Water Daily: July 2021

7-30-21 - Swimming To Jesus

For the next few weeks, we will have a worship series at the Christ Churches on Summer Pastimes and how they speak to us of the life of faith. Each Friday I will turn from the lectionary gospel to the one I’ve selected for worship at my churches - this week John 21:3-7. You can listen to this reflection here.

The summer pastime we will explore at the Christ Churches this Sunday is swimming. Swimming is one of my very favorite summer pastimes – especially going into the ocean on a hot day, feeling the rush of cold, cold water, being lifted and dropped by the swell, lost in the vastness of water. I may feel the most free in the ocean, but lakes, ponds, even swimming pools will do just fine.

The Christian life is water-life. We begin our God-Life in the waters of baptism and are sustained by the living water welling up inside us for eternity which Jesus said was Holy Spirit. The prophet Ezekiel wrote of a vision he was shown of a river flowing from the altar of the temple, a flow which gradually got deeper until it was “deep enough to swim in,” a river that brought life to the stagnant places. These images and others have given me the notion of the “healing stream” which flows in and through each of us, and around us, into which we can step for renewal and repair. Jesus likened the Holy Spirit to the river of God – we literally jump into the Spirit-life and let it heal and carry us instead of trying to make it all happen ourselves.

Our gospel story this Sunday reminds us that we move through water to get to Jesus, as Peter hops out of the fishing boat (taking care to put on clothes before he gets wet…) to swim to shore when he realizes the resurrected Jesus stands on the beach. It’s not the first time Peter hops out of a boat to get to Jesus – the first time is when he sees Jesus walking on the water and decides to join him, which he does for a few moments until he realizes what he’s doing and begins to sink. This time, he swims. What if we thought of the life of faith as swimming to Jesus, who awaits us with breakfast on the beach? Isn’t that much more fun than our often dry and dusty church patterns?

As followers of Christ, we are invited to jump into the baptismal waters and swim, taking the risk of getting out of the boat and into the freedom and the danger of water-life. The boat might be a symbol for the church – that place from which we jump, to which we return to regroup. Maybe part of the reason our churches don’t have the vitality they might is that we are spending too much time in the boat with each other, and not enough in the water.

I can beat a metaphor to death better than anyone I know (and this Summer Pastimes series offers me lots of fodder!), so I will stop there, and simply invite you to think of living the life of faith as jumping into cool, refreshing water and swimming, entirely surrounded and supported by the water’s density, and yet also having to move forward in it to avoid sinking. We are held in the life of God, cleansed, refreshed and renewed, and yet we also propel ourselves forward in that life. We have no life apart from God – and total freedom to swim in that life for eternity.

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7-29-21 - Jesus Is the Bread?!?

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

A friend of mine was once teaching Sunday School, and had just tried to explain to her class of 5-year-olds the significance and symbolism of Holy Eucharist. As she lined the children up to come into church for communion, she taught them a little song with the words, “Jesus Is the Bread.” After singing this refrain once, one little girl paused and said loudly, “Jesus is the bread?” with an intonation that indicated this was the most ludicrous thing she’d ever heard.

Some of the folks listening to Jesus that day when he was talking about the bread of life that comes from heaven probably had a similar reaction to what he said next. When they said, “Okay, then, give us this bread always,” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” That probably sounded to many like the most preposterous thing they’d ever heard. And what did he mean, he was the bread of life?

We need a mind for metaphor when we encounter Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. And we need to mine the metaphor to its depth, where we discover that he means it as he says it: He is the staff of life and has to be taken in, accepted, received and digested - take up residence in us - in order for us to grasp the life of God around us. He was telling those people, so hungry for manna from heaven, that everything they thought was in the manna – provision, protection, presence – is to be found in him.

Indeed, everything we’re hungry for - which we seek in so many places – is to be found in Jesus the Christ, taken in, accepted, received, integrated, living in us. And it doesn’t stop there. As we allow him to reside in us, fill us with the life of God through the Spirit, we become communally the bread of life.

We enact this at the Eucharistic table – we take the bread, now become the body of Christ, broken for us; we receive him into ourselves, his life renewing our lives; and as we disperse, we become the body of Christ, broken for the life of the world. How might we operate differently in the world if we were more aware of being the bread of life in Christ? Whose hunger and thirst might we address?

One day another little girl, eyeing me as I came down the altar rail giving out communion, said loudly to her grandmother, “I want Jesus bread!” She understood. On our best days, so do we.

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7-28-21 - The Bread That Gives Life

You can listen to this reflection here.

I love bread. I love bread so much, I gave it up for Lent one year. If my metabolism allowed, I would start every day with a basket of French rolls, butter and jam, and work bread into lunch and dinner too. (But I’d soon look like a French roll.) Bread is the staff of life, but not the Life Jesus invites us into.

In this week’s story, the people looking for Jesus want bread from heaven, and they think Jesus might just have access. But they want a guarantee before they trust him. So when he says they are to believe in him as sent by God, they reply, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

You’d think the miracle of the loaves and fishes would have been sign enough, but they wanted God to do what God had done before. It’s often our tendency, when we’ve been blessed, to look for blessing in the last place we found it, and in the same form. In my experience, God rarely goes back over the same ground. The trajectory of the Life of God is forward, to new life.

So Jesus tells them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

They were more interested in the temporal bread than the eternal. In fairness, having enough to eat is an urgent matter for an occupied, oppressed, over-taxed populace. Yet feeding the hungry was not what Jesus was up to. He told his followers to do that. He came to nourish souls starved for the presence of the Living God. He came to invite everyone to God’s banqueting table, and to clear the obstacles that kept people away. His priority was to proclaim the reign of God in which generosity and justice flourish so broadly, everyone will be welcome at the table and fed in abundance.

We too are called to proclaim the bread that gives life. It's great that so many churches are involved in the sharing of food with those who hunger; that is part of the Gospel life. Yet the invitation to us as Christ followers is to be as much or more involved in sharing Jesus, who called himself the Bread of Life – introducing people to Jesus as we know him, feeding thirsty spirits and broken hearts, inviting people to feast on him in Word and sacrament. Who can you think of who is hungry for the bread of Life? How might you offer it to that person?

That is the bread we will feast on in eternity. It will never run out, and it will never make us fat, only full.

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7-27-21 - The Work of God

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid on the whole “It’s God’s mission, not ours” thing. I bandy about the words “the mission of God,” and have even developed a nice neat definition of what I think it is in general, a definition that makes room for any number of specifics: “The mission of God is to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.” That’s so neat, God may want to print it on her stationery!

Only it may be wordier than need be – for Jesus defined the work of God far more succinctly. When he told the crowds, “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you,” they asked the next logical question:

“What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

That’s all? Believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Anointed One, “the one on whom God the Father has set his seal?” What about all that other work we think we’re supposed to do? All that feeding and housing and proclaiming and peacemaking? Not to mention the worship planning, vestry meeting, bulletin folding, Facebook posting that occupies our church lives?

It’s a question of sequence. Doing all of that without believing that Jesus is who he said he was, “I AM,” leaves us busy working, and working out of our own very finite strength and vision. Believing first, putting our whole focus on faith in Jesus as Lord, leads us naturally to live out that belief in the places to which the Holy Spirit directs us – some of which may include peacemaking and proclaiming and planning and posting. Jesus told Martha of Bethany straight out, when she complained that her sister was listening to Jesus instead of helping put lunch on: “Mary has chosen the better part; it will not be taken from her.”

Where is your emphasis as you live out your journey as a Christ-follower? It's easy to get sucked into the works and neglect the Work. One way to reorder our priorities is to recommit ourselves to spending some minutes each day seeking Jesus’ presence, allowing ourselves to be filled with his peace and love. Just sit quietly and say, "Come, Lord Jesus." See what develops.

When we know we’re doing the Work, the works flow forth like that mighty stream of Living Water.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are here.Water Daily is now a podcast! Look for it wherever you get your podcasts, and please subscribe.

7-26-21 - Sleight of Hand

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

Who doesn’t enjoy a good magic trick? Even as some part of us feels foolish for being taken in, it’s also fun to be dazzled. And a good illusionist knows how to dazzle by diverting our attention. I read a profile of one of the world’s most talented pickpockets (he only does it in his act…), who can lift a watch off a wrist or remove keys from people’s pockets without them being aware. How could anyone be so dumb?, we think. They’re not. They’re normal. The pickpocket is able to get in close, direct their attention where he wants, and then do what he wants.

Jesus certainly got people’s attention with both his teaching and his “deeds of power,” or “signs,” as John’s Gospel calls them. As this week’s passage begins, we see that the crowd whom Jesus had given the slip is now searching for him. They can’t figure out how he got to the other side of the lake.

So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”

Their attention, he says, is on their immediate needs, not on the Life of God at loose in the world. Another group he admonishes for only being interested in the miracles – for their flash value, not the life-altering power they point to. One way or another, if our attention is on the temporal, on what we think we need, or what we’re impressed by, we’re apt to miss so much of what God is doing in and around us. Jesus invites us to focus on the eternal – and thus to bring transforming power into the everyday.

“Do not work for the food that perishes,” he says, “but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”

The evil one tries to get us to focus on all the things that don't matter, so that he can rob us of our peace, our power. Then anxiety and depression and conflict increase - as do advertising budgets. Is your focus today on things that give life or sap life? There's something to pray about...

Jesus is not an illusionist – but as we allow him to get close to us, he can draw our attention to where it needs to be, on his love and power and grace. He just may pick our pockets of all the valuables that mean nothing, and then, presto!, from behind our ears produce a pearl of great price, and invite us to take it and treasure it.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are here. Water Daily is now a podcast! Look for it wherever you get your podcasts, and please subscribe.

7-23-21 - Grounded In Love

You can listen to this reflection here.

At week’s end, let’s look at the epistle reading appointed for Sunday, from Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus. There may be more than one letter contained in this document, as this section from the end of chapter 3 is a clear sign-off. (Chapters 4, 5 and 6 start new threads.) This “sign-off” is a beautiful, doxological prayer from the heart for Paul’s listeners – and, I think, all those who would be followers of Christ. So let’s hear these words as if addressed to us: "I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name."

Paul begins as all prayers should, acknowledging the One to whom the prayer is made, the One who often has inspired the prayer in the first place. This naming of God, Father, Source roots us in the relationship of which our prayer is an expression. Then Paul asks of that Source specific gifts for his beloveds:
"I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love."

How wonderful to think of being strengthened on the inside, that Christ might dwell in our hearts as we are rooted and grounded in love. Let’s stay with that for a moment – if Christ dwells in our hearts, we are rooted and grounded in love. Not rooted in condemnation or grounded in anxiety – rooted and grounded in love. Wow. Christ does dwell in us, by virtue of God’s promise to us in baptism, activated by our faith – so love is our foundation. Think about starting each day with that knowledge.

Paul knows how hard it is to hold that knowledge and live in it, so next he prays that his listeners – and all the saints, including us – may have the ability to grasp the full extent of that love: "I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

“To know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.” Our minds alone cannot know the fullness of God’s love; our minds are too small to contain such a mystery. We need to know it in our bodies, in our senses, in our spirits, in the beauty and intricacy and grandeur that surrounds us in this world. And we really only begin to grasp the extent of that love in community with others trying to know it. I daresay only in community can we be filled with the fullness of God.

So Paul ends with this doxology, recognizing that we are entirely reliant upon the power of God to know and to act out of the fullness of that love:

"Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen."

God’s power – the power that made the heavens and the galaxies and the complexity of each cell – is at work in each of us. That power, not our own, enables us to accomplish things far beyond the realm of the possible, even more than we can imagine.

Only one thing is up to us, really: to invite and release that power, to believe that God can accomplish abundantly more than we can ask or imagine. If we just leave it sitting inside, nothing in this world will change. But if we let it out – look out! Love can change everything.

7-22-21 - Master of Molecules

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

It can be hard to fathom the pressure Jesus was under, from his celebrity, notoriety, people’s expectations. After the miracle of the loaves and fish, the stakes got even higher: When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

As people began to grasp Jesus’ messiah-ship, the danger went way up. There were divergent views about who the messiah would be and why he would come. In times of war and hardship, messianic hopes became conflated with dreams of military victory, a restoration of Israel’s autonomy. Jesus could see how quickly people might make the leap from “the prophet who is to come” (i.e, Messiah) to king – and he wanted to be very sure not to get caught in that crossfire. So he went off alone to pray and recharge.

Ironically, what happened next demonstrated how much more power Jesus had than any prophet or king before or since. Needing to catch up with his disciples who’d gone ahead in the boat, Jesus simply exercised the authority he had over all of creation, molecules and all, and took a shortcut across the water:

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.”

But wait, there’s more – not only did he walk on the water; when he caught up with the boat, it immediately reached its destination: Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going. No more battling the head winds – Jesus said, “We’re going home,” and that was it. Home they were.

Jesus didn’t often circumvent the laws of nature with the laws of Spirit – but on this day, he did it many times. Last week I quoted a definition of faith: “Faith is a spiritual force that becomes a catalyst to activate spiritual laws that have authority over natural laws.” That’s what Jesus was doing, multiplying molecules of food, solidifying molecules of water, teleporting a boat to the shore. He was activating spiritual laws that have authority over natural laws.

So… can we do that? I believe we can do a lot when the faith moving through us is strong enough. The apostle Peter took a few steps on the water (in Matthew’s version of this story). Agnes Sanford, a healer, exercised faith over storms and earthquakes, and tells stories of commanding wild animals and being obeyed. Madeleine L’Engle remembers as a child routinely going down stairs without touching them. There are many stories. Yet I know that it is very, very hard for us to disconnect from all the data that says “impossible” and open ourselves to the Power for whom all things are possible. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t stroll on the waves. Today, anyway...

But I can build up my faith with prayers for healing and guidance, and the occasional rebuke of wind and weather. Our faith is a spiritual force, and like our muscles, it gets stronger as we exercise it.

7-21-21 - More Than Enough

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

How do you feed 5,000 people with just five loaves of bread and two fish? Ask people to sit, and get started. Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.

As Luke tells the story, Jesus has people sit in groups of fifty, and the disciples distribute. It’s more manageable to feed 50 than 5,000, right? When a challenge feels overwhelming, we can break it down into pieces – much as the bread was broken. No one can eat a whole loaf without breaking it up; no one can feed a crowd without breaking it down.

Once the people were seated, they were fed. But how? There were only five loaves and two fish. As Andrew said, "But what are they among so many people?” What they were was plenty – we’re told people got as much of both bread and fish as they wanted. Jesus and his followers just kept giving them out, and there kept being enough. This story appears in all four gospels, and in no version does it say Jesus prayed and created a gigantic pile of food that was then distributed. No, he took what they had, blessed it and gave it out, and everyone had as much as they wanted – AND there were leftovers:

When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.

Abundance is a principle of God’s realm. As Jesus demonstrated the Life of God, there was always more than enough – vats of water turned into wine, twelve baskets of food left after 5,000 people or more were fed to satisfaction. To people living under the cruel thumb of the occupying Romans, over-taxed to the point of starvation, Jesus said, “Trust in God’s way – it is the way of enough and to spare.”

We may not see abundance in every situation, but we should always expect it and look for it as we move in faith. Usually when we don’t experience abundance it’s because we didn’t move in faith, but rather on our own steam. And I have found that when I do expect it, I experience it more often. And when I expect “not enough,” that’s often what I find.

Many churches and people are locked into “not enough” thinking, oriented to scarcity. That’s a zero sum game that often leads us to squander the assets we’ve inherited without generating new resources, because who wants to give to an institution that sees itself as lacking? We shrink our missions budgets and pour money into aged, leaky buildings, while the world goes hungry for lack of the Bread of Life we have to share. How might we turn around, take the loaves and fishes we have, and get out there and start feeding people?

Where in your life do you experience abundance? And where does scarcity rule?
How might we invite God to shift our expectations toward abundance in all areas? Sometimes that requires dealing with the very real losses and disappointments we’ve experienced. It takes a lot of courage to hope for more than enough. Yet I have found that when I do, that’s when the leftovers pile up.

7-20-21 - Not Enough?

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

Jesus and his disciples have been around the Sea of Galilee, trying to get some alone time. But they keep being interrupted by crowds seeking Jesus’ healing and teaching. In this week’s passage, we find them sitting on a hill as yet another crowd approaches: Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples… When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do.

Why did Jesus feel responsible for feeding the crowd – did they look hungry? Did he want to keep them peaceful? Or is it just a set-up for the miracle about to be revealed? John implies the latter – Jesus already knows the answer, but wants to know what Philip will say. Philip has done the math:

“Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”

What are we to do when faced with a big need or a big challenge? Assess the cost. Jesus said that those who would follow him must “count the cost,” just as a builder setting out to erect a tower must project the expenses of materials and labor. So in ministry we need to estimate what any given mission will require. Philip does this, and concludes that the cost is greater than they could ever manage. I’ve heard more than one church leader do the same.

But assessing the cost is only one step. One also has to inventory the assets at hand. Andrew takes this step, asking around, doing some re-con: One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Andrew does his homework, but comes to the same conclusion as Philip: It’s not enough.

For both Philip and Andrew, the size of the crowd overrides all other data. The magnitude of the need shuts down their ability to think creatively and act strategically. As another gospel tells this tale, the disciples actually suggest dismissing everybody before things get out of hand – the idea of feeding the crowd does not occur to them. It’s impossible.

What needs make you feel helpless? It may be a personal need for resources or a health challenge; it may be a national or global crisis. For me, the damage of climate change and the need to protect wildlife and wild places from the depredations of human industry and greed is the crisis about which I feel “there’s not enough.” We don’t have enough time or money or political will. How will help come, and in time?

When we only look at need and resources and make our assessments, we often forget the x factor: the power of God. Jesus knew God could feed that crowd through his disciples. He needed his followers to learn that lesson for themselves.

Today I invite you (and me) to sit with a situation that to you feels too big, too scary, too impossible. Then imagine what Jesus sees when he looks at that situation – try to see it through his eyes. Where are the resources? Where is the abundance? Where do you see God-energy at work? That's the place to go, to get our faith renewed, and start feeding.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are here. Water Daily is now a podcast! Look for it wherever you get your podcasts, and please subscribe

7-19-21 - Drawing a Crowd

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

We haven’t moved much in the past few weeks – we’re still with Jesus and his disciples as they criss-cross the Sea of Galilee, encountering one crowd after another, preaching, teaching and healing. But this week we'll see the scene from the perspective of John’s Gospel:

After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick.

John begins this section, “After this…” “After what?” we ask. In the previous chapter, Jesus healed an invalid at the pool of Bethsaida, once more landing in trouble with the temple leaders. As he tries to explain his relationship with his heavenly Father, he antagonizes them further. It doesn’t help when he says things like: “But I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me.”

Throughout the Gospels, we see how much the religious leaders mistrust Jesus. He too often challenges the status quo, and they feel their authority threatened. But ordinary people flock to him. He is enveloped in crowds wherever he goes, people even running back and forth around lakes to get to where they see his boat headed. What draws these crowds to Jesus? We’re told it’s his teaching and his healing. He did not teach the way other rabbis taught, questioning and crafting complex arguments. He described this realm he called the Kingdom of God by telling stories set in everyday scenes – farms, vineyards, kitchens, pastures, business offices. He spoke of it as a place of grace.

And he demonstrated the reality of this realm through what John calls “signs,” miracles of healing, forgiveness and restoration. Jesus was fully present, compassionate, intuitive, creative – and filled with the Spirit. If we would make our churches centers of contagious faith, we need to model those qualities, inviting Jesus to make them real in us.

There are places in the world where people do throng to hear the Gospel, to receive its teaching, to engage in enthusiastic worship and experience healing. Yet few mainline churches in the West draw crowds – some see a trickle at best. To make ourselves feel better, we say, “Who needs a crowd? Probably just full of curiosity seekers. It’s quality, not quantity that matters.” That’s all true – and just maybe God would like our churches to be full of curiosity seekers and those craving meaning and purpose and spiritual connection. Better yet, God might love to see us out of our church buildings, bringing that power and love and joy to people in the course of their daily lives.

I get so consumed with the business of running churches, I don’t even know where or how I’d go about preaching and healing outside – though the internet is an active mission field calling to me. We don’t want to be intrusive, but we want people to know God is real and alive and present. Perhaps you’d join me in praying about the where and when and who. Where might you and your church be called to go beyond and make God known?

We don’t need to be obsessed with numbers, but neither need we fear expanding our reach. People still need the same things from Jesus they needed in his day, healing and understanding. If they know they will meet him through us, who knows – we may see throngs too.

7-16-21 - He Is Our Peace

You can listen to this reflection here.

At week's end, let’s skip to the epistle reading appointed for Sunday, from Paul’s beautiful letter to the church at Ephesus. This section discusses reconciliation between two factions of Christians who were estranged and becoming more so. Anyone concerned about the alarming divides in American Christianity will note the parallels.

The primary tension afflicting the earliest churches, according to what we read in the book of Acts and Paul’s letters, was between those Jewish Christians who came to faith through Jesus’ Jewish disciples in Judea, and the growing number of Greek and Roman “Gentile” Christians converted through the missionary journeys of Paul and his associates. Paul tried to navigate the conflicts, getting the Jerusalem leadership to back off their demand that Gentile believers be circumcised before baptism, and encouraging the Gentile churches to give generously toward those afflicted by the famine in Judea. But tensions remained; Christ’s body has never in human history been truly one.

In this letter, Paul addresses Gentile believers tired of being considered “not quite Christians” by the Jerusalem factions. He reminds them that they were once outsiders, “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” In light of their new status, he wants them to seek reconciliation with those who would exclude them, and stay rooted in Christ. “For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.”

Can we be reconciled with Christians who seem to ignore so much that Christ did, said and taught? Who ignore his command to welcome the stranger and love the enemy, who uphold the sanctity of unborn life but dismiss the life-threatening violence and poverty afflicting so many already born? How can we be reconciled in Christ if some don’t seem to worship the same Lord we meet in the New Testament? Here’s a place to start:

So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.

We all have access to the Father in the Spirit, and so we all have the same access to the truth. What each does with it remains a matter of choice, and it is up to God to reveal and to judge. We are called to bear witness to the truth we encounter in the Gospels, and the Truth we have met in the living person of Jesus Christ. The answer is draw near to Christ, if not to all those who claim to follow him.

Paul ends with this stirring reminder: So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

If we make it our intention to base our life in faith on Christ Jesus himself; if we make it our desire to grow together spiritually into a place where God can be known on earth, a temple, a dwelling place, we will have a firm foundation on which to stand in relationship to those who seem to distort Christianity We can disagree without condemning, remembering the thousands around us who are thirsty for God, who are rightly repelled by our conflicts. Let's get busy introducing them to Jesus, our peace.

7-15-21 - Even the Fringe

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

We end this action-packed chapter of Mark’s gospel with the camera pulling back to a wide angle; after these very specific stories about Jesus’ ministry, we get an overview: And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

All who touched it were healed. All who touched even the fringe of Jesus’ cloak were healed. No wonder some healing ministries mail out pre-blessed “healing” handkerchiefs and bits of cloth to people who’ve sent a donation. And maybe I shouldn’t be snarky – if we encounter God in the form of energy, perhaps that divine power lingers in cloth or the walls of holy places. Or is it rather the faith of the people who believe the cloth will heal them that results in healing? Time and again, Jesus told people, “Your faith has healed you.” Is that a "placebo effect?"

Well, as my friend Peter says, "If we knew how, everybody would be doing it." We would actively invite God’s healing stream into people. And most Christians do not do that. Why? Perhaps because we have not seen “all healed.” We’ve seen one or two healed, on occasion, and we allow the weight of all those "not healed" to overwhelm us.

I don’t know why so many people in our world get sick and die without any visible healing – but I do know that our prayers need to be part of the equation. God could just go ahead without us, yet the record of scripture and humanity’s history with God suggests that God has chosen to work through us. And if we don’t allow God to work through us … healing often does not occur. On rare occasions, God’s will might be for something other than healing, but overall the realm of God leans toward life and more life. I hold to this even in a pandemic that overtook many who were prayed for. There is mystery to the exercise of faith.

Jesus said healing is a manifestation of God’s Good News. Why would we leave one of the most central Gospel tools unused? God’s desire for us is not illness or trial, but that we be whole and beloved and available to share God’s love with the world. We can pray anywhere and everywhere, any time someone tells us they are struggling with infirmity, be it physical, mental or spiritual. We can invite the healing stream of God’s life already in us by virtue of our baptism to be released into every situation.

And we can help people become aware of the obstacles to that healing flow – obstacles like self-loathing, or a conviction that healing is not possible, or a deep-seated resentment, or unhealed trauma. We can help shine the light of the Spirit into those dark corners so our friends become more receptive to the power of God at work in them.

I once heard an interesting definition of faith: “Faith is a spiritual force that becomes a catalyst to activate spiritual laws that have authority over natural laws.” If chapter 6 of Mark’s Gospel teaches anything, it is that Jesus demonstrated amazing authority over natural laws – food, water, diseased cells. As he and others exercised faith, people experienced healing and deliverance.

Jesus still has that authority. He is still coming through the villages, towns and marketplaces - but now through us. Let's make ourselves available as conduits of that healing stream. We are now the fringe of Jesus' cloak.

7-14-21 - Who Needs Shepherds

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

Sheep have a reputation for being a little dim in intellectual capacity. (So I’m told; I've never known any.) They pretty much have one thing on their minds: grass. Give them good grass and they will eat and eat, not paying much attention to where they’re going, not noticing if they’re straying from the flock or in danger. It's not such a compliment that Jesus told stories likening people to sheep, or that he says, viewing a crowd looking for him, that they were like sheep without a shepherd:

Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ time were supposed to be shepherds. Clearly he did not think they were doing the job, too preoccupied in proving their own righteousness. Perhaps this is why he has compassion on this crowd, allowing them to divert him from his intended retreat with the disciples. He knew that without teaching and guidance and an experience of God’s power right then and there, they would drift, hungry, prey to false teachers and poor nourishment.

In our time, fewer and fewer people seem to seek out spiritual leaders; for many, the “DIY” movement extends to the spiritual life. They may pray, connect with others, find teaching on the internet, often comfortable platitudes, but are indifferent to the accumulated wisdom of religious traditions. Like sheep focused on grazing, they may seek the next feel-good moment, the next affirmation that they really are okay, a good person, and so stray further and further away from the Source of Love and truth. They open themselves to manipulative teachers or a feed-back loop in which the truth becomes ever more distorted.

Self-sufficiency is the enemy of spiritual growth. I do not believe people can thrive spiritually if their only point of reference about spiritual experience is in their own mind, even if they are people of faith and active churchgoers. If we want to grow in faith, we need to walk with others; we need to look out for each other; we need to hold each other accountable. And we need leaders, pastors (the term borrowed from shepherding) who know the landscape and can keep their eye on the big picture while we wander and graze. And the pastors need pastors and community for the same reason.

Have you had periods of “go it alone” spirituality in your life, and periods of communal connection? How did each way feel to you?

Who are the shepherds who have helped guide you to good pasture and clean water?
For whom have you served as a shepherd or guide? I highly recommend all Christ-followers be part of some small group fellowship for mutual support and accountability.

Of course, the One Shepherd for all of us is Jesus, our “Shepherd of Souls.” We wander off the precipice when we wander away from him. But to follow him well we seem to need shepherds and other folks. I hope and pray we all have worthy shepherds in our lives, that we see more than the grass around us.

7-13-21 - Take a Break

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

It may surprise few to learn that I flunk vacations. I don’t know how to plan them, allow adequate time for them, or completely shut off from work while I’m on them. I could blame this on the fact that I'm single and it’s more work to plan a vacation with people not in your family, and less fun to go alone. But maybe it’s just me.

It may surprise some to learn that Jesus commended time away after a busy period of ministry. (As we’ll see, Jesus also kind of flunks vacation, being very responsive to the needy crowds seeking to pull him off course…) So when his disciples come back, excited, after their first mission foray, he tells them they’ve earned some quiet time:

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves.

Spiritual work depletes our energy. It can give us energy in the short term – I can be really pumped up for a few hours after any kind of Spirit-filled worship or ministry. But then I find I need a nap and to recharge my batteries. And we need more than naps – we need breaks. Prayer breaks and Sabbath days, and retreats, and actual vacations – and sabbaticals and Jubilee years too. Like ground that loses nutrients if it’s over-planted, we need to rest and let our brains go fallow and our creative energies return. If we’re active in any kind of ministry, we need to allow the river of the Spirit to move through and cleanse our channels, remove the debris, reawaken the faith vision to see what is not yet.

Last Saturday I gave myself a pedicure, an activity I find tedious but necessary to the standard of vanity I uphold. As I waited for nail polish to dry, I played word games on my tablet, but found myself annoyed at being so unproductive. Guess it’s time for a vacation. (Leaving tomorrow, in fact!) When I do unplug from the to-do list, I notice that I’m more resilient, that my natural hopefulness comes back, and I start feeling the creative juices begin to flow. Not for nothing did God ordain a Sabbath day of unproductivity each week! Why is it so hard to keep that command/invitation? Even machinery needs to rest; why do we think we can keep running?

When did you last take time off – a few minutes, a day, some weeks or longer – and really let your system recharge? What gifts were you aware of in that time? What stands between you and taking more time off?

What if we thought of taking breaks as a spiritual discipline? Sabbath-keeping certainly is, but so is every rest after a time of ministry. I’m going to try something, and I invite you to join me: The next time I think I can’t take a break because I have to get one more thing done, I’m going to imagine myself in that boat with Jesus and the disciples, heading to a deserted place by themselves. Just imagine the mood – “Yay! We’re going away! And with Jesus! We’ve worked hard, we’ve seen God do amazing things through us, and now we get to rest and recharge a little. Have a retreat. Decompress. Imagine!”

And really, can anything we think we have to do for Jesus be more important than hanging out with Jesus? Isn't that where the real work happens?

7-12-21 - Telling Tales

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

Let's think back to our gospel story two weeks ago: Jesus was sending his disciples out in twos to proclaim the Good News and heal the sick. Now they’re back – and they have a lot to tell him!

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught.

When we are active in the life of faith – regular in prayer, our awareness tuned to God experiences – we usually have stories to tell. My Christ Churches started the practice of gathering for Night Prayers at 8 pm Monday through Thursday evening. What initially began as a way to stay connected during Covid lockdown has blossomed into a wonderful, brief prayer service each weekday evening, enfolding people from Canada and Connecticut as well as Southern Maryland. (And you are welcome to join too! Here is the link; passcode is LPWay.) Several nights each week we ask “Where have you sensed God’s presence today?” and it’s amazing the stories of presence, peace, power, and answered prayer that often flow.

Our God stories get even more intense when we offer ministry in the name and power of Jesus. Realizing that I can’t think of any recent ones tells me I am not doing enough ministry out in the community. I used to go out with parishioners to downtown locations to to offer prayer to anyone who wanted it. One time in Stamford we went to the farmer’s market and loitered where people emerged from shopping. We held a sign reading, “Want A Prayer?” and at the bottom, “Prayer Changes Things” We were only out for about an hour but in that time had close to 20 blessed encounters with people, from a young man with whom we prayed on our way to our spot, who then prayed for us, to a vendor at the market who ran over saying, “I want a prayer!,” to a little boy who came running back to us after we’d prayed with him and his mother, with a look of wonder on his face, saying, “That was good!” It seemed like he wanted more. I’ve had similar encounters in La Plata at a street fair – but only once. I need to get out back out there!

Jesus isn't not the only one who likes to hear our stories of seeing God at work through our efforts. They also build up the faith of the people around us to be bolder in their prayers and ministries. And they remind us when we need to remember – for me that can be 30 minutes after the last time I saw God’s power at work. I’m not sure of the neuroscience here, but I imagine that a memory that is written down and/ or articulated verbally gets wired into our synapses more sturdily than one we merely note and allow to drift away.

When was the last time you felt God at work through or around you? Have you told someone the story? Start by writing it down so you don’t lose it. Tell God about it. And tell someone else.

If the apostles hadn’t shared their stories with Jesus and each other, they wouldn’t have been told and retold and finally preserved to encourage us. We have God tales too - let's tell them!

7-9-21 - The Hole-y Bible

You can listen to this reflection here.

I accept the Holy Scriptures as having spiritual authority, as God-inspired words set down by holy and faithful men and women, our ancestors in faith. I don’t believe in cherry-picking the texts that “work for us,” or picking and choosing what we find helpful or relevant. If anything, followers of Christ should ask how we might be made more relevant to the scriptures rather than the other way around.

And yet… there are these passages, like this week’s gospel, which may speak truth about human depravity, but in which I can discern little spiritual benefit. The beheading of John, the rapes of Dinah and Tamar, the conquest of Ai, the endless cosmic battles in Revelation, pretty much the whole bloody book of Judges… what are we to make of these passages in which the human origin or score-settling seems to far outweigh any discernible divine inspiration?

Some people, like Thomas Jefferson, simply cut out the parts of Scripture they didn't agree with; in Jefferson’s case, that meant any reference to the miraculous or supernatural. Others, like Jehovah’s Witnesses, alter passages that don’t match their theology. Others ignore the parts they don’t like, or focus on one part of the Bible to the exclusion of others, which can lead to a dangerous lack of balance in teaching and living. Any of these approaches lead to a hole-y bible rather than Holy Writ.

How can we appreciate the holiness of God’s Word when not every word in it seems holy? I try to remember that someone was inviting the presence of the Holy Spirit to indwell it at every stage of its transmission – as a story passed along orally, when written down (sometimes by multiple sources), when edited and collected and consecrated by communities of faith, when translated, and finally when read by us. We can pray that God reveal to us a nugget of grace in even the worst story. After all, in our lives we encounter many horrible stories in which we need to be able to discern the redemptive power of God, for that is what we proclaim, a God who has triumphed over sin and death.

I appreciate the challenge of finding good news in any passage of scripture, some connection to God’s plan of salvation. For instance, this week’s gospel passage rounds out the picture we have of John the Baptist, his fierce and fearless dedication to the mission of God, and reminds us that our days in this world are but the blink of an eye in the scope of our eternal life with God.

That being said, I have decided to use next week’s gospel at my church this Sunday, and then swap in Jesus’ healing of the Gadarene demoniac, which got skipped in the past few weeks. (If you want to read what I wrote about this text three years ago, you can find the post here.) With only 52 Sundays in the year, and many life-giving, soul-transforming messages to impart. I don’t want to give this sad tale airtime that could go to a story of healing or ministry that encourages the faithful.

This story is a part of the Holy Bible, and as such it is also holy, set apart, like the people of God. And we can rejoice in the way that John the Baptist was willing to allow himself to be an integral part of that plan, in life and in death. And we can receive it as one of the realities of this world that is passing away, as God works out that plan “to gather up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.”

7-8-21 - Trust Fund Babies

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's epistle reading is here.

I wonder what it would be like to be a “trust fund baby,” to have wealth sufficient to buy anything I want, to know I will receive a steady stream of income my whole life. Would it be freeing? Deadening? Enabling of dysfunction or generosity or both?

I doubt I’ll ever know that in the financial sense, but I’m told I’m the recipient of a pretty huge trust fund spiritually, one that I can access any time I want:

In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

This inheritance, which gives us access to the power that made the heavens, that can heal the sick and revive the soul, is already ours: “We have obtained” it. Paul lays out some steps to taking hold of it:

hearing the word of truth, the Good News of access to the love of God;
believing in Jesus Christ;
being sealed in the Holy Spirit as a pledge on the inheritance to come.

“Marked with the seal” refers to the chrismation in baptism, that moment when the baptized is anointed with oil. In our Episcopal rite, this is accompanied by the words, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”

In that moment, we receive the gift of the Spirit in our lives, the Spirit of Christ with whom we are united in baptism. All the riches in that trust fund become available to us – the faith to believe in what cannot be seen, the power to heal what seems hopeless, the grace to forgive the unforgivable, the capacity to love beyond our own ability. That sealing, Paul says, is a pledge, a down payment, on the fullness of life in the Spirit that we will know in eternity, which we begin to live into in this life.

The question for us is: will we draw on the funds already available to us, or leave that trust fund sitting idle? There is no benefit to leaving it alone – unlike most investment accounts, this fund only grows as it is drawn on; it accrues interest by being used. It will never run out, and there is no limit to how many times we can withdraw from it. God’s power is not rationed or constrained – we can pray for bad colds as well as world peace, and never exhaust the power and love there for us.

For what would you like to draw on that trust fund?
Where around you do you perceive the need for healing, hope, forgiveness, peace, grace and love? Go ahead – take it out. The fund will not diminish.

We have heard the truth of the Gospel. We are invited to believe and to be baptized. We have received the promised Holy Spirit, and been given the bank card to access the funds. The password is Maranatha, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

7-7-21 - Lavish Grace

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's epistle reading is here.

When was the last time something was lavished on you? Luxury? Hospitality? Kindness? Thanks to our Puritan forebears, we may not associate words like “lavished” and “riches” and “pleasure” with our life in God. But Paul lays it on thick when rhapsodizing about God’s generosity toward us in forgiveness and redemption:

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

How we feel about being forgiven and redeemed is entangled with whether or not we feel we need forgiving and redeeming. Some people feel guilt and shame pretty easily – for them, these are words of life. Others are offended by the notion that we, good creatures made in the image of God, are characterized as “sinners,” and find the whole notion of repentance oppressive. I’ve been asked why we talk about sin in our worship services, as though the word itself conveys a wrong emphasis. Perhaps we should talk about hurtfulness; most people get that.

St. Paul had no problem talking about guilt and shame – he knew how prideful and arrogant he had been as a follower of the Mosaic law, and how violently and zealously he had persecuted the Christ-followers. He had a visceral gratitude for the forgiveness of his sins and the redemption he came to understand as God's gift through Christ’s redeeming sacrifice. Recognizing how destructive he could be allowed him to understand the true cost and immeasurable value of God’s forgiving grace.

John Newton, the repentant slave trader who wrote the hymn Amazing Grace, understood what that unmerited redemption was worth once he came to see how lost he was, how depraved in his disregard for the value of human beings. It took seeing his sinfulness to understand the extent of God’s transforming love – a love that not only restores individuals, but is part of God’s larger plan to restore all of creation to wholeness, “things in heaven and things on earth.”

Can you think of a time when you have received “amazing grace” from a person and/or from God? It can be simultaneously humiliating and exhilarating to be on the receiving end of forgiveness when we’re aware of how hurtful we can be.

And have you been called upon to forgive an extraordinary hurt? How did you come to that forgiveness? Was it connected to grace you’ve received? This is one reason we include confession in our prayers – to remember who we are, and how loved we are because and in spite of who we are.

Our nation saw grace “lavished” when members of “Mother Emanuel” AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, even the families of those massacred there, freely offered forgiveness to the murderer. Many observers took offense at that, feeling that the shooter did not deserve to be forgiven, especially as he seemed unrepentant. To which the Christian says, "Exactly." Those who offered forgiveness understood that, from the perspective of God’s holiness, none of us deserve it, yet God has lavished grace upon us.

Only as we understand that we need, and have received, that grace for ourselves are we truly able to lavish it on others. As we do that, God’s plan for the cosmos becomes ever more complete.

7-6-21 - A Birthday Prayer

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's epistle reading is here.

Murder. Beheadings. Corrupt despots. Politicians partying with underage femmes fatale. We get plenty of this in the news; must we encounter it in the pages of our Holy Scriptures? Well – yes, there’s plenty of all that in the Bible, which, after all, chronicles the movement of God in human life, and often reminds us how desperately humankind needs that gift. One of the least appealing stories of all comes up in this Sunday's gospel: the story of how King Herod came to have John the Baptist beheaded. We can no doubt learn something from this sordid tale, but I have no wish to spend our whole week on it, nor do I wish to tackle it today, which is my birthday.

Happily, Sunday’s readings also include one of my top ten hits – the beginning of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. This letter contains some of the most beautiful, lyrical passages in the New Testament; I actually memorized the first three chapters as a Lenten discipline one year. Paul is so effusive in his praise of God and so passionate in his prayer for this community he has heard about. Here's how it starts:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

Just pick out the verbs in that paragraph: blessed, chosen, destined, bestowed. In each case, God is the actor and we are the receivers – we are those blessed with every spiritual blessing happening right now in the heavenly places; we are those chosen before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before God in love. That one sentence binds up our deepest past and our farthest future – and it’s all right now, already happening, on earth as it is in heaven.

Paul writes that God destined us for adoption as God’s children through Christ – which is great for us, but also, it appears, somehow adds to the praise of God’s grace freely given us in the Beloved, who is Christ. Imagine: when we receive God’s grace, it further praises the giver of that very gift. So when we refuse the gift of grace, when we try to make ourselves righteous, when we shun God’s forgiving mercy and insist on punishing ourselves, when we stubbornly cling to our self-sufficiency and illusions of control… God is less praised. Who'd have thought that not taking an offered gift could have such cosmic effects?

Today I celebrate my birth into this world, into a wonderful human family in which I am birth-daughter, sister, aunt. And I also give thanks for my adoption into the eternal and worldwide family of God, which has made me daughter, sister, mother to so many beautiful souls, chosen with me before the foundations of the world to be holy and blameless before God in love.

I can think of no better birthday prayer – for me to take in the immeasurable love in which I was made and in which I live, and to pray this prayer for you as well. Thanks be to God!

7-5-21 - Happy Inter-dependence Day

You can listen to this reflection here.

This weekend we celebrate our independence as a nation, four years shy of our 250th birthday. We have experienced some hard times lately as a nation. The dream of America and the reality of America can seem as divergent as the viewpoints of its citizens.

Yet we celebrate. We celebrate the courage of those who fought to liberate themselves from the oppression of a colonial power, even as those same people continued to oppress and even colonize others.

We celebrate the dream of democracy, even as the strength of that democracy is being tested in ways not seen since the Civil War.

We celebrate the generosity that led America to open its doors to immigrants and make sacrifices for the liberty of other nations, even as we struggle with a resurgence of virulent nationalism.

We celebrate the impulse toward diversity and inclusion that represents the best of America, even as we reckon with the evils of racism woven into our very foundations as a nation – there would have been no federation of states had not the northern states agreed to abandon efforts to abolish slavery.

Moving out of the log-jams in which we find ourselves on so many fronts may just depend on our celebrating not only our independence, but claiming and cultivating our inter-dependence. That is a gift we Christ-followers have to offer our fellow citizens, for Jesus invites us into a relationship of inter-dependence with each other, with the strangers with whom we share our lives and communities, and with God.

Hear these words of Paul to the churches around Ephesus: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

Chosen. Loved. Adopted. Children. Words of relationship, and relationships are inter-dependent. Whatever you do on this holiday today, celebrate those around you on whom you depend, and who depend on you. It is the way to true freedom.

7-2-21 - On the Job Training

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

Those who would carry forward the ministry of Jesus’ apostles as ordained leaders today must often go through a great deal of discernment and training and formation. In the Episcopal church, discernment can take 3-5 years, involving parish committees, diocesan committees, bishops, psychologists, often more than once. Training usually means a three-year seminary education, learning about church history, theology, practice of ministry and how to interpret the Scriptures. Formation includes field education, chaplaincy, spiritual direction, mentorships, retreats…

And a person can emerge from all of that and still not feel equipped to cast out demons or cure people of illness! By contrast, the original apostles of Jesus did all that on their first foray, learning as they went: So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

This is astonishing, when you think that these men had no formal instruction, and had until recently been living ordinary lives with their families, engaged in livelihoods like fishing and tax collecting. But we don’t need training to allow the Spirit of God to work through us – we need to learn how to get out of God’s way. We can see, following this band of Christ-followers through the pages of the New Testament, that it took them a lot longer to get that down. But here, at the outset, they are already competent at demonstrating the healing and authority over evil that are prime markers of God’s realm.

Do you feel equipped to be an apostle of Christ in your surroundings? Do we even know what that means for us? It’s not complicated; “apostolic” just means doing whatever Jesus’ apostles did. And they did this: proclaimed God’s reign, invited people to open themselves to God’s love (repentance), and demonstrated that love through curing the sick and casting out evil wherever they encountered it. They did this not on their own, but by God’s power working through them as Jesus gave them authority. That’s all.

We too have been given this gift of Spirit and this authority over evil. We don’t need any more training to be apostles than the original ones did. We too can learn on the job. Yet, as strongly as I believe this, I find it hard to get out there. It’s so counter-cultural for us to go out in public, or even to people we know, offering prayer and healing. We’re timid, and it’s easy to let other organizational and ministerial projects keep taking priority.

I am truly grateful for all the formal education and training I received, and I hope my communities benefit from it. I also know that all I really need is the power of the Holy Spirit alive and working through me, and the courage to let her flow. You too!