Water Daily: August 2021

9-1-21 - Who's Under Your Table?

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

There are few expressions of humility in the Bible more beautiful than the response of the Gentile mother when Jesus denies her request that he heal her daughter, saying,

“Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’

Jesus’ words sound harsh and unfeeling, no matter how we try to interpret them. In Matthew's version of this story Jesus gives a fuller reason for not helping her: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” By these lights, he is just staying “on mission.” His own people and target audience are “the children,” and outsiders are “dogs.”

Where is the Jesus who heals a Roman centurion’s servant, who frees a man in Gentile territory of a legion of demons, who stays for two days among Samaritans and holds up those disdained relatives of the Jews – outsiders, if not Gentiles – as models of compassionate service?

We’ll see him again shortly, when he fully digests this woman’s breathtakingly faithful reply: “Even the dogs under the table eat crumbs that fall from the table.” She knows that his “crumbs” hold power enough to heal her little girl, and she doesn’t care where she gets them or for whom they were intended. Her faith gets through to him, and he pronounces her daughter free and healed.

Who do we consider the “children,” and who do we regard as “dogs under the table?” Who is under your table? Some people who’ve never belonged to a church, or have heard the gospel only in its cultural iterations, might find it much easier than we to trust God, even if they use different language and rituals. Many of our churches offer feasts that precious few partake in, while at our margins there are many who would love to receive our “crumbs” of true faith: a loving community, the power of God’s Spirit, access to God in Christ. How do we make the invitation to those people who look and act so different from us?

My friend Mary Lynn once described her experience of eucharist beautifully: “Oh, you give us this little piece of bread, and we give it away all week, and then next Sunday we come back for more.” As we truly learn to understand the feast we receive through church, we can more intentionally offer our “crumbs all over the place until all are fed.

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8-31-21 - Cranky Jesus?

You can listen to this reflection here.

Those who doubt the full humanity of Christ might look no further than the 7th chapter of Mark's gospel. In the story we have this week, we meet at Jesus who appears out of sorts, brusque to the point of rudeness - and seemingly able to change his mind.

Jesus has come to this house to get away from the crowds and incessant need for his attention and power. He needs a break. And this woman, a Gentile yet, finds him and has the temerity to intrude upon his solitude, demanding deliverance for her daughter. At first he dismisses her, curtly saying she is outside his assigned mission. Then he likens her to a dog seeking scraps:

She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ Then he said to her, ‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.’ So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

As she steadily persists, refusing to take offense, he detects something underneath the annoyance she is causing. He discerns a woman of real faith who will not take "no" for an answer because she knows with all her heart that Jesus can heal her little girl. This is the kind of faith he has hoped to see in his own Jewish community – but familiarity can cloud faith vision. This Gentile woman has no such blinders. She can see, and once Jesus' own blinders fall, he sees her truly too, and rewards her faith.

This story contains several invitations for us. One is to be persistent in prayer, with faith, even when it looks like God seems not to answer. Prayer is primarily about deepening our relationship with God, not "getting what we need," so we can pester and cajole and ask nicely and cry our need. Jesus hears us, and adds his perfect faith to ours, as we learn to trust his perfect will and timing.

Another invitation is to keep our senses tuned to discern faith in people outside the community of faith as we recognize it. Those of us who are longtime churchgoers and deeply steeped in our religious tradition don’t always see that the woman with the angel posters or the multiply "tatted" guy at the shelter may have a clearer, less complicated, more powerful faith than we do. As we recognize that, we can make it our mission to invite such folks to draw nearer the community, nearer to Christ – and maybe find that it is they who make Christ known to us.

8-30-21 - A Little R&R

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

I’m away on a brief vacation this week (I set this up to send before I left). I can sure use some time off – like everyone, I’ve worked and worried hard this year. I can tell when my creativity becomes stunted that I need to let my brain and spirit unplug for a bit.

If I think I need a vacation, imagine how much Jesus needed some rest time! He had been preaching and healing and traveling and disputing and training, never in the same spot for more than a day, it seems. And now he arrives in Tyre, on the coast, and he just wants some time apart. It’s his Garbo moment, “I vant to be alone!” But it’s not to be.

From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.

It’s great to read that Jesus sought these times to rest and recharge, for it reminds us that he was human, and it gives us permission to recognize our limits as well. And, of course, he was also the God who ordained a day of rest in every seven; if we would only live into that promise, we might not even need vacations.

It’s also helpful to learn that Jesus was interrupted at his rest. The demands of the world do not subside just because we take some time out. The woman who came and found him had business she felt was much more pressing than his need to rest. And, though his initial response appears surly, in the end he agrees with her: her need, and her faith, were worthy of his attention.

When we’re on vacation we put down our regular work, our regular tasks, sometimes even our regular landscape, and seek to be renewed in the space that opens up. But we do not cease to be servants of the Living God, engaged in God’s mission of restoration and wholeness. We may find ourselves presented with needs in the people around us. We may fall into some interior, spiritual work we’ve neglected in our busyness, or find ourselves dealing with issues in our families or relationships. We may be surprised at how God wants to work through us in our time away.

There will be some ministry on my holiday, and I plan to be alert to opportunities, but not seek them out. I might find, as Jesus did, that the mission of God can find us in despite our best intentions to stay apart. Then we have to trust that God will give us the R&R we need in some other way.

8-27-21 - Walking the Walk

You can listen to this reflection here.

If we wanted to update what James has to say in the passage we read this week, "But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves," we could just go with, "If you’re going to talk the talk, walk the walk."

Those who hear the Word of God and think they’re all set, are kidding themselves, he claims. If we don't act on what we hear, there is no way to retain the Word.

Many a churchgoer faithfully attends worship, hears the Word read and preached, and then never thinks about it again till the following Sunday, living his or her life by the values of the world. That’s what it means to be a hearer only. But what does it mean to be a “doer” of the Word?

For James, it means keeping a good guard on your tongue and resisting religiosity that lacks heart. In fact, he labels as “worthless” the religion of those who “do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts.” Worthy religion involves personal integrity and active care for the poor and vulnerable: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.}

These qualities, alas, are not always what people see when they look at churchgoers. Too often they see a love of prosperity, allegiance to old ways of being, and judgmental condemnation of people who look, speak or live differently. In many cases, observers do not see the Good New that Jesus Christ proclaimed and demonstrated being lived out, and so they turn away. James' word includes us!

What if we were to spend much more time and energy and resources dealing with poverty and justice, and much less on worrying about numbers and does everybody like the hymns? What if we were less inwardly focused on our own congregations, and more aware of our status as out-posts in a worldwide enterprise with the strategic goal of reclaiming, restoring and renewing all of creation to wholeness? What if we put transformation before comfort?

There is a promise for us, when we focus on the law of liberty instead of legalism, when we proclaim God’s freedom for all those held captive by any person, institution or condition: But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act – they will be blessed in their doing.

May we be blessed in our doing, and in our being.

8-26-21 - The Implanted Word

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

For the rest of the week, we’ll turn to the letter of James. Unlike Paul’s epistles, usually addressed to specific people or communities, about matters of concern, confusion or conflict, the letter attributed to James is more of a general exhortation on how Christ-followers are to live. He responds to problems he sees emerging in the early church, and offers correction. Because the author of James (who may or may not have been the brother of Jesus and head of the Jerusalem church) is so concerned with behavior, not only belief, the letter has been judged by some to be legalistic, too short on grace and mercy.

Yet James is strong on mercy for the poor and those on the margins; he reserves his condemnation for the wealthy, the hypocritical, those who pay lip service to the demands of the gospel but fail to live its principles. There are many nuggets for us in this letter, so as it comes up in our lectionary this season, let’s have a look.

As Paul does in Ephesians, James begins by praising the generosity of God, the “Father of lights,” whose gift to us is the ground of all giving. Like Paul, he speaks of God’s purpose being fulfilled in those who believe in Jesus, likening the early community to the “first fruits” of God’s harvest:

Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

James emphasizes that this gift of God’s grace must be expressed in the way we live, especially in our interactions. His counsel is one we might all hang on our refrigerators as we start our day: “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God's righteousness.”

What a world we would have if more lived by that precept! Anger is often a natural response to provocation, yet we need to become aware when we feel it, try to locate its source and pray that out. We don’t need to feel entitled to express it around other people – or on social media. And being quicker to listen than to speak would also improve the quality of discourse around us.

I love the phrase James offers to help us move out of angry reactivity into grounded proactivity: “Welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.” Having rid ourselves “of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness,” we turn to the Word who dwells within, the Spirit of Christ who takes up residence in us at baptism and lives with us through everything we face. This Word is not just hanging out – he has been implanted in us by the Father of lights, in whom there is no change or shadow. Just dwell on that awhile.

How does it change the way we live to know that the Word of God has been implanted in us? How does it change the way we talk to other people? How does it change the way we regard ourselves? There’s no room for self-condemnation or shame when we’re aware that the Word of God lives in us. The more that awareness grows, the more we become like Paul, who said, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20)

I guess the next time we're filling out a medical history and are asked if we have any implants, we’ll have to say yes!

8-25-21 - Output

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

Jesus’ teaching often turns on its head the conventional wisdom of the world. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, don’t seek revenge, trust in God’s provision when there is clearly not enough to go around. Here, too, he upends the standard way of looking at holiness and sacrilege, placing the focus not on what goes into a person, but on what comes out, the fruits of a life:

"Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."

This teaching invites us to look at our output in life, not only the big-picture achievements, acquisitions, prizes, gains, goals met, works produced, but also the day-to-day external evidence of our lives. What are we putting out there for the world to see?

Is the fruit of our existence good and life-giving, nourishing and tasty, or is it old, rancid, stale, mealy? Do people associate knowing us with wisdom and insight, encouragement and enthusiasm, or do they encounter sadness or anger, bitterness or resignation? What words would you use to describe your affect? Your effect?

Of course, we could ask people how they experience us – that would yield some interesting feedback. We can also become intentional about observing our interactions as we move through the day, reflecting back on each encounter. What did we lead with? What emotion was dominant? What outcomes resulted from our interactions?

Our bodies teach us that output is connected to input, so it’s not entirely divorced from what we take in. Heart, lungs and digestive system all involve input and output, in some cases waste product, and in others renewed and renewing substances. Not all output needs to be vital and important, yet over all we’d like what comes out of our mouths, our minds, our work and giftedness to bless others.

This week, pay attention to what you hear yourself say, what you watch yourself do. Rejoice in the outputs you like, and ask for God's help with the ones you don't. With God's Spirit at work in us, we can leave a trail of compassion and love, gratitude and grace.

8-24-21 - Inside and Out

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

Americans are increasingly conscious about what we consume. Soaring rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and substance abuse – not to mention a culture obsessed with body fat – have led to a focus on fat, sugar, gluten, pesticides and their attendant evils. Vegan, vegetarian, Paleo, organic diets are all the rage. We know all about the damage we can do by what we take into our bodies.

Perhaps we’re not so different from the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. Focused on the fine points of the Mosaic Law, they were hyper-conscious about the dangers of eating the wrong food, or overlooking the proper precautions and rituals. Jesus had a thing or two to say about that: Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

He went on to list a great many sins and character flaws that issue from the human heart – and to suggest that we concern ourselves more with what comes from inside us than from without.

It’s not an either/or. The emotional climate in which we operate factors into the thoughts and behaviors we exhibit to the world, just as the actual food and drink we consume play a role in how healthy our minds and spirits are. Jesus is right, as usual: It’s ridiculous to worry about the toxicity in our food supply while we sow discord in social discourse, or to demand transparency about genetically modified foods and not in our finances, politics or media.

To Jesus’ list of “evil intentions” and wickedness of which the human heart is capable, I would like to add a list of all the good things that also issue from inside us: compassion, generosity, forbearance, empathy, love – the fruit of the Spirit at work in us that Paul mentions in Galatians.

As we allow the Spirit of Christ to live in us, we can become more aware of the interior landscape in which we ask that Spirit to dwell. Is it littered with garbage and debris, old wounds, dysfunctional patterns of being and relating? Toxic dumps of anger, fear, envy and shame that leak into our reactions and interactions? Might we ask God to tour that landscape with us, and invite healing and cleansing of all that leads to hurt? There’s some prayer work, to be done with God alone, or with the help of a spiritual director, confessor and/or therapist.

And then let’s pay attention to what we take in – not only good and healthy things for our bodies, but all that is good and true and worthy (another great list from St. Paul in Philippians 4…). So may we be able to say with the Psalmist, “Let all that is within me bless God’s holy name.”

8-23-21 - Majoring In Minors

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

Were you ever sent away from the dinner table with the stern command, “Wash your hands?” It was ingrained in me as a pre-prandial requirement, though, as a rule, we ate with utensils. When I cook I wash my hands frequently to avoid spreading bacteria that may have escaped my chicken or kale. And now, of course, we've all learned to wash hands.

Health concerns may have been the root of the elaborate washing rituals handed down in Hebrew tradition, but Jesus and his disciples seem not to have bothered with these rites, for the Jewish leaders who had come from Jerusalem to investigate the Jesus movement found them eating with “defiled” hands. So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”

Jesus is not gentle in his response: He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.' You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

Once again he accuses his interrogators of missing the point, majoring in minors, and so distorting the heart of God’s law. It would appear these rituals were age-old community practices that had become elevated to the status of Law. This was not bad in itself, but Jesus charges that these men focused an inordinate amount of attention on matters of human tradition while they ignored actual laws of God – such as the command to care for the poor, the orphan and the widow, or the command to honor your father and mother.

Sound familiar? How often do we see faith leaders attacking other Christians over lifestyle or political issues, yet doing little to proclaim the Good News of forgiveness in Christ? How often do we see churches, even those facing declining attendance, focus their resources on maintaining a certain style of liturgy, or replacing the sanctuary carpet, or organizing yet another congregational dinner that draws no one from outside, instead of turning their vision outward?

Oh, it’s easy to point fingers. Let’s bring it closer. What occupies much of our time and emotional energy? Is it the “commandment of God” or “human tradition?” I know I spend an awful lot of time perpetuating institutional life, which may not be how the Spirit wants me to spend the time and gifts I have been given in this limited life. How about you? Might we do a little inventory of where the bulk of our energy, time and money goes? A quick glance over calendar and checkbook (and Facebook…) can tell us a lot.

What if we were to ask God to tell us daily where our energies can most fruitfully be invested? And listen for the answer before going about our day? That’s a lot more important than washing our hands before meals.

8-20-21 - Food Tastes Better Outside

This August, we are doing a worship series at my church on Summer Pastimes and how they speak to us of the life of faith. So each Friday I will turn from the lectionary to the gospel I’ve selected for worship that week – this week, that is John 21:9-14. You can listen to this reflection here.

This last week in our “Summer Pastimes” series we’re focusing on Picnics. Picnics, barbecues, tailgates – food just tastes good when we’re eating outside (except on a windy beach when there’s sand in your hotdogs…). Generally, taking “inside” activities outside, whether it’s showers, fire places or food, gives that experience a new twist.

But how might picnics speak to us of our life of faith? Well, picnics happen outside, which is where our faith is meant to be lived – outside the walls of churches and homes, on the road and in the streets, taking God’s love and life to wherever people are hungry for it. Faith is a pilgrimage and it gets stronger when we exercise it, stretching beyond our comfort zones and comfortable communities.

Picnics can take place anywhere. They might happen on a blanket laid out on a grassy field, at an outdoor concert, or wolfing down a sandwich at a bus stop. And sometimes, as once happened to me in Turkey, you’re invited to join a group of strangers grilling spiced meat and chopping up salad on a beach where you least expected a feast – and find it’s the most delicious meal you’ve ever had.

Picnics don’t just happen – someone needs to prepare them. I remember in my childhood in Africa, we’d go to the ambassador’s pool on Sunday afternoons, and my mother would always make egg salad and tuna fish sandwiches, and various other foods, each wrapped in their particular containers. So our faith lives require some preparation and intention if we’re to get the most out of them.

And picnics, like faith, need to be unwrapped. They come in baskets and boxes and bags, each element neatly nested. Watching a picnic come out of its containers is like seeing a mystery unfold – what’s in that bag? What’s in that container? What does it taste like? At its best, that’s what growing in faith can be – discovering nuggets in scriptures, learning new songs of praise, sensing God’s presence in prayer or ministry, tasting the richness of love in community.

Picnics are usually shared experiences, and often the meal is a combination of foods brought by different participants. This is how we live our faith communally, in church and out, with each person bringing the “dish” they make best, providing their gifts in beautiful diversity to make up a picnic that is delicious and varied, with unexpected pairings of tastes and textures and colors.

In fact, we add our gifts to a feast God has already prepared for us. In the gospel story we will hear on Sunday, the disciples are shocked, after a night of fishing, to see the risen Lord Jesus on a beach, with a fire going, making a picnic for them. “Come and have breakfast,” he calls, and invites them to bring some of the fish they have caught.

God wants us to bring our gifts to the picnic, even if he gave us those gifts in the first place. God’s feasts are always joint efforts, and as we contribute our gifts and enjoy what others have brought, we are brought closer to the heart of love, to that Lord who is both host and feast for us, inside and out.

8-19-21 - Where We Gonna Go?

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

A measure of doubt and despair is normal in a healthy faith. After all, the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. If we’re going to live on the ledge of faith, it’s not surprising periodically to look down and experience a wave of “what am I doing here!” This can come in times of personal crisis, or when it seems evil is winning, or just because we read something that challenges our ideas.

It can even come because of something we hear Jesus said or did. So it was for his followers in the wake of his “Eat my flesh” comments, when he suggested that those who couldn’t accept this teaching had not been called by God:
He said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.” Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

What a beautiful statement of faith Peter makes! There might be an element of, “You’re the best in a range of bad options” in “Lord, to whom can we go?” But that is quickly eclipsed by the simple and profound declaration of belief: “You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

That is how faith in God grows – it is something we come to believe, and something we know, not all at once, but fully even as it is still growing. Gradually, that heart knowledge comes to override other input of our senses and intellect that suggest God is not real or to be trusted. When hard things happen or we see the persistence of evil rampant in the world, it’s not that those things aren’t real. They are true and we believe Jesus is the Holy One of God. We hold those truths in tension.

Spiritual maturity comes in our ability to live in that tension, not seeking the comforts of an either/or. The realm of God is a both/and place, and the more comfortable we become with nuance and shades of grey, the more room the Spirit has to move in and through us.

What things cause your faith to weaken? How do you deal with doubts or a desire to jump ship when they come up? We can always pray right then and there, as honestly as the psalmists do, being real with God about what we’re feeling and thinking. That’s how the relationship deepens.

I pray that, through our deepening relationship with God in Christ, living more and more in the Life of God, we can come to say with Peter, “We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

8-18-21 - Of Spirit and Flesh

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

Some people “live in their head,” as though physicality counted for little, and some others seem to be so spiritually disconnected, so completely focused on matters of the flesh that they are neither very healthy nor very interesting. Most of us crave balance in the life of flesh and the life of spirit.

We are coming to the end of the “I am the bread of life” discussion between Jesus and people in his hometown synagogue. He more or less ends the argument by suggesting that the preoccupation with “flesh” – which he stirred up by saying people had to eat his flesh if they wanted to be part of the Life of God – is really a distraction from what matters most. He says, “It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

It seems harsh to say that “the flesh” is useless. That quote might reflect the bias in John’s gospel toward Greek thought and ideas, which posited a greater distinction between flesh and spirit than would be common in Jewish thinking. Might Jesus have made a more nuanced statement like, “The flesh is useless in the long run?” Certainly God valued human flesh enough to take it on in Christ’s incarnate life.

St. Paul uses “the flesh” as short-hand for “the human nature without God’s influence.” And that, we might agree, has a short run indeed. It is our spirits that connect with the Holy Spirit, who gives us the Life that transcends life, the Life we begin now, even as we still very much live the life of the flesh. That “fleshly life” allows us to enjoy the gifts of God, to fully inhabit this world and its pains and blessings. And the life of the spirit in us allows us to hold all that lightly, to recognize it as transient and temporal. We need to nurture both in this life, for a full humanity makes for a healthier spirituality.

What do you do in your life to balance the life of the spirit with the life of the body and mind? How might you invite someone who seemed “not to have a spiritual bone in their body” to open up that part of themselves? Every day we can invite the Holy Spirit to strengthen the life of our spirit.

The flesh is indeed useless once we no longer inhabit these bodies of ours. For now, though, it is our very flesh that allows us to have the feelings and emotions and relational connections by which our spiritual lives grow. The flesh sets up the life of the Spirit, which gives us Life forever.

8-17-21 - Too Much To Swallow

You can listen to this reflection here.

Not much got past Jesus. He was keenly aware of discord and disunity among his followers and often called them on it. So it is in this week’s passage, when some grumble at his teaching about people consuming his flesh and blood.

When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?”

Instead of arguing about the thing that offends them – in this case, the flesh-eating, blood-drinking thing, which sounds like a direct violation of the Law, as well as disgusting – he takes the whole argument to a higher level, ratcheting up his claims to divinity. Maybe he was saying, “Look, that’s the least of your worries. Wait till you see me through my mission, my passion, cross, resurrection and ascending into heaven. Let that offend you!”

So much about Jesus can be too much for some to swallow. So people may pick and choose the parts of the picture they find palatable. They love the teacher but not the savior; they focus on the Good Samaritan but ignore the miracles. By comparing himself to bread, and saying we have to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he is in effect saying, “You have to swallow me.” All of it. The healer and the table-over-turner. The story-teller and the lover of outcasts. The one who can walk on water yet lets himself be nailed to a cross.

When you think about Jesus, what do you find yourself drawn to? What do you turn away from? Do you find some of what he said and did hard to swallow? Have you had a conversation with him in prayer about that?

The mark of a true Christ-follower is one who recognizes him as the risen and ascended Lord, and has made a choice to accept all of who Christ is revealed to be, both in the Scriptures, and in our lives today. A lot to swallow can also leave us well fed and fully nourished.

8-16-21 - Difficult Teaching

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

What kind of sermon did you hear yesterday? Hopefully one with some grit and challenge to it, but probably not as outrageous as the folks in the synagogue in Capernaum heard from their homie, Jesus: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them… But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.

I bet they were wishing for a parable right about then, or for him to say he was talking in metaphors. But he just kept getting more and more graphic and direct, until even some of his disciples said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”

This teaching isdifficult. This chapter in John’s gospel is among the most challenging to interpret in the whole New Testament. It’s somewhat comforting to know that it was as hard for his original audience, not only that something got lost in 2000 years of translation.

But other parts of the Gospels are not much easier, when you think about it. Jesus’ parables often fly in the face of human ideals of fairness and good sense. Jesus’ miracles strike many today as unbelievable, and often offended people who witnessed them. Jesus can seem rude in his contentious interactions with religious authorities and harsh in his instructions to disciples. If we don’t find ourselves somewhat outraged on a regular basis, maybe we’re not reading this book deeply enough, or letting it get to us.

Read through these words aloud a few times and let them settle in you (an ancient way of reading Scripture called lectio divina). “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them… But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

First time through, just notice what sticks out for you, or what you get stuck on, like a snagged zipper. Don’t overthink it, just notice.

Then read it again and see what reactions you’re having to it – positive, negative, bored, engaged, inspired, despairing… what are you feeling? You might talk with God about that reaction. Ask wondering questions if they come up.

Finally, read it again and contemplate what invitation you hear in this text. Pray that too.

Some of Jesus’ disciples turned away from him when he started saying these things. We are invited to stay with him and talk it out. Outrage, when dealt with, can give way to deeper relationship.

8-13-21 - Grace Will Lead Us Home

This August, we are doing a worship series at my churches on Summer Pastimes and how they speak to us of the life of faith. So each Friday we turn to the gospel I’ve selected for worship that week - this week John 14:1-7. You can listen to this reflection here.

Baseball is in the on-deck circle this week, and boy, does it lend itself to puns and metaphors for the life of faith! Strikes, outs, fouls, errors, sacrifice plays, stealing bases, walking runners. You could say it starts in Genesis: “In the Big Inning…” Most of all, with its circular play and the goal of getting players to a base called Home, it lends itself to thoughts of heaven.

Baseball allows us to explore the concept of grace – what might it mean to have an unlimited number of strikes and fouls? How might we live into the wonder of a system based not on running back and forth but round and around again, always moving toward Home? How might we think about Jesus – as the pitcher who walks us all, or the home run hitter who came to bat when the bases were loaded and both sides were losing?

Consider your spiritual life in Christ as though it were a baseball game – what opens up for you? What position do you see yourself playing?
Where on the field is Jesus – or is he the Manager?

In this game of God-life, we are all decent fielders and good hitters, capable of foul balls now and again as well as the occasional homer. But no matter where we are – in the field, in the dugout, or hugging a base, we don’t have to steal home – Jesus has come to the plate, and has hit us all in. Here endeth the metaphor!

8-12-21 - The Bread of Not-Life

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

The book of Exodus in the Hebrew Bible tells the story of how God brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, where they had become an oppressed slave class, through the Red Sea to freedom. But freedom quickly turned into a stuckness of another kind, as they wandered in the wilderness for forty years, journeying slowly toward the promised land. (One scholar estimates that they took forty years to make a two-week journey…) During that time they complained loudly and often about their conditions, wishing they could return to their days of bondage when at least they knew where their next meal was coming from. Most of all, they complained about the food, and sometimes the lack thereof.

At one point, God began to send a daily gift of manna, a coriander-like substance which fell from the sky six days a week (two days’ worth fell before the Sabbath day). This could be collected and milled into flour. In the conversation Jesus is having with Jewish leaders in our passage, this is what they bring up to him. He replies that that “bread from heaven,” though a gift of God, was not the same kind of “bread from heaven” that he himself is: “This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

There are many sorts of gifts in our lives, things and people that nurture us. But they are not the Living Bread. They might enhance our lives, but they do not give life. They are given to us to enjoy and to share but not to become the focus of our yearning or worship. When we start seeking God-Life from these gifts, however God-given they are, we often lose our focus on the true Bread.

And when we lose our focus on the true Bread, and seek sustenance in the good things of life, we find they cannot meet our deep hunger. Then we often turn to things that are less life-giving – to relationships, or work, or accolades, or any number of substances that numb the pain or temporarily fill us. We turn from bread to not-bread, and become hungrier still.

What kinds of “not-bread” have you looked to at times to meet your deep needs? What is different about receiving the Bread of Life in Jesus?

Not-bread often fills us quite well, for a time, and often faster than the bread of life Jesus is. It takes awhile to realize that, as the cliché about Chinese food goes, we think we’re full and a half-hour later, we’re hungry again.

Jesus is not so much about meeting our hunger as transforming it into a deep hunger for true Love. When we begin to let that bread in, we truly will not hunger again.

8-11-21 - Flesh-Eating

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

We generally associate the words "flesh-eating" with bacteria and zombies. Maybe the vogue for vampire and zombie books, movies and television shows offers the Church a major crossover opportunity. For here, right in the fourth Gospel, Jesus himself is quoted, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them..”

It’s not surprising that some early Christians faced charges of cannibalism, with rhetoric like that floating around. And there’s no way to make these words palatable – especially to a Jewish audience, rooted in laws proscribing above all the ingestion of blood, which is life. And that is the point. The impulse toward cannibalism in communities that practice it (or so I’ve read…) is to take into oneself the enemy's power. Jesus’ invitation is to take in the very life of the Friend.

He invites those who follow him to receive his life at the most basic atomic level, into our bodies, minds and spirits. He says he came from Life and gives Life –
“Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.”

So much in this world can sap life and celebrate death (like zombie and vampire entertainments..). Our culture does not lean life-ward or promote hopefulness and love. If we are to be seen as people of life, we need the Life of the Living Father to be filling us, renewed in us, every day. That happens through prayer and study, through inviting the Spirit to work through us in ministry – and it happens in this ritual many Christians celebrate at weekly worship, taking in the body and blood of Christ. (It will be interesting to study the impact of moving to virtual worship during the pandemic on the lives and faith of eucharistically oriented Christians.)

What are the sources of life in your life? And how do you best access the Life of God? And how do you go about sharing it with others? You might ask God in prayer, "Who needs to see / feel / receive your LIfe today? Show me how..."

There are many ways to invite people. If you know fans of True Blood, tell them we do a little blood-sipping every Sunday. If your friends are partial to The Walking Dead, you can tell them we do a little flesh-eating too. And if their tastes run more to the mundane, just tell them they can find life, life and more life in the body and blood of Christ, however they receive it.

8-10-21 - Raised

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

One of the standards of what came to be called “renewal music,” songs for worship from the Catholic Charismatic movement of the 1960s and 70s, was “I Am the Bread of Life.” (No YouTube link – each version is more lugubrious than the last!). Its verses, verbatim renderings of Jesus’ statements in our passage, are probably not the cause of its enduring popularity. Rather it is the refrain, with its sweeping lift, “And I will raise them up, and I will raise them up, and I will rai-ai-ise them u-up on the last day” that made the song such a hit. You feel your spirit rising as you sing the song.

What Jesus said was, "Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day..."

This highlights an interesting facet of resurrection theology: that it is Jesus who will raise us up on the last day. I had never thought to associate the Son of God with this function, and may be over-interpreting one line. It strikes me as yet another reason to get to know him in this life. Because I wonder: is the last day the only day when Jesus raises us up?

That question caused another Christian song to set itself on continuous loop in my brain – "You Raise Me Up," popularized by Josh Groban. This too has a swelling chorus and uplifting lyrics, and roots Jesus’ assistance in the here and now.
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains/ You raise me up to walk on stormy seas.

I am strong when I am on your shoulders/ You raise me up to more than I can be.

Despite the comical image of balancing on Jesus’ shoulders, like a child getting a good view at a parade, it does remind us that we live the risen life here and now, not only there and later. And at times when we don’t feel very “risen,” we can invite Jesus to activate his life in us again.

Which generates a third musing on “raised” – Jesus as yeast that causes us to rise and become the bread of life in the world. He probably didn't intend that association, though elsewhere he likens the Kingdom of Heaven to leaven. But here it is – a wonderful image for how the life of Christ works in us. Just as yeast is proofed in water and a sweetener, so his life is made real in us through baptism. And then it works through us, kneaded by our formation as Christians, by life's hardships and challenges, by wise and wonderful mentors. And it raises us into the life of heaven, from the inside.

Where do you need “raising” today? Ask Jesus to raise you up, and then say thank you, even before you see how that prayer is being answered. After awhile, you might notice something has changed. And when you do, say thank you again, and maybe write it down – even tell someone.

When we are low or weary or feeling powerless, we don’t have to call on the power of heaven from outside. We can ask God to activate the Life of heaven already at work within us. And we will find ourselves raised up – at the last day, and every day until then.

8-9-21 - Eating Jesus

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

“…so whoever eats me will live because of me.” – Jesus of Nazareth

It’s August. In southern Maryland, we’ve had a week of glorious weather, sunny skies and low humidity. My Facebook feed is full of people vacationing in beautiful places. Who wants to think about Jesus’ “I am the bread” discourses and their cannibalistic implications? What relevance is there to this ancient argument between Jesus and some would-be followers, in which he invokes the name of God and Israel’s history of disobedience, and then goes on to say that what he really means by “bread” is “his flesh,” which he will give for the world?

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you....Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.”

These words made little sense to those listening to Jesus that day. For many Christians, these words only have meaning in the context of the eucharistic meal of bread and wine signifying Christ’s body and blood – and we only have that understanding because of what the three other gospels – and not John – record as his words at the Last Supper. And they are certainly mystifying to people exploring Christianity.

The words require too much unpacking, I believe. But the action – the taking and blessing, breaking and eating – that has power even for people who have no background with this language or texts. In some mystical way, when we receive the consecrated bread and wine, by faith we become the body and blood of Christ, his life in us, received at baptism, is renewed. Our tired blood is refreshed by a transfusion of Jesus, our flagging flesh made whole in these signs of healing brokenness. And that can happen even for people who know little about Jesus. (Read Sara Miles' Take This Bread.)

We don't need more words about words. I just invite you to remember how you feel when you take in those mystical signs, how that meal nourishes you for the week ahead. And if you feel nothing, ask Jesus in prayer what he wants you to experience in that taking and blessing, breaking and eating.

The words may be strange to our ears; the Love that makes them real is where we get life.

8-6-21 - God On the Road

This August, we are doing a worship series at my churches on Summer Pastimes and how they speak to us of the life of faith. Each Friday we will turn from the lectionary gospel to the one we’ll be hearing at the Christ Churches - this week that is Luke 10:1-9. You can listen to this reflection here.

The second installment in our “Summer Pastimes and the Life of Faith” series focuses on travel. There is a LOT of travel in the bible, from Abram and Sarai’s original journey from Ur to Canaan; the people of Israel’s 40-year sojourn in the wilderness (forty years to make a two-week trip…); and the fairly constant traveling done by Jesus and his disciples, and later Paul and the apostles. Travel is where the rubber meets the road in the Christian life.

The life of an apostle (you and me!) is a life on mission, and as Jesus, Paul and others lived it, that was often a life on the road. Travel involves leaving home – and coming home. That is a good description of the life of a Jesus-follower: we are ever called away from the familiar and comfortable to encounters that delight us, challenge us, stretch us, teach us, and often bless us. And while we are moving in and out of these border-crossing encounters, we are also gradually making our way home – not to the homes we live in in this life, but the Home where God-Life is all. Like the heroes of faith listed in Hebrews 11, we should never mistake the homes we dwell in for that ultimate Home which is our long-term destination.

The Christian life, like travel, is often richer when done with others. Relationships spring up naturally when we’re on the move; we might find ourselves talking to, eating with, sight-seeing with people we’d never encounter at home. The same can be said of our life in Christian community: we become close to people we’d never naturally come to know, and share the journey into faith with them.

Comparing travel to our life in Christ, we might think of the Bible as our guidebook. It describes places we have not been, and those descriptions are not the same as being there. And when we do get there, we find our experiences confirmed in reading the witness of those saints who have gone before.

Travel opens us, sometimes in uncomfortable ways and often joyously. So does our life as a follower of Christ. No matter where we are, we have the chance to encounter God on the road. It might be in navigating a challenge, or being kept safe from harm, or praying to be kept safe from harm, or in an encounter with another person, or in a “mountaintop” experience of great beauty and grandeur… God is in all of it, and often quite specifically. Every journey can lead us closer to the One who made us. So… bon voyage!

8-5-21 - Bread For the World

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

In his “I am the bread of life” discourse, Jesus becomes increasingly, alarmingly precise. He moves from “I am the bread of life” to “I am the bread that came down from heaven” to “I am the living bread that came down from heaven,” and finally to this astonishing statement: “… the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

We will explore next week how graphically Jesus “fleshes this out” and becomes yet more controversial. Today let’s stay with this idea – that his flesh is bread that he will give for the life of the world. What connections and responses does that evoke in us?

For sacramentally oriented Christians, it is easy to read back into Jesus’ words a eucharistic connotation. Beneath that is the sacrificial understanding of his crucifixion, that something life-saving, world-transforming occurred in Jesus’ offering of himself and his brutal death, something that broke the hold of sin and death upon humankind for ever.

In these words are also written the story of his incarnation – God choosing to save the world through flesh and blood. For some people, that is the most radical idea of all – that the One who is Spirit came into Flesh in order to redeem flesh. We have no salvation without the Holy Spirit, but also none without Jesus becoming human being, healing the human condition from the inside out.

And God still works through flesh. We, gathered at the communion table (even virtually), become the bread of life, and the Spirit of Christ now dwells in our frail and fallible flesh to make known the love of God to the world. It is simultaneously a huge responsibility, for we must be willing and show up, and none at all, for it remains God’s work, accomplished once and for all by Jesus on the Cross, and worked out in the world through us, one encounter at a time.

Do you bring your body into this faith life along with your mind and spirit? Are you willing to be the embodiment of God's love to those whom you meet today? We might begin the day by opening our arms in a big gesture of offering and openness to the Spirit, even kneeling in humility.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, when humankind demonstrated how profoundly “flesh” is capable of destroying the world. And in the Christian calendar, it is the Feast of the Transfiguration, when Jesus’ spiritual nature was briefly revealed to three of his followers as he shone with God-light. It is because he was God and Man that he was living bread that saves. It is as we take his life into our flesh that we too become bread for the world that can heal instead of destroy.

8-4-21 - Eternity

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

For centuries, the key selling point for becoming a Christian was the guarantee of a life that never ends. In a culture that has managed to increase the average life span to eight, nine, even ten decades, that isn’t the draw it once was. I meet quite a few churchgoers who assume they’ll just be pushing up daisies when they die.

On the other hand, technologies to prolong life, retain youth, maintain consciousness, move to another planet, store yourself for awakening at a later, greater time continue to be developed – and sell for a lot of money. Maybe people aren’t so ready to let go of life.

Jesus said eternal life can be ours without signing away our life’s savings. It can be ours through believing in him:
"Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die."

All the blessings the people of God had known, he says, even a blessing as great as manna in the desert, were temporal. The only truly lasting, eternal gift is the bread of life – and that, Jesus said, was him, available to those who believe. That’s too hard for some; they don’t want to just take him at his word. After all, they can’t see Jesus; but they’re willing to plunk down millions for a place in a cryogenics pod.

Is it really so hard to believe that promise? Jesus makes it easy for us. We don’t even have to wait until we’re dead to begin to see the fruits of what we’ve signed up for. The power that raised Christ from the dead becomes a part of our lives in the here and now. The peace that transcends understanding becomes woven into our dealings with the world. The presence of God already surrounds and transforms us more and more into the likeness of Christ.

And as we allow those gifts to work in us, we become better able to manifest the love that we’re told is to mark the Christian community in this world, and will be the sole currency in the life to come, where all will be love. When no one lacks for anything, and no one prefers one person or thing to another, there are no impediments to love.

How does eternity sound to you? Inviting? Scary? Tedious? Exciting?

When we begin to see our lives, our travails and challenges, and even joys from the perspective of eternity, the bad things don’t look as daunting, and the good we recognize as foretastes of the feast to come. This life is but an antechamber to the palace in which we will dwell – a beautiful antechamber, but just the beginning of the glory in store for us.

8-3-21 - Where Did He Say He Was From?

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

Often, when a popular public figure starts making comments that are just too outrageous, a movement will kick in to cut them down to size. We certainly see that process unfold when Jesus begins to talk about being the “bread that came down from heaven.”

People who had come to him, eager for his teaching, waiting for his next miracle, now start to grumble.

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

Knowing Jesus’ roots, they couldn’t stomach what sounded like grandiose claims. In fairness to the grumblers, his words do sound far-fetched, especially if you know his human ancestry and have no reason to guess divine origins. Much of the Gospel of John chronicles people exploring and confronting Jesus’ claims of connection with God the Father. But he lays it out quite clearly and boldly:

Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.”

This is more outrageous still! Jesus rests his authority on his divine Son-ship – and says that if anyone fails to discern his Son-ship, that person has not been drawn by the Father. For those who believe Jesus is indeed the Son of God, that makes perfect sense. For those who don’t, this circular reasoning just makes him sound all the more mad, and more than a little manipulative.

And there it is: the life, teachings, actions, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ make sense if you believe that he came from the Father and returned to the Father, and that he is entitled to call God “Father.” If you don’t buy that, if you see him solely as a human creature, he is someone to be feared, not revered. Given that, the fact that so many billions across so many centuries have recognized Jesus’ divine origins lends some support to the truth we claim about this one who said he was Truth itself.

So how do we make this Truth known to the people around us? Should we bother? I say we introduce him as the friend and redeemer we know, and ask the Holy Spirit to make the spiritual introduction that initiates faith. We don't have to convince, only bear witness, in our actions as well as words.

We have not seen the Father. But we have seen Jesus, and can know Jesus. And in Him, God is.

8-2-21 - No Hunger, No Thirst

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

When Jesus says that he is the bread of life, he also makes a big claim: “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Is he only speaking figuratively? On the face of it, it would seem so. Many people believe and yet experience hunger or thirst on a regular basis, physical and emotional as well as spiritual. We have not received all that we need so that we have no wants. Or have we?

The realm of God is an already/not yet place. Often we focus too much on the not-yet, when Jesus’ message in word and action was “It’s already here, folks! This God who loves you is near, is here, with power to heal and to provide.” The healings and the miracle of the loaves and fish were yet more ways to show that this Good News has implications in our material lives here and now, not only in our spirits. Even in the face of persecution, Jesus taught, God provides. How hard it is to trust that! Those trust muscles need to be developed and then exercised.

If anyone had reason to be thirsty, it was Rosie, a woman I met at a nursing home where I used to do a monthly service. She often added to my homilies, conveying my point better and more eloquently than I did. She lived semi-reclined in a wheelchair, and looked to me to be in her mid-40s. And she was radiant, always smiling, grateful. One time I had spoken about the living water of Christ always within us, and she said, “I know about that living water. Before I knew Jesus I had this emptiness inside me, nothing could fill it. But the moment I learned about him and said yes to faith, I felt full. Now I always feel full of God, all the time, no matter what.”

Rosie’s “no matter what” is particularly challenging, living in a nursing home, confined to a wheelchair. I’m sure she had other plans for her life. But her joy is palpable. That living water of Holy Spirit life truly runs in her and causes her to be focused on other people, on spreading God's joy and peace.

St. Paul put it well: “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:11-13)

We have received the bread of life; we renew that awareness around the communion table. We have received the water of life; Jesus promises it is like a stream welling up within us to eternity. As Rosie knows, eternity has already begun. Be fed, be quenched, be blessed. God-Life is already!