Water Daily: March 2022

4-1-22 - It's About Jesus

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

Was ever a saying of Jesus' more often misconstrued, with such devastating consequences? When Judas protests that the cost of the ointment Mary “wasted” on Jesus could have fed the poor, Jesus defends Mary: Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

That one reference to the persistence of poverty has led some to a “so, why bother?” stance about remedying economic inequality. Others have gone so far as to see in those seven words a mandate for poverty, despite the full record of Jesus’ pronouncements about justice and giving in the gospels. I actually heard someone quote these words and say Jesus does not want us to help the poor.

Such an interpretation makes a mockery of the Good News, which Jesus said he came to proclaim to the poor, as well as to other marginalized groups. The imperative to share our resources so that no one is in need, an ideal oft proclaimed by the prophets of Israel (and briefly achieved in the early church, according to Acts 4…) should be a driving force for Christians engaged in God’s mission to reclaim, restore, and renew all people to wholeness in Christ. In God’s realm no one is defined by how much or how little she has, but by his belovedness.

An even deeper distortion of the first seven words of that sentence can result when the second seven get ignored. That was the main point Jesus was trying to make – that his presence in human, embodied form was finite and soon to end. Those who emphasize the “social gospel” and Jesus’ love for the poor, as though he did not equally value the humanity in those with resources and privilege, can be in as great a danger of misinterpretation. It is Jesus who matters, more than his teaching and example and ministry and power. When we reduce him to “teacher” or “moral example,” social worker” or even “healer,” we miss the most important part of his identity: Son of God, Redeemer, right here in your living room.

Mary, better than anyone else there, seemed to grasp what was happening: that Jesus, in the way they had known and come to love him, would soon be dead and gone. She alone understood that it was about him, all about Jesus, and she expressed that insight in a profoundly sacramental action.

Can we value him that much? Can we make Jesus our priority? Spend time with him, seek his counsel, ask to be filled with his Spirit, make him known among the people in need whom we encounter? I’m pretty sure that if more Christians put Jesus first, our hearts would be so transformed we could not tolerate poverty or injustice, violence or warfare. As Gandhi famously observed, if Christians were more like Christ, there would be a lot more of them. (That’s a paraphrase; the actual quote and its context can be found here.)

If more Christians put Jesus first, I suspect there would be a lot more of us too.

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3-31-22 - Anointing

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

When Mary of Bethany poured a full jar of expensive oil of nard all over Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair, she wasn’t just trying to relax him with a little aromatherapy. She was anointing him, while she still could, guessing that his time on earth was short. Nard, an essential oil derived from spikenard, a flowering plant in the Valerian family (thanks, Wikipedia…) had many uses, although, except for a reference in the Iliad to its use in perfuming a body, it does not appear to have had funerary use. The spices brought after Jesus’ crucifixion were a mixture of myrrh and aloes.

Yet Jesus answers Mary’s critics with this cryptic observation: “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.”

The Bible relates many kinds of anointing – of priests and prophets, of kings and kings-to-be; anointing for healing; the hint of anointing in baptism; and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. This act of Mary’s doesn’t fit any of those categories. And if she bought the oil for Jesus’ burial, why does she use it all now?

Knowing the danger he was in, perhaps she wanted him to feel in a tactile way the love of those who surrounded him. Perhaps she had a sense of the horrors ahead, and wanted him to have one moment of pampering. Perhaps she wanted to show the others how to give it all. Perhaps she thought the day of his burial would be too late to do him any good.

And six days later, Jesus will be washing the feet of his disciples, perhaps inspired by this incident? He will let them know in a tactile way what love feels like, the love of one who lays aside his power and prerogatives for the beloved. They don’t really understand then, any more than they likely understood Mary’s gesture. But later they would.

Who in our lives needs to feel our love in that way? Who needs us to relinquish power or privilege and give of our time, our gifts, our pride? Maybe someone to whom we are close; maybe someone we don’t know at all.

Feet are intimate, way too much so for many people; some churches wash hands instead of feet on Maundy Thursday. That breaks my heart a little: intimacy is the point. Being met at the place of our least attractive feature is the point. Being pampered and loved – and yes, anointed – is how God makes effective saints out of ordinary people. All it requires is submitting to love. Even Jesus did that.

3-30-22 - What a Waste

You can listen to this reflection here.

I am not a fan of the hugely generous gesture, someone sacrificing everything to help someone else, or to serve God. I probably would have told St. Francis of Assisi, “Why don’t you leave most of it behind? Why all of it? Don’t you want a little insurance?” Everything in moderation, right? Even sacrificial giving.

So I’m not in particularly nice company this week – for the person in our story who articulates this more pragmatic way of thinking about resources is none other than Judas: But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”

In an aside John tells us that Judas didn’t actually care about the poor, but wanted to steal the offering for himself. How about we give him the benefit of the doubt? Maybe he actually did care about the poor, actually did care about the radical equality that Jesus was preaching, actually did want to see the revolution come to pass. To someone with economic justice on his mind, Mary’s extravagant gesture could seem an unconscionable waste of resources. Three hundred denarii’s worth of high-priced perfumed oil on one person’s feet? Stinking up the whole house?

It is outrageous, when you think about it as stewardship. It makes no sense. About as much sense as it made for God to offer up that One who was most precious to him, his only begotten Son. About as much sense as it made for that Son to take upon himself the catastrophic estrangement which was our due as those who rebelled against God; to give up his position, his dignity, his life.

One grey and rainy Good Friday I found myself in New York City’s Union Square after the three-hour preaching of the Cross at Grace Church. Everything was dingy and dirty; everybody looked harried and downcast, me included. And I thought, “For this? You gave it all for this miserable lot? What a waste.”

Yes, what a waste; what ridiculous extravagance, to kill the Son of God so that we might be free dwell in love with God for all eternity. As that beautiful hymn, My Song is Love Unknown, says, “Love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be. Oh, who am I, that for my sake, my Lord should take frail flesh and die?”

Becoming a person who can offer it all starts with our willingness to accept that Christ has given it all for us; to accept that we are that precious to God, that God finds us worthy because God said so, not because of anything we think or do or say. Perhaps today we might meditate on that extravagant, profligate, wasteful, over-the-top love lavished upon us, try to let it soak into our bones, into our spirits, into all the dents the world’s “no’s” have left in us.

You are loved, beyond measure, beyond sense. Deal with it!

3-29-22 - Extravagant Love

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

There are some who suggest that Jesus of Nazareth was not the celibate religious leader depicted in the Gospels, that he was intimately involved with, perhaps even married to Mary Magdalene. Certainly, a married religious leader would have been more normal in that place and time than a celibate, but the Gospels convey not the slightest suggestion that Jesus was romantically linked to anyone.

And had he been, my candidate for the identity of the lucky girl would be not Mary of Magdala, but Mary of Bethany. She’s the one who neglected her household duties to sit at his feet, taking in his teaching while her sister prepared a meal alone (Luke 10:38-42). When Jesus finally arrived days after their brother Lazarus had died, he asks for Mary. And when she comes to him and gently rebukes him for having arrived too late, it is her tears, and those of onlookers, which appear to move him to action (John 11). There is no reason to imagine their connection went beyond friendship, but it seems to have been a deep one.

This is evident in the enormous intimacy and generosity of Mary’s gesture at the dinner in her home in this week's story:

Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

This act is shocking on several levels. First, there is the intimacy of anointing Jesus’ feet, well beyond the expected hospitality of washing the feet of one’s guests. Mary's using her hair to wipe the oil suggests such physical closeness it must have made onlookers uncomfortable. And to kneel at someone’s feet and tend to them with your own hands and hair is a posture of profound worship and devotion.

Then there is the shocking extravagance, wastefulness even, of using the entire jar of ointment. Nard was extremely precious and very potent; no one would need a whole jar for one use. Learning that the house was filled with the fragrance tells us how excessive this gesture was.

And its very excess is what commends Mary’s action to us. She holds nothing back, not for economy or propriety. Spiritually connected to Jesus in a way few others are, she acts upon her instinctive knowledge that his time among them is coming to an end and seizes the opportunity to demonstrate her great love for him while he is yet with her.

We are in a different situation – Jesus is not going anywhere; in fact, we’re waiting for him to return in fullness. But our time in this world is limited. Don’t we want to fully embrace God’s love in the here and now?

Where in our lives do we hold back on expressing our love for Jesus, for God? Do we content ourselves with the hour or so a week we spend in church; the amounts we give that stretch our budgets but little; short prayers at the beginning and end of the day and anytime a crisis arises in between?

And in what ways do we lavish our time and resources on God and God’s people? Can we think of times when we have left nothing in reserve? Those are occasions.

Mary demonstrated her extravagant worship in both quality and quantity. She held nothing back, lavishing love and care on her Lord. How might we love Jesus the way she did?

3-28-22 - Friends in Bethany

You can listen to this reflection here.

The gospels say little about Jesus’ friendships. We see some of his interactions with disciples, but other than a few exchanges with Peter, those tend to be group encounters. Yet there is one family, at least according to Luke and John, with whom Jesus had a particularly close relationship: the two sisters and one brother from Bethany who appear in at least three stories in those two gospels.

Our passage this week begins with an almost comically understated reference to Jesus' connection with this family: Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.

This casual aside about Lazarus – “Oh, you know who I mean, the guy Jesus raised from the dead” is followed by the prosaic, “They gave a dinner for him.” Let's hope they did a lot more than that! We are told that Martha served, which might seem an inconsequential detail were it not for that brief but penetrating vignette in Luke’s gospel about another time Martha cooked and served dinner for Jesus, and got a lesson in priorities. We learn so much about her in that story, and here she is, serving dinner again.

The other sister, Mary, is the main character in this week’s reading, and we’ll introduce her tomorrow. What intrigues me as we begin to explore this short tale is the glimpse it gives us into Jesus’ social life. He had thousands of followers, and some close associates, but his peripatetic life and the increasing danger in which he found himself – John tells us this is six days before the Passover, the final Passover Jesus will celebrate in his worldly life – no doubt made it difficult to form and maintain friendships. This family seems to have been a place of refuge and friendship for him, and his humanity is more vivid for me seeing him rooted in this web of sibling relationships with distinct personalities.

If we think of Jesus often at the dinner table in that household in Bethany, we might more easily imagine him as a guest at our table. And I believe that is where he wants to be - invited into our homes and lives, welcome at the table as we eat, on the couch as we relax, accompanying us as we work and exercise and play and recharge and interact with the people in our lives. This story reminds us that Jesus’ love is universal, and also always particular as we receive him.

He came for you, and for me. And as George Herbert so memorably articulated, he expects us to eat with him.

Love (III) - George Herbert (1593-1633)

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back

Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,

If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:

Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful?

Ah my dear, I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame

Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?

My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:

So I did sit and eat.

3-25-22 - Found and Lost

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

It has been hard to pack all we might say about this powerful parable into five days. (To go deeper, I recommend Henri Nouwen’s classic, The Return of the Prodigal Son, which explores this story and especially its three main characters through the lens of Rembrandt’s painting of the same name.)

We haven’t spent nearly enough time on this “prodigal father,” whose extravagant forgiveness and restoration of his wastral son strikes some as no less wasteful than that son’s squandering of his inheritance. First among those who feel that way is the father’s elder son, who gets wind of the reunion and is horrified:

“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’”

For the second time that day, the father goes out to meet a son where he is, not waiting for him to come in. He loves his sons equally – and that in itself is an affront to this elder boy who has faithfully served and done everything right. In his view, his father should love him more, for he has earned it.

And in this view he has a lot of company. When I ask people to whom they relate in this parable, most say the older brother. We like fairness. We like earning our way. Yet Jesus made it clear in parable after parable that the Realm of God is a place not of fairness but grace. Grace extended to others, undeserving others – and grace by its definition comes to the undeserving – can make us feel cheated.

But God’s economy is one of abundance. Had the elder brother asked for a party, he could have had one every week. But how can he expect the father to love his other son less? The father’s love is a full measure, pressed down, overflowing. As I once sensed God say to me in prayer, “I already love you the most. There is nothing you have to do, or can do, to make me love you more – I love you the most.”

“Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

Jesus leaves the story unresolved. Does the elder son relent, allow grace to flow into him? Or does he define himself “lost” by his hardness of heart, like the religious leaders to whom Jesus was likely referring? And what about us? Are we willing to count ourselves “found” if the company includes people we would have trouble forgiving? What if we let God do it for us?

3-24-22 - Home Comes To Us

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

As a teenager, I was enthralled with the movie Love Story, with its famous tagline, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” That kind of statement can pretty much only be made after someone’s just said, “I’m sorry…” A more accurate statement would be, “Love means always having to say you’re sorry.” We need always be aware of the ways in which we hurt or fail to notice our loved ones’ feelings. Learning to say you’re sorry quickly and naturally is one of the building blocks of a healthy relationship.

Yet working up to “I’m sorry” is often a struggle. Once we’ve wrestled through our self-justifications and acknowledged the need, we often find ourselves rehearsing, trying to find the right words. That’s exactly what the young man in Jesus’ story does: writes his speech ahead of time. “I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’” So he set off and went to his father.

When we head off to ask forgiveness of another person, we can never be sure of the reception we’ll get. This young man, who’d in effect disowned his father, probably caused him to liquidate assets at a loss, may have assumed his father had disowned him. When we offer repentance, we have to simply offer it, and be willing to lay it down and walk away. We can’t compel forgiveness or even a hearing.

Ah, but Jesus tells us that it’s different with God. If this story is a picture of what the realm of God is like, we should take notice of what happens next: forgiveness doesn’t wait for this young man to express his sorrow. Forgiveness is out in the road, waiting for him: But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.

The son tries to make his speech, but his father is way ahead of him: But the father said to his servants, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!”

Was the father peering down that road every day, hoping against hope to see his son return? Did he even care if the boy was sorry, or did he only want to be reunited with his beloved? Does God really love us that much?

Jesus said “yes.” Jesus showed us “yes,” just how much God loves us. Jesus left Home and came into our road to wait for us. We don’t even have to get home – Home comes to us, with royal robes and sandals for our tired feet. This is one “I’m sorry” for which we don’t have to doubt the reception. We only need to turn ourselves toward home.

3-23-22 - Return to Self

You can listen to this reflection here.

This week's gospel story works well with people in recovery from addiction. They can relate to a guy who leaves home, loses everything and finds himself starving in a pig pen. Millennia before 12-step groups were developed, Jesus found perfect language to describe hitting bottom:

When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’” So he set off and went to his father.

The line that grabs me is “But when he came to himself….” It so economically describes what happens when we’ve gone off the rails, deep into toxic behaviors or thinking – it’s like we’ve parted ways with our true self. The first step of reconciliation is to return to ourselves and welcome ourselves home.

This young man suddenly saw himself and his surroundings clearly. He recognized the truth of what had happened, where his choices had brought him. Sure, he didn’t cause the famine, but the choices he’d made since leaving home had left him with no resources to weather it. And when he saw himself for who he was, he remembered who he had been, the status he had given up when he estranged himself from his family. In a moment of true humility, he also saw clearly that he had forfeited that status forever. Formulating a plan to get out of his dire straits, he did not presume to regain his sonship, but resolved to beg his father to allow him to be a servant in his old house.

True repentance begins when we stop blaming other people, our history and circumstances for where we find ourselves now. That can be one of the hardest steps to take, to accept where we are, regardless of whose choices helped get us there. Certainly our own choices played a part, and that’s where we start the road toward reconciliation.

Today let’s take stock of what “pig pens” we endure in our lives. Where are we stuck in patterns that keep us from thriving? Who do we need to forgive or get out of the way of? What are we clinging to? What are we using to anesthetize us from pain and the real work of healing into which the Spirit invites us?

I know how to wallow, and how to compartmentalize my life. Yet Jesus invites me, with this young man, to take the risk of true humility and clarity. And as I reconnect with my deepest self, he beckons me to find my way home.

3-22-22 - Independence

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

Growing up can be described as one long, push-and-pull struggle for independence. We strive to be seen for who we are, separate from our parents and their expectations and desires. Psychologists call this process individuation, and how one navigates it has great bearing on the maturity and self-integrity one has as an adult. Pushing out and pulling back enact a basic inner conflict we all share: We want to be our own person, and we want to be enfolded in Home, be it real or idealized. And we can’t have both.

Some people push out harder than others. The young man in the story Jesus told pushed farther than many – he not only struck out on his own, he pretty much burned his bridges.

[Jesus said] “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.”

Asking for his inheritance before his father had even died was tantamount to wishing the old man dead. And going to a distant country was a way of saying to those at home, “I’m getting as far away from you as I can. I can take care of myself.” Only it turns out he couldn’t – he lacked the maturity to spend his inheritance wisely. He squandered it living the high life, no doubt buying drinks for any number of hangers-on who disappeared as soon as his cash was gone. This young man went as far away from Home as he could.

Was he rebelling against his father? The three glimpses we get of this father show him to be a wise and compassionate man, excelling in grace with his difficult sons. Was this young man’s behavior a response to losing his mother - Jesus mentions none. Or was this son reacting to the rectitude of his older brother, whom we learn is obedient to a fault? Some schools of psychology root personality development in sibling relationships as much as parental ones. Did this “goody two shoes” take all the gold stars, leaving his younger brother to define himself by rebellion?

Here I go again, treating this like a real story. As of course it is, in one way or another.

How is it real for you? Where do you find yourself in this younger son?
When have you rebelled, and against who or what? In what ways do you try go it alone, to make it on self-saving strategies rather than relying on God and community?
Are you comfortable in being the person you are, or do you feel incomplete?

Our God desires wholeness for us, within ourselves, and in our relationships with others. Often that requires knowing where we are “unwhole” – and unholy. If you feel like making a conscious a self-examination, here is a form you can download to help think through the areas of your life.

We may not be squandering our property in riotous living, but I dare say most of us are some distance from the Love that made us and calls us home. Awareness of what is causing that distance will help reduce it.

3-21-22 - Eating With Sinners

You can listen to this reflection here.

Oh joy! This week we get to reflect of the best stories in the entire bible: Jesus’ parable about a man and his two sons, and their very different approaches to sin and forgiveness. This story is told in such vivid detail, some forget it is a parable; they think it really happened. In some ways, it did, and does, every single day. But it is a tale Jesus made up to enlighten the religious leaders who looked askance at the company he kept:

Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." So Jesus told them this parable: "There was a man who had two sons…”

Before we get into the details of the story, let’s think about the context in which it is being told, which also provides the reason. Jesus wasn’t just spinning a cool yarn, he was making a point in narrative form, in a story which he knew would have resonances for all his hearers. The context was the fact that many of the people responding to Jesus’ invitation to “Come, follow me,” were the wrong sorts of people, tax collectors and sinners. Good Lord!

Remember, tax collectors in that day had little in common with IRS auditors; they were Jews who collected the Romans’ taxes for them, often strong-arming their fellow Jews and adding on a hefty surcharge for their own “fees.” They were corrupt and often extortionist, and hated as collaborators with the occupying empire. The term “sinners” probably included low-lifes, petty thieves, prostitutes and party girls – those who did not measure up in fidelity to the law and traditions as well as did the religious leaders.

So Jesus tells a story about one son who is quite obviously a sinner who has strayed far from God’s ways, who comes to repentance and is forgiven; and another son who does everything right – except for his utter inability to show mercy. And that just might exceed other forms of sin in its virulence. Those who point at others and label them sinners are often the ones most in need of God’s grace and least able to accept it.

Before we enter the story, let’s take some time to think about who it is that we regard as “sinners.” For few are so full of God’s grace that they don’t find one sort of person or other offensive. We might be fine with tax collectors and prostitutes, but have trouble with hypocritical candidates, or people who would exterminate beautiful animals for sport, or the ultra-wealthy, or terrorists, or … you name it. Who is it that you have trouble forgiving, even accepting that God might forgive? Make a list today.

We need to know who it is that we label “sinners” so that we might contemplate eating with them. That’s what Jesus did. He hung out with those whom others thought unworthy. He was able to stomach some pretty rough company – and by breaking bread with such people and offering relationship, to lead them to repentance and transformation.

When you think about it, every Sunday Jesus breaks bread with a bunch of sinners. And he hasn’t kicked us out yet.

3-18-22 - The Gardener

You can listen to this reflection here.

The more I reflect on this parable Jesus told, the more I like this gardener. To the owner who wants to cut down a fig tree that has borne no fruit for three years, he says this: “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”

I appreciate Jesus highlighting a character who has both compassion and inclination to think strategically about how to remedy a situation. Rather than blaming the victim and diverting resources, this gardener thinks in transformational terms. He is also realistic. He knows sometimes you can improve a situation and do your best to get resources where they’re needed, and still end up fruitless. Anyone who has ever worked with addicts or people stuck in ruts of chronic poverty recognizes that heartbreak. And yet, such workers also see transformation of people and lives – that’s what keeps them digging and fertilizing, tending and watering.

As I read the parable again (remembering that we can see it differently from one time to the next), I see the gardener as Jesus, who came that we might have life and have it in abundance, who yearned for his followers to bear abundant fruit. Though he could be ruthless with the powerful and self-righteous, he was both clear and compassionate with those who struggled with failure. He invited the broken and the sinful into relationship, offering forgiveness and friendship and the opportunity to serve others. (My churches will read one such gospel story this Sunday.) And one by one those who followed him became transformed and fruitful. The extra care and time yielded fruit.

Jesus has done the same for us. We may not always want his hand reaching toward us; we’d rather he kept his digging and fertilizing for someone else. Other times we’re well aware of how much like that fig tree we are. What Good News it is to know we have a gardener who wants to tend and nurture us to greater growth. Just accepting that News can strengthen our roots, as we’re humble enough to receive it.

Two images of gardener come to us from our scriptures. One is in the story of creation in Genesis, when we’re told that, after creating the first human being, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.” Humankind’s original purpose was to be a gardener.

The other image, which I cannot but hold together with this first, comes on the first day of the new creation, Easter morning, when the resurrected Jesus stood in a garden speaking to one of those reclaimed fig trees, Mary Magdalene. She didn’t recognize him; she thought he was the gardener. Perhaps she was right.

3-17-22 - Fertilizer

You can listen to this reflection here.

The landowner in the story Jesus told about the unfruitful fig tree makes a very harsh assessment about this tree: It is wasting the soil. The response of his gardener is to deal not with the tree, but with the soil:

"So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"

This gardener is a believer in second chances, in improving the conditions in which something (or someone…) can thrive. He does not blame the tree; he does not think it is squandering the very soil in which it sits. He thinks the soil needs some improvement, some aerating, so water and carbon can get to the roots of the tree. And he thinks it needs fertilizing, to add nutrients and catalyze growth.

I am not a biologist, but I am fascinated by the efficiency of eco-systems, whether within the human body or in the natural world. The way limbs and leaves fall and decay, generating nutrients which help bring about new growth in the next season is but one example of organic economy. Nothing is wasted – even waste products.

The same can be true of our lives. In what ways has the “manure” generated in your life functioned to fertilize new growth? Often we don’t want to look at our emotional waste – it’s ugly and smelly and dark, like the biological kind. We’d rather flush it away. But what if we invited God to help us use that matter for growth? What if we asked what use that failed relationship or thwarted professional venture could possibly be for our future fruitfulness?

Here I’m venturing into icky territory, but I am fascinated by the uses which medicine is finding for human waste. The careful reintroduction of “cleaned” excrement back into someone’s system can restore the balance of gut biomes, resolve ailments like C.diff and celiac disease, and possibly even cure conditions such as MS. (Here is a compelling and easy to read New Yorker article from a few years back about medical uses of excrement.) I think there is a spiritual analogy here.

This is one purpose for repentance – not to wallow in our “manure,” but to bring into the light things of which we are not proud, to bring healing and redemption into our failures – and just maybe render them useful to us in the future. Left alone, they just accumulate and decay, building up noxious gases in our psyches. But when we aerate our soil, inviting in light and air, that which seems most useless can become the ground of new growth. We can do this in therapy, in the confessional, or both.

This is true of societal detritus as well as personal. Our attempts to flush away cultural sins such as racism and poverty have not brought healing. We need to reckon with the effects, address the horrors, feel the feelings if we hope to move through the trauma to a new way of being. This is the approach Restorative Justice takes – it can break cycles of vengeance and lead to freedom and new relationships. Maybe learning how to repurpose our waste – composting our failures – can result in the fruit of justice and peace.

3-16-22 - Fruitful

You can listen to this reflection here.

It is fashionable in both corporate and non-profit circles to talk about markers of effectiveness, data-driven strategies, measurable goals and outcomes. Jesus used one word for all of that: fruitful. “Each tree is known by its fruit,” he taught. (Luke 6:44). “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Matt 7:19). “No branch can bear fruit by itself.“ (John 15:4b). “I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” (John 15:16b).

And in this week's parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none.”

Anytime we want to evaluate our effectiveness as bearers of Christ and ministers of the Good News, there’s our criterion: are we bearing fruit, good fruit, fruit that will endure? That can be a highly subjective question – sometimes there’s lots of fruit, but not where we’re looking, or it’s not yet ripe, or doesn’t look like good fruit. And sometimes we think we’re rolling in fruit – like when numbers are up – and it turns out there isn’t much transformation going on. Fruitfulness is about more than productivity.

The marker of good fruit I look for is this: Are lives being changed? Are people turning their hearts God-ward and becoming less reliant on their own strength, or the traps and pitfalls this life throws our way? Are they becoming more gentle, more generous, more gracious? Are they less tolerant of injustice and inequity, and quicker to right a wrong?

Sometimes I feel the "fruit" is very scarce; I question whether all my activity is having any impact, yielding any transformation at all. In such times, I need to remember that I’m just a farm worker, helping to plant, weed, water and shade. The fruit itself is up to the Gardener, and sometimes we just need to get out of his way. Notice, the gardener in Jesus’ story was all for giving the fig tree another year.

There are also seasons. There is a song I like called “Desert Song” which talks about praising God in all circumstances (here; song begins at about 2.35) – its bridge says,
All of my life in every season you are still God,
I have a reason to sing, I have a reason to worship.” And the last verse goes,

And this is my prayer in the harvest, When favour and providence flow,

I know I'm filled to be emptied again; the seed I've received I will sow.

We need to be faithful to the work, adjusting our approach as God leads, but we cannot control the harvest.

When you look around your life, what feels fruitful? Where are you making God connections? How are you growing in faith? And what feels stunted and not growing? Can you have a conversation with God about that?

Though fruit can be counted, it’s not really until we take a bite that you know whether or not it’s any good. As tempting as it is to measure ourselves and others by worldly standards, only God is entitled to judge us. He might prune our branches or dig around us, but we can be sure God is invested in our bearing beautiful fruit.

3-15-22 - Figs in a Vineyard?

You can listen to this reflection here.

Jesus had a strange relationship to fig trees. One of the most negative uses of divine power recorded in the Gospels comes when he curses a fig tree that has no fruit on it, though the writers tell us it was not the season for figs. Now, after reminding his listeners that they are called to repent and return to the Lord, he tells this mystifying parable:

“A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

We will play with this parable this week, exploring what Jesus was saying about the ways of God and his own mission of redemption. Parables invite us to ask questions, to interpret them one way and then turn them upside down and see them entirely differently. So let's start with the first question that pops into my mind: Why is the fig tree planted in a vineyard? Do fig trees belong in vineyards? Is the vineyard the world? Is Jesus saying his followers are to bear fruit in challenging circumstances?

And who or what does the fig tree represent? Is it the religious system into which Judaism had evolved by Jesus’ time, a constrained and codified system of sacrifice and legalism? Or is that represented by the vineyard? Who is the “man” – God the Father? Is Jesus the gardener?

Or let’s flip it: is Jesus the fig tree who, after three years of ministry, still isn’t seeing the kind of fruit he was hoping to? Is cutting the fig tree a reference to his own death? Or is he talking about his often-clueless disciples?

Going beyond what Jesus may have meant, how does this parable play if we put ourselves into it? Our churches? Are we bearing the kind of fruit the Gardener wants? Are we planted in the right place? Are there any areas of our lives in which we are “wasting the soil?”

There is no one right answer or one right interpretation. Jesus taught in parables to invite his followers to see things in new ways, from new angles. Read the parable over to yourself today, and see what fruit emerges. And then do it again tomorrow – it may yield something entirely different, like finding a fig tree among the grapevines.

3-14-22 - Bringing Life Out of Suffering

You can listen to this reflection here.

If the only impression we got of Jesus came from this week’s Gospel passage, he may not have attracted many followers. When asked about some of the great tragedies of his day, he seems to sweep aside the suffering involved and make of each example a warning to repent:

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

Going back to chapter 12, we can see Jesus is already pretty wound up. “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!,” he says. He’s told parables about being ready to give account when the end comes. So maybe he’s not in the mood for philosophizing. When told about what appears to have been a particularly sacrilegious atrocity committed by the Roman governor, he says those Galileans were not singled out for punishment by God – God doesn’t work that way. But he is quick to point out that everyone listening is vulnerable to eternal death unless they repent and choose eternal life in Christ. Similarly with some people who were killed in an accident; they were no worse sinners than anyone else, nor being punished – “but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” By “perish” Jesus is not talking about physical death, but a spiritual one.

This passage makes it clear that God does not visit suffering upon people, and certainly does not punish through tragedy. God is in the business of life, not death. So we can cite Jesus to those who suggest, when a child dies, that “God wanted another angel,” or “Everything happens for a reason.” It may or it may not. We are to go deeper than the mystery of tragedy and loss. Jesus is saying, “More important than why someone suffers or dies is this: What eternal choice are you going to make? Are you going to repent – i.e., turn from living on your own terms to living on God’s terms, and live? Or are you going to continue to live as though this world is all there is, and ultimately perish?

Atrocities and horrible accidents will likely shadow us this side of glory; our news feeds are full of them. Most often they are the results of humans exercising free will, even natural disasters brought about by climate change. We can invite those making harmful choices to repent, and acknowledge our own complicity when needed.

More importantly, each time we encounter suffering, we have an opportunity to proclaim God’s goodness in the face of it, and invite people to choose life over death. God does not promise protection from harm. God promises a Life that goes beyond life into infinity, a Life in God’s presence, a Life that begins in the here and now and continues long after we have ceased to draw breath. As we live more deeply into that Life, we have more to offer in the face of tragedy.

I once saw a Salvation Army ad depicting relief workers in the aftermath of a hurricane. The caption read: “We meet natural disasters with acts of God.” That's how we can bring life into suffering.

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3-11-22 - The Soil, Not the Tree

You can listen to this reflection here.

My congregations are doing a worship series this year, Lent: A Season For Growing, which explores trees as a metaphor for spiritual growth. Many Sundays we are deviating from the lectionary. On those weeks, Friday’s Water Daily will focus on my chosen gospel reading. This week that is a short parable Jesus told about an unfruitful fig tree. (Ironically, this passage is in the lectionary for March 20, and will occupy much of Water Daily next week). Here's the story:

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”

Is this story a warning or a promise – or both? Why are we talking about a fig tree in a vineyard? Is that where fig trees thrive best, or is its unfruitfulness due to its environment?

Let’s look at the owner of this vineyard: he is interested in results. He is not without patience – he’s watched this tree for three years – but eventually he wants some return on his investment or to cut his losses. (Or his tree, as the case may be.) Why not just “live and let live?” Because this tree is wasting the soil, taking nutrients away from other more viable plants. Is this owner Jesus, wanting his followers to bear fruit, impatient when they can’t seem to comprehend his teaching and dwell in the realm of God he's introduced?

What does the tree represent? Churches that are no longer fruitful, taking up common resources that could be better invested in worshipping communities with life and energy? Is it us, when we are “going through the motions” of a faith life, and not really opening ourselves to the life of God?

Or – is it not about the tree at all, but about its soil? The wise gardener proposes a phased approach: give it one more year, during which more attention can be paid to the soil – “let me dig round it and put manure on it.” Perhaps the poor tree is root-bound and needs its soil aerated so that it gets more light and water. Perhaps there is disease in the mychorrhizae surrounding the roots – the fungi, lichens, mosses and other organisms connecting the tree to a vast network of life. Perhaps it needs extra nutrients that the manure might provide.

Do you know people who are “unfruitful fig trees?” Maybe parts of yourself? The work of spiritual growth is that of soil-tending, making sure our roots are sunk deep into rich humus, with access to the water of life, well connected in a web of mutual giving and receiving. What would “digging around” look like for you? What would serve as manure? Give these questions some thought and prayer.

Is this story a warning or a promise – or both? Let’s take it as an invitation to stay intentional about our spiritual lives, focused on growing in faith and love and grace. Jesus offers some hope for this tree’s survival. Tend the soil, and you just may get a bumper crop of figs, even in a vineyard.

3-10-22 - Stoning the Prophets

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

Jesus’ observation on the outskirts of Jerusalem – often depicted as taking place on a hillside overlooking the city – is seen by many as a compassionate lament for the great city which had been for many centuries the center of Israel’s religious life. Maybe it’s that repetition of “Jerusalem,” and the hen thing, that make it sound that way.

But when we look at what he actually says, and what’s going on at the time, we can detect a more forceful, thwarted, even angry tone. Jesus is passing judgment on the ancient city, which he says has always excelled in missing the point, often violently so. After noting – with sarcasm? – that “it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem,” he goes on:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you.”

Israel’s history was replete with stories of prophets whose dire warnings of judgment to come went unheeded, who were rebuked, imprisoned, tortured and sometimes killed by the powers against whom they ranted. Prophets were considered holy men who spoke for God – unless their message was too harsh or unpopular, or perhaps conflicted with the message of another self-acclaimed prophet. Who’s to know who to believe? People will generally stay with the one whose message is most palatable, much in the way Americans can now choose which media from which to get their news, and what friends’ opinions are likely to show up on their Facebook feeds. We didn’t invent the closed feedback loop.

It’s awfully hard to know who is a true prophet until after the fact. But we have been given a fullness of revelation in Jesus Christ, and it’s not so hard to know him. Some who knew him in the flesh ultimately turned away from him, rejecting, betraying, even condemning him. What would we have done? Would we have recognized him as a true prophet or rejected him as one more disappointment, one more person out of touch with how the world really is, one more would-be prophet distorting God’s word? Go back and read the words of Jesus in the Gospels this week. What is he really saying? Do we accept his hard teachings, or dismiss him?

Jesus may have been uttering judgment upon Jerusalem, so soon to repeat its pattern of death-dealing, but we would be foolish if we thought this lament doesn’t apply to us too. Jerusalem was and is a place with a particular history and customs, but in the Bible it is also a symbolic place where God and humankind meet. The Book of Revelation speaks of the “new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven like a bride adorned for her husband.” Jerusalem represents the hope of reconciliation, of fidelity and obedience, of that mystical place where God himself will dwell, “and they shall be God’s people and God himself shall be with them.” (Revelation 21:1-4)

We can choose which Jerusalem we will be – the one that kills its prophets and stones its messengers, or the new Jerusalem where heaven and earth can truly meet. That is a place of courageous truth-telling and peace-making.

3-9-22 - Jesus the Brood Hen?

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

Those who are concerned about gender-inclusive language and imagery in the Bible often face a slog finding maternal or feminine terms. There is Spirit language that can skew feminine. Late Isaiah has a startling passage in which the restored Jerusalem is likened to a nursing mother, in quite graphic language. Paul writes about having been like a nurse or governess to a community he has been mentoring. But references are few and far between. So people tend to go nuts with this remark of Jesus’ about Jerusalem:

“How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…”

This is hardly a maternal scene, though. Jesus may desire to gather the children of Jerusalem like a hen gathers her brood, but he’s just noted their penchant for killing God’s messengers, and what follows this lovely, nurturing image is a stark negative: “…and you were not willing!”

If Jesus is expressing maternal feelings here, they are those of a mother who’s been rejected by her offspring (much as he brushed off his own motherwhen she tried to persuade him to stop all this foolishness and come home?). This is a thwarted mother, whose invitations to loving embrace have been rejected, who knows her beloved children are more than capable of turning on her next. Hardly the nurturing feminine imagery we are looking for.

Yet, a thwarted mother is not a bad way to convey God’s experience with a faithless people, and a good deal less jarring than the way the prophet Hosea depicts God, as a cuckolded husband. Most of us can relate to times when we pushed away our mothers or fathers and tried to go our own way. I still wince at how mean and “I can do it myself!” I was to my parents the day they drove me to college. Sometimes it’s the only way we can attain independence.

Whatever the context in which that phrase is uttered, the image has life for us: Jesus’ desire that God’s people would consent to be brooded over, to be gathered under God’s almighty wings. In that image, we are little fledglings, not fully able to take care of ourselves or protect ourselves. We like to think we’re big and tough and self-sufficient, but look at us from God’s perspective: we are barely hatched, trying to figure out how to move in a straight line. And Jesus desires to gather us in community, and hold us in his love.

Puts a whole new spin on Easter chicks, doesn’t it?

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3-8-22 - The Day After Tomorrow

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

If the Pharisees’ warning to Jesus about escaping Herod’s clutches was meant to scare him, it didn’t work: He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.’”

We've been told that Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem; the Pharisees seem to be trying to divert him. But he will be moved neither from his itinerary nor his agenda: the work of proclaiming and demonstrating the inbreaking Kingdom of God. His work of healing and deliverance is the work of the moment and the near future. And on the “third day” he must finish that work, showing the most complete revelation of God’s love to the world in what looks like complete defeat.

If they think he’s going to be swayed by threats of death, he makes it clear: the death he is to undergo – which, he says, could happen nowhere other than Jerusalem – is part of the work. I’m sure it made no sense to anyone listening to him, but it wasn’t the first time he’d said such things.

I’m intrigued by this repetition of “today, tomorrow and the third day,” “today, tomorrow and the next day.” It focuses our attention on time. For Christians the phrase “third day” always carries echoes of Easter Sunday. But here it may rather refer to living in the rhythm of God’s mission, which always has a future-bound momentum.

We are to be about the work of God today, the day in which we live, in which we trust for daily bread. We are to plan for tomorrow – we’re not just adrift in time. And the day after tomorrow – which we cannot really predict with any accuracy – we finish the work God has given us to do. But by that time, it’s today. The sense I get is of living in a wave which starts, builds and then dissipates, by which time the next one is already building.

This phrase suggests to me a constantly forward-rolling movement of present ministry, future planning and then release into God’s hands. Every ministry we undertake, small or large, must get “finished” and a new one entered, one which is already underway, because it comes from God and is completed in God.

This way of seeing our engagement in God's mission makes us less generators of work than surfers of God’s movement – and surfers know how to relax and ride the wave. The day after tomorrow maybe we'll see what God was doing through us today. Gnarly.

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3-7-22 - Hypocrites?

You can listen to this reflection here.

I’m not exactly sure why the lectionary presents this passage from Luke’s Gospel for next Sunday; it’s short, not really a story, and somewhat inscrutable. (At my churches, we will do a Lenten series, “A Season for Growing,” which riffs on trees…). But let's see what gems we might mine from it. It begins with a warning to Jesus:

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you."

On the face of it, this would appear to be a benevolent act, to warn a man that he’s in trouble with the political powers. But let’s not forget who’s issuing this warning: the religious powers with whom Jesus has been publicly tangling. Are they looking to spare his life? Or to get him out of their way, so they no longer have to put up with his insults and skewering of their hypocrisies?

I rarely engage in word study (or any study, for that matter, several degrees notwithstanding), and I have forgotten what little Greek I acquired during seminary, but I’m told that the Greek word from which we get “hypocrite” means simply “actor, or one who plays a part.” Jesus was always accusing the Pharisees of proclaiming one thing and doing another, of acting the part of deeply holy men while they benefited from the charity of those they oppressed. If anyone might have wanted Jesus out of the way, it would have been this party. Did they take the act a step further, feigning concern?

From his response, it doesn’t appear that Jesus thought they had his best interests at heart. In replying, he manages to further inflame them, ensuring their enmity if it wasn’t already there. So now Jesus has enemies in the temple courts as well as in the palace.

And maybe that was okay with him. He knew that as he continued his mission of deliverance and healing, going head to head with the source of evil, and calling out injustice, he was going to rattle a lot of cages. He knew to put his trust only in his heavenly father and a few followers – and soon found he couldn’t even fully rely on the followers.

So why are we reading this? Perhaps as a reminder that when we’re truly about the work of proclaiming freedom for captives, and justice for the oppressed, and sight for the blind, and new life for the dead, we’re going to make enemies. There are many forces invested in the status quo. Few are more hated than peace-makers - that's why so many are assassinated. Of course, we still need to proceed with humility and discernment – too many false prophets have cited resistance to their message as proof of their rectitude. We know it’s not that simple… And yet, I want to say this:

If we’re not making anybody mad, are we really living the gospel?

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