiritually, staying rooted to place and community. I am a staying put type myself, and even when I move I seek security and stability. Does this compromise me as a disciple? Is it, “I will follow, as long as I know where I’m going to sleep?” Or is there a legitimate place for being rooted in community, in our neighborhoods?
Both/And, of course… God blesses us with homes and families and communities and work and all the richness of a web of relationships. And God invites us to hold these blessings lightly, to keep our focus more on the Giver than on the gifts – and to be prepared to let them go, trade them in, keep our hands open to new blessings. It can be a difficult balancing act, but it keeps us better connected to God, nimble and ready to pivot when the Spirit calls us to bring our gifts to some new thing God is doing. And God is always doing a new thing.
The lyrics to U2’s I Will Follow are in part about Bono’s loss of his mother at a young age, but there is also unmistakably religious language – “I was blind, I could not see…” “I was lost, I am found,” that suggests the band – deeply enmeshed in Christian life at the time – had broader themes in mind. Jesus invites us away from our sorrows and stuckness, away from our self-saving strategies and sources of security to walk with him through this world, seeing it through his eyes. Sometimes that’s on the move, sometimes it’s still. Always it is being open to grace.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Whether it is the Peggy March singing “I Will Follow Him, ”or Bono and U2 (appallingly young here) doing “I Will Follow," we have a rich soundtrack for our gospel story. When our hearts are full of love for someone, it is natural to proclaim our everlasting allegiance and intention to be with them wherever they go. Witness Dead Heads, ParrotHeads, and others who follow their favorite bands wherever they play.
So it was one day as Jesus walked with his followers toward Jerusalem. Even strangers got caught up in it: As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
Jesus was saying, “You want to follow me, it comes at a cost. Things won’t be comfortable or predictable or stable. Wild creatures will have more security than you will.” We see in the gospels Jesus living a very peripatetic life, ever on the move. We hear about his being “at home in Capernaum,” but he doesn’t seem to have spent much time there.
American Christianity has not followed this “I will follow you wherever” pattern. Other than traveling evangelists (often suspect characters in books and movies...), we prefer to do our following inwardly, quietly, spiritually, staying rooted to place and community. I am a staying put type myself, and even when I move I seek security and stability. Does this compromise me as a disciple? Is it, “I will follow, as long as I know where I’m going to sleep?” Or is there a legitimate place for being rooted in community, in our neighborhoods?
Both/And, of course… God blesses us with homes and families and communities and work and all the richness of a web of relationships. And God invites us to hold these blessings lightly, to keep our focus more on the Giver than on the gifts – and to be prepared to let them go, trade them in, keep our hands open to new blessings. It can be a difficult balancing act, but it keeps us better connected to God, nimble and ready to pivot when the Spirit calls us to bring our gifts to some new thing God is doing. And God is always doing a new thing.
The lyrics to U2’s I Will Follow are in part about Bono’s loss of his mother at a young age, but there is also unmistakably religious language – “I was blind, I could not see…” “I was lost, I am found,” that suggests the band – deeply enmeshed in Christian life at the time – had broader themes in mind. Jesus invites us away from our sorrows and stuckness, away from our self-saving strategies and sources of security to walk with him through this world, seeing it through his eyes. Sometimes that’s on the move, sometimes it’s still. Always it is being open to grace.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-24-25 - Fire From Heaven
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Many Christians of my “brand” – mainline Protestant, mostly progressive – are horrified at the violent rhetoric we hear from conservative church circles, particularly the identification among many American evangelicals with gun culture.* The language of vengeance and violence, though present in Old Testament texts, runs counter to the Good News proclaimed and lived by Jesus Christ. Yet not even his disciples were strangers to that flame-throwing impulse:
On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for [Jesus]; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.
James and John are being hyperbolic – there are no recorded instances of fire from heaven consuming the wicked, though the prophet Elijah did a number with fire on a wet altar, after which he had 400 enemy prophets slaughtered (yeah, it’s in the book). Maybe James and John’s anti-Samaritan ire was kindled; maybe they were juiced by the power they saw in Jesus and were beginning to exercise themselves. Yet I am less interested in their blood-lust than in Jesus’ response: “Let’s move on.”
When our message or our ministry is rejected, it is tempting to get angry at the very people we hoped to bless. Such feelings are human. But when we act on them, we depart from the way of Jesus. He was clear in his instructions to his disciples when he first sent them out: If a village does not receive you, shake its dust off your feet and move on to another place. (Luke 10:1-11) How long we are to try, and when we are to go elsewhere are matters to be discerned. The spiritual reality is that God’s work never has to be forced. When we are moving with the Spirit of God on God’s mission, it flows; things come naturally, connections are made, “coincidences” abound, and fruit results.
I have been slow to learn this. Too often I try to push things or make projects happen on my own steam, ending up tired and frustrated. I’m learning to release my efforts and initiatives and blockages into God’s hand, to sit back more and watch the Spirit arrange things so that my gifts and time are most fruitfully used. This is what happens when we learn to expect blessings – and if we’re not experiencing blessing in one endeavor, see where else the Spirit is leading us.
Are there areas in your life that feel stuck or stale? Ways you have been trying to live the Gospel that don’t appear to bear fruit? Offer them to God in prayer. Ask for insight about when to persevere, and when to fold your tents and move on.
God does want us to command fire from heaven – the fire of the Holy Spirit moving through us to cleanse and make holy our hearts and the world around us. The more we invite that holy fire into our hearts, the freer we are to minister God’s grace.
*Please watch The Armor of Light for a powerful look at how one such conservative, the Rev. Rob Schenk, a leader in the pro-life movement and in conservative circles, came to see how incompatible opposition to gun safety laws was with being pro-life… it’s been on PBS, and hopefully will be again soon, or get a copy to show. It's more urgent than ever.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Many Christians of my “brand” – mainline Protestant, mostly progressive – are horrified at the violent rhetoric we hear from conservative church circles, particularly the identification among many American evangelicals with gun culture.* The language of vengeance and violence, though present in Old Testament texts, runs counter to the Good News proclaimed and lived by Jesus Christ. Yet not even his disciples were strangers to that flame-throwing impulse:
On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for [Jesus]; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.
James and John are being hyperbolic – there are no recorded instances of fire from heaven consuming the wicked, though the prophet Elijah did a number with fire on a wet altar, after which he had 400 enemy prophets slaughtered (yeah, it’s in the book). Maybe James and John’s anti-Samaritan ire was kindled; maybe they were juiced by the power they saw in Jesus and were beginning to exercise themselves. Yet I am less interested in their blood-lust than in Jesus’ response: “Let’s move on.”
When our message or our ministry is rejected, it is tempting to get angry at the very people we hoped to bless. Such feelings are human. But when we act on them, we depart from the way of Jesus. He was clear in his instructions to his disciples when he first sent them out: If a village does not receive you, shake its dust off your feet and move on to another place. (Luke 10:1-11) How long we are to try, and when we are to go elsewhere are matters to be discerned. The spiritual reality is that God’s work never has to be forced. When we are moving with the Spirit of God on God’s mission, it flows; things come naturally, connections are made, “coincidences” abound, and fruit results.
I have been slow to learn this. Too often I try to push things or make projects happen on my own steam, ending up tired and frustrated. I’m learning to release my efforts and initiatives and blockages into God’s hand, to sit back more and watch the Spirit arrange things so that my gifts and time are most fruitfully used. This is what happens when we learn to expect blessings – and if we’re not experiencing blessing in one endeavor, see where else the Spirit is leading us.
Are there areas in your life that feel stuck or stale? Ways you have been trying to live the Gospel that don’t appear to bear fruit? Offer them to God in prayer. Ask for insight about when to persevere, and when to fold your tents and move on.
God does want us to command fire from heaven – the fire of the Holy Spirit moving through us to cleanse and make holy our hearts and the world around us. The more we invite that holy fire into our hearts, the freer we are to minister God’s grace.
*Please watch The Armor of Light for a powerful look at how one such conservative, the Rev. Rob Schenk, a leader in the pro-life movement and in conservative circles, came to see how incompatible opposition to gun safety laws was with being pro-life… it’s been on PBS, and hopefully will be again soon, or get a copy to show. It's more urgent than ever.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-23-25 - Hospitality
You can listen to this reflection here.
This week’s gospel reading finds Jesus and his disciples on the road again. He is heading for Jerusalem for the last time. The roads on which he travels are not particularly friendly: When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.
What’s happening here? We need to know a little about the mix of religion and politics in the region to make sense of it. Samaritans were also people of Israel – they were descendants of the Northern Kingdom in the days when North (Samaria) and South (Judea) were separate and ruled by different kings. One reason for the split was that when King David established Jerusalem as a capital, THE place where the Spirit of God had come to dwell, the leadership there sought to make Jerusalem – and the temple David’s son Solomon built – the ONLY holy place where sacrifices could be offered. All the holy places and shrines in Samaria, the northern part of Israel, were denigrated. This did not sit well with the residents and priestly class of Samaria. Gradually the feud became a schism between two branches of one family.
When Jesus’ advance team came into this Samaritan village to see if Jesus could stay there, they were rebuffed. Whatever the locals’ natural hospitality might have been like, they were not going to play host to any religious leader heading to Jerusalem. The wounds were still fresh this many centuries later (which we also see in Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman recorded in John 4).
This is so often the case when we disapprove of what someone else stands for. We may not even bother to get to know the person, rejecting her for her opinions or positions on issues. In our polarized times, some are allergic to even hearing views that they find abhorrent, calling them toxic triggers. And sometimes those views really are abhorrent. When do we listen, and when do we say, “Enough?”
Maybe a better question is: how can we be most hospitable? Is hospitality only the willingness to host people we like and agree with? Or is it being willing to let God “set a table for me in the presence of my enemies,” as the 23rd psalm puts it?
Hospitality is a good framework for how we engage the “Other,” whether that person is of a different ethnic, racial, sexual, financial or political group than us. What if we saw such encounters as the equivalent of offering water and a place to sit to a weary and parched traveler? We have different expectations of guests than we do of friends, and different expectations of ourselves as hosts. I still hope one day to launch a dinner program I would call “Eating With Strangers,” which would invite people to break bread together and find ways to speak and listen respectfully across divisive issues.
Hospitality is a spiritual practice we are invited to cultivate in all kinds of ways. It could transform our lives – and our culture – if we found ourselves practicing it with people of whom we disapprove, even if we don't like where they've been or where they're going.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
This week’s gospel reading finds Jesus and his disciples on the road again. He is heading for Jerusalem for the last time. The roads on which he travels are not particularly friendly: When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.
What’s happening here? We need to know a little about the mix of religion and politics in the region to make sense of it. Samaritans were also people of Israel – they were descendants of the Northern Kingdom in the days when North (Samaria) and South (Judea) were separate and ruled by different kings. One reason for the split was that when King David established Jerusalem as a capital, THE place where the Spirit of God had come to dwell, the leadership there sought to make Jerusalem – and the temple David’s son Solomon built – the ONLY holy place where sacrifices could be offered. All the holy places and shrines in Samaria, the northern part of Israel, were denigrated. This did not sit well with the residents and priestly class of Samaria. Gradually the feud became a schism between two branches of one family.
When Jesus’ advance team came into this Samaritan village to see if Jesus could stay there, they were rebuffed. Whatever the locals’ natural hospitality might have been like, they were not going to play host to any religious leader heading to Jerusalem. The wounds were still fresh this many centuries later (which we also see in Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman recorded in John 4).
This is so often the case when we disapprove of what someone else stands for. We may not even bother to get to know the person, rejecting her for her opinions or positions on issues. In our polarized times, some are allergic to even hearing views that they find abhorrent, calling them toxic triggers. And sometimes those views really are abhorrent. When do we listen, and when do we say, “Enough?”
Maybe a better question is: how can we be most hospitable? Is hospitality only the willingness to host people we like and agree with? Or is it being willing to let God “set a table for me in the presence of my enemies,” as the 23rd psalm puts it?
Hospitality is a good framework for how we engage the “Other,” whether that person is of a different ethnic, racial, sexual, financial or political group than us. What if we saw such encounters as the equivalent of offering water and a place to sit to a weary and parched traveler? We have different expectations of guests than we do of friends, and different expectations of ourselves as hosts. I still hope one day to launch a dinner program I would call “Eating With Strangers,” which would invite people to break bread together and find ways to speak and listen respectfully across divisive issues.
Hospitality is a spiritual practice we are invited to cultivate in all kinds of ways. It could transform our lives – and our culture – if we found ourselves practicing it with people of whom we disapprove, even if we don't like where they've been or where they're going.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
6-20-25 - Don't Follow Me
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
For a short story, our gospel tale has already had quite a few twists and unexpected turns, but there is one more in store for us. After the dramatic removal of the demons from this deranged man, after his remarkable healing and restoration to his “right mind,” there is a curious coda. The man wants to follow Jesus, and Jesus refuses him. What?
Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.
Through the gospels we see Jesus inviting people to “Follow me.” So often he demands they leave their homes to travel with him. Here he has a willing recruit, and he turns him away and sends him home? What’s up? It’s not surprising that this man would want to come with Jesus – he has just set him free from years of unimaginable torment from evil forces and his neighbors. Who would want to stay around people who chain you up and try to subdue you? His desire to be with Jesus is understandable. But why would Jesus deny him?
Perhaps Jesus was not ready for a Gentile disciple; I assume this citizen of the Decapolis was Gentile. Though the Gospels record several encounters between Jesus and non-Jews, these are often awkward and Jesus sometimes seems ambivalent about them. Certainly, the Jewish leaders and populace would not have accepted such a man as part of Jesus' inner circle.
But that would be a “strategic” reason. Perhaps Jesus had a missional one: he wanted this man to bear witness to what he had experienced among his own people. Like genetic cancer treatments in which a healthy cell with growth ability is implanted among cancerous tissue, to disrupt toxic growth and convert cells to health, perhaps Jesus wanted this man to seed conversion among his own people. “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” This would make him not a "disciple reject" but one of the first missionaries in the gospels.
Sometimes the mission of God calls us to leave the familiar and bring new life to places that are unknown to us. And sometimes we find our mission right in our midst, in our towns and communities, our workplaces and families, our gyms and book groups and social networks. Where is God calling you to declare how much God has done for you?
This newly healed man did just that, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him. That is ALL any of us is expected to do. We do not have to persuade or convert or explain the mysteries of God – only to speak of what Jesus has done for us. I can tell you, Jesus is doing amazing things in and through our churches every day. Declare it! Tell the stories!
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
For a short story, our gospel tale has already had quite a few twists and unexpected turns, but there is one more in store for us. After the dramatic removal of the demons from this deranged man, after his remarkable healing and restoration to his “right mind,” there is a curious coda. The man wants to follow Jesus, and Jesus refuses him. What?
Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.
Through the gospels we see Jesus inviting people to “Follow me.” So often he demands they leave their homes to travel with him. Here he has a willing recruit, and he turns him away and sends him home? What’s up? It’s not surprising that this man would want to come with Jesus – he has just set him free from years of unimaginable torment from evil forces and his neighbors. Who would want to stay around people who chain you up and try to subdue you? His desire to be with Jesus is understandable. But why would Jesus deny him?
Perhaps Jesus was not ready for a Gentile disciple; I assume this citizen of the Decapolis was Gentile. Though the Gospels record several encounters between Jesus and non-Jews, these are often awkward and Jesus sometimes seems ambivalent about them. Certainly, the Jewish leaders and populace would not have accepted such a man as part of Jesus' inner circle.
But that would be a “strategic” reason. Perhaps Jesus had a missional one: he wanted this man to bear witness to what he had experienced among his own people. Like genetic cancer treatments in which a healthy cell with growth ability is implanted among cancerous tissue, to disrupt toxic growth and convert cells to health, perhaps Jesus wanted this man to seed conversion among his own people. “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” This would make him not a "disciple reject" but one of the first missionaries in the gospels.
Sometimes the mission of God calls us to leave the familiar and bring new life to places that are unknown to us. And sometimes we find our mission right in our midst, in our towns and communities, our workplaces and families, our gyms and book groups and social networks. Where is God calling you to declare how much God has done for you?
This newly healed man did just that, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him. That is ALL any of us is expected to do. We do not have to persuade or convert or explain the mysteries of God – only to speak of what Jesus has done for us. I can tell you, Jesus is doing amazing things in and through our churches every day. Declare it! Tell the stories!
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)