Water Daily: May 2022

6-1-22 - Shake, Rattle and Roll

You can listen to this reflection here.

For the rest of the week, we will explore the reading from Acts about what happened to Jesus’ followers on that Day of Pentecost. Pentecost was the Greek name for the Jewish festival of Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks, which marked both the grain harvest and the giving of the Torah. As observant Jews, Jesus’ disciples were gathered for prayer when the Holy Spirit began to make some noise:

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

It must have been terrifying – the sound like a hurricane, the sight of these divided fire-like tongues appearing, with one resting on each person… and then the utterance of speech in languages unknown to the speaker. But maybe they weren’t frightened at all, for we’re told they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. It’s amazing when God acts in so definite a way.

And it’s always wonderful when the Spirit is poured out on the whole assembly - then no one thinks she has gone crazy. In my experience, though (admittedly, a fairly restrained Episcopalian experience), the Spirit comes more quietly and gently, inciting an sense of God’s presence and deep feeling but not necessarily a lot of noise. I have seen manifestations of tears and outbreaks of peace more often than I have felt the foundations shaking.

Which makes me wonder: does the Spirit bring only as much power as we’re willing to receive? Is our impact limited by our capacity to be Spirit-carriers? Or does the Spirit bring as much power as is needed for what God wants to accomplish on a given day. That day, God was about changing the course of history. If the rest of the New Testament is true, those newly anointed apostles so boldly and constantly proclaimed the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ that the movement they began is still rolling, if with a little less shaking and rattling.

It wouldn’t hurt to increase our capacity to hold and move with the Spirit of God. “Come, Holy Spirit” is never a wasted prayer. And if you’re not used to praying it, I commend it to you. For with the Spirit of God working through us, God continues to transform the world. Are you ready? Let's roll!

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are here. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

5-31-22 - God Speed

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

In his last words to his disciples, Jesus told them to expect a gift from his Father: the Holy Spirit, who is the spirit of God. Jesus spoke about the Spirit as having a definable personality, characteristics, traits, functions. That’s one reason Christians arrived at the notion of God as three distinct yet united persons.

“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

Jesus suggests his teaching and training have been partial, limited. The Holy Spirit will teach everything, reinforcing all that Jesus spoke to them. He promises to leave his peace with them, a gift he would give again when he first saw them – perhaps in this very same room? – after he rose from the dead. He invites them to let go of the sorrow and anxiety that has gripped them, to let go of fear.

How might we do that? We need to receive this gift of peace in the spiritual part of our being and let it transform our natural selves. We cannot attain it with worldly strategies; it is not a gift to be taken, but received. Perhaps that is what Jesus meant by “I do not give to you as the world gives.”

How does the world give? Capriciously, inconsistently, often conditionally. The world rewards achievement and productivity, privilege and connections. God rewards humility and faithfulness, weakness as well as strength. Above all, God seems to give as a function of relationship, to honor a relationship that already exists, not to win us over.

We pretty much know how to play by the world’s rules, some of us more successfully than others. Lasting peace, peace that stays with us even in unpeaceful circumstances, is a fruit of running our lives on God’s operating system, learning to live by radical trust rather than by self-saving strategies. Is there a concern in your life right now that you might try to approach in God’s way rather than the world’s?

When my nephew was little, he heard someone say “God speed” to someone departing, and thought it meant moving at the speed of God. I like that. Learning to live on God-speed is a transition. We choose to put that relationship above all the others that claim our hearts, to offer everything we have – and receive far more in return.

5-30-22 - Forever

You can listen to this reflection here.

"I'm gonna love you for forever," that's what he used to say,
Then you found out that forever ended last Tuesday …

So sings Carolyn Arends on a great song called “Life Is Long.” Don’t we want, more than anything, a love that will never go away, never diminish, never end? That human longing makes poignant even our sweetest relationships. Knowing that our beloved will grow up and maybe away, or will one day depart this life or our life, is what puts the bitter in bittersweet.

Next Sunday we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, that great day when the Holy Spirit came in power upon Jesus’ unsuspecting disciples and turned them into apostles. This great event is not reported in any of the four Gospels – it appears in Acts. The Gospel reading appointed for Sunday is from John, and shows us Jesus trying to explain to his followers the gift of Holy Spirit that God will send:

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.”

Is Jesus saying this great gift will come only if they keep his commandments? Is the Holy Spirit a reward for good behavior? No, I believe he is saying, “If you love me, keeping my commandments will come naturally to you. And as you live in my truth and walk in my ways, you will be open to receiving this gift the Father will send.” Jesus says this Spirit of truth is an advocate, someone who will stand by them in times of trial and equip them for ministry the way he did – only this one will not be limited by time or space. “He will be with you forever.”

The promise of a love that is forever – that fulfills our deep-seated longing. And it gets even better: we don’t have to go looking for this love, this power, this presence. Jesus said the Spirit of God will abide with us, even in us. We won’t be taken over, ala an “invasion of the body snatchers," not possessed by God’s Spirit in a way that invalidates our unique selves, but abided with, walked with, held close, counseled and consoled, by God, right here within us. Always.

That is a gift worthy of eternity. And we already have it. How does that change how we live and love?

5-27-22 - Watch Where You're Going

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

The Ascension story, as told in Acts, always makes me chuckle as I picture the disciples “gazing up toward heaven,” watching the soles of Jesus’ feet disappear into the ether.
…as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Where is our gaze directed? Some people are said to be “so heavenly minded they are of no earthly good,” meaning, presumably, they are so focused on eternity or spiritual growth that they neglect the horizontal, missional dimension of the Christian life. Such a consumer mentality can be found in those who “church shop,” seeking a spiritual buzz and comfort, but not challenge or outreach. However, we can also become so wrapped up in doing “earthly good,” we lose the spiritual basis from which we are to meet needs and make justice – not for those outcomes alone, but because provision and justice reveal God’s love to the world.

The angels’ gentle rebuke is important for us as well. We are not to be looking for Jesus in the last place we saw him, or imagining him only in “some heaven, light years away” (as the lovely hymn, “Gather Us In” puts it). For he also told his followers they would see him in the hungry and naked, the sick and incarcerated, in the bread and wine of communion, in any place the Holy Spirit is discernible. He told them to go out and bear witness to his love and power “to the ends of the earth.” You can’t walk to the ends of the earth if your gaze is turned upwards – you will soon trip and fall, or knock somebody over, neither pitfall uncommon in Christian history.

The call to a dual focus – fixing our eyes on Jesus and looking outward to the world for which he lived, died and rose again – is reflected in our dual callings to be both disciples and apostles. As disciples we grow as we invest our time and energy strengthening our relationship with Jesus. As apostles, we follow his lead, training our vision to those places he directs us to look, where he has fixed his loving gaze. One is a more contemplative activity, the other more active. Both draw us closer to Jesus and invite Jesus to increase his life in us.

What matters is that where we look is where we are going – he is our destination, and our companion on the way there. May we, like his disciples, go out and return to our base with great joy, continually blessing God.

5-26-22 - Witnesses

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

Jesus was clear with his disciples before his final departure: they were to bear witness to what they had seen and known with him, and further still, they were to bear witness to knowing him, and make him known to the people they met.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Do today's churchgoers think we’re in the witness protection program? We will bear witness to our great worship, our friendly coffee hours, our beautiful buildings, not to mention movies we’ve seen, restaurants we’ve enjoyed, children, grandchildren and pets we’re besotted with… but when it comes to talking about our faith, or tossing Jesus’ name around? Silence. Who, me?

If we have to bear witness by ourselves, maybe we have reason to hesitate – we may not think our stories exciting enough, our experiences extreme enough, our words eloquent enough, our knowledge extensive enough. But notice what comes first in that sentence: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…” Jesus’ disciples weren’t any better than we are in those early weeks after the resurrection. They stayed huddled up in that room, they went fishing, they prayed and wondered what the heck they were supposed to do next.

But when the Spirit came upon them at Pentecost, suddenly they were empowered in ways they couldn’t have imagined before. Peter, so quick to deny Jesus after his arrest, now risked arrest himself because he could not stop preaching the Good News.

We think we have to figure out how to be witnesses. No: we have to be open to the Holy Spirit – invite the Spirit to fill us, empower us, equip us, embolden us. Then the stories will spill out. The “anointed appointments” will pop up in our lives. The “God-incidences” will mount up.

We are Jesus’ witnesses. It’s his life we proclaim, telling how his life has intersected with and enriched and made sense of our lives. Come, Holy Spirit! Let the witnessing begin.

5-25-22 - Waiting On a Promise

You can listen to this reflection here.

Sometimes playwrights (which I was, once upon a time…) have a problem: how to get a character off the stage. Did God face this dilemma with Jesus? After all, he’s risen from the dead, very much alive and embodied, if somewhat differently than before. Yet this embodied Jesus needs to exit the scene – his work is done, his mission accomplished, and it’s time for the Holy Spirit to be released upon all flesh. He can’t go into the earth or wander off. There’s only one way he can go: up.

…as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

Nice exit! For the rest of this week we turn to the story of Jesus’ ascension, which Luke tells in more detail in Acts than he does in his Gospel. Both accounts, though, begin with Jesus’ instructions to his disciples:

While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

It is put even more urgently in Luke’s gospel: “And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."

Promises are challenging – they require us to trust the person making them. They are by nature future events - they are only promises before they are fulfilled, at which time they become gifts. And we rarely know exactly when a promise will be fulfilled. It is often when we least expect it – for the disciples this one was met some ten days later, as they gathered to pray on the Jewish feast of Pentecost.

We too have been promised the gift of the Holy Spirit, and we have already received this gift. We can feel the Spirit in prayer, in worship, in ministry. Yet we can also go through periods when we’re waiting for the Spirit’s life to be activated in and around us, for direction to appear, prompts to unfold laying out the way forward for what God has already intended to do through us. The waiting is hard!

In what areas of your life do you feel you are waiting on the Spirit? Waiting for a promise to unfold, a path to appear? Have you told God that you’re waiting? How you feel about the waiting? That doesn’t always shorten the wait, but it deepens the relationship.

The Spirit acts when the Spirit acts; our job is to wait with grace, keeping busy with what is already before us even as we wait to behold what wonders God will reveal in us next.

5-24-22 - God's Love On Board

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

The great theologian Karl Barth was once asked by a reporter to sum up his life's contribution to Christian thought. This legendary intellect and author of volumes of complex theology articulating the nature of God, man, Christ, and much more, said this, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

Does it really just come down to love? Jesus said so…

“I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

In his prayer to his heavenly Father on his last night in human form, Jesus spoke of having made known the name of God to his followers, so that God’s love, with which Jesus had been loved, would reside in them – and further, that he himself would be in them. That is what we claim happens at baptism (and may happen in other times and ways; baptism is simply a guarantor): that we are united with Christ, and his spirit dwells within us forever. Already. Now.

That means we are filled with the Father’s love too. Do you feel filled with God’s love? I confess it’s not what I’m most aware of most of the time. I’m aware of being filled with energy or anxiety, peace or hope or fury or love for another. Rarely am I conscious of being a repository of God’s love, made available to the world, through me, through you.

Yet that is arguably our most important goal in the spiritual life: to become conscious, intentional conduits of that love that made the universe into a world thirsty for it. We need to be aware of our belovedness and share that gift with others. This is old news, and yet so difficult to live into.

We don’t have to find this love and ingest it – Jesus said it is already in us, on board, because he made God’s name known to his followers. And we are their descendants, apostles ourselves. Our job is to release this love into the world around us. How will we to do that today?

5-23-22 - To Be One

You can listen to this reflection here.

The Seventh Sunday of Easter Dilemma: Use the readings appointed for the that Sunday, or those set for Ascension Day – knowing that no one, unless their church happens to be named Ascension, attends Ascension Day services anymore? I will split the difference this week, starting with the Easter 7 gospel. This takes us back yet again to that upper room on Jesus’ last night in earthly life. After his long discourse to his disciples, he embarks upon a lengthy prayer for them; that’s where we tune in now:

“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

One reason to skip this reading entirely is that it is heart-breaking to engage this prayer. Unity was Jesus’ deepest desire for his followers, almost his last wish, we might say, and it has proved impossible for the church that bears his name to keep. And one of the reasons the world does not believe that God sent Jesus as Redeemer is that those who follow Christ so excel at division when our mission should be multiplication.

We have vastly different ways of reading and interpreting Scripture, what we think is important in worship, how we live out the calls to justice and generosity, care for the poor and the marginalized. We are divided by history, language, and culture, by conflicts both ancient and recent. Maybe we shouldn’t feel so bad about the current state of Christ’s church – his followers were locked in bitter divisions within a few years of his resurrection.

I am most convicted by this line, "on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word.” If we don’t speak our word, the word of grace and forgiveness and our experience of God’s overwhelming love; and if we don’t back that up by our actions, fewer and fewer will believe through us. And friends, the community of Christ-followers is spread by human contact, like a virus, a good virus, one that strengthens the immune system and promotes healthy growth and a just and secure world. We should find this as urgent a matter as Jesus did.

If we speak the words of grace and live them, and allow the Spirit to really rule our hearts and direct our actions, we will find ourselves unable to condemn our brothers and sisters, even when their words or actions are reprehensible. We will be able to pray for them and commit them to God’s hand, and keep our eyes on Jesus, and spread the message of his love. Maybe if all Christians put that first, we’d have less energy for fighting with each other. And one day we will make Jesus’ dream of unity a reality.

5-20-22 - Healing of Nations

You can listen to this reflection here.

We move now from the healing of persons to the healing of the nations; from the pool of healing in our Gospel story to the healing river mentioned in the end of Revelation:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

What a beautiful picture of the new heavens and the new earth, picking up on the vision of a restoring river in Ezekiel 47, which also had fruit trees on each bank, their leaves for healing. In the new vision the healing has been broadened to the healing of the nations. This resonates with a theme in our reading from Acts as well:

...Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

Does the healing power of Christ extend to nations? There is only one way to find out. Perhaps we feel feeble in our prayers for peace and an end to brutal invasion, terror and starvation, oppression and exploitation, because the needs are so vast, the pain so entrenched. It is hard to see dramatic outcomes to such prayers. The bigger the wound, the more complex the condition, the longer it can take to heal it – but our prayers do not go unheard. Maybe through our prayers we strengthen peace-makers. Maybe our prayers influence people in authority, or grass-roots activists. Maybe circumstances change. We don’t know – we only know that the healing stream that flows through and around us is intended for the whole world.

Maybe each day we should comb the news for one name in a conflict-ridden area, one name that leaps out at us, and make it our task to pray for that person to be fully blessed. Who knows?

When Paul and his companions acted on his vision and traveled to Macedonia, they found a river there, by which there was a place of prayer. And there they met a woman named Lydia, who was brought to faith in Jesus Christ through Paul’s words, and she and her whole household were baptized. No one would have expected that – but strangers now became family in faith. Who knows what fruit came of that encounter – generations of Christ-followers, perhaps.

We don’t know where the healing stream is to flow, but It is up to us to be water-carriers, bearing that water of life to every place and person in need of it. In the end, all nations will be healed, and God will reign.

5-19-22 - Walk

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

I was privileged to know Canon Jim Glennon, an Anglican clergyman from Australia who had an extraordinary gift and ministry of healing. We corresponded quite a bit before he died, and I invited him to lead a healing mission I organized at my church in New York. I will never forget his clear, simple teaching about God’s healing: plant the seed of faith, in Christ; give thanks for God’s activity, even before you see it (“first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn…” he’d quote); and don’t be afraid to test it.

At that healing mission, to demonstrate his teaching, he asked if someone with severe back pain would come up for prayer, and a man did. The process by which Jim prayed, then checked in, then responded to the feedback is an incredible story in itself; it included the man’s realization that he needed to forgive the person who’d caused his injury. But after he prayed to release that, and we prayed some more, Jim asked the man how his pain was now, and he said, “It’s gone! It’s been with me for 15 years, and it’s gone!” “Well, twist around,” Jim said. “Move your back. Try it out. Get up and walk.” One of the ways we accept the healing God offers us is by moving into it.

Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Sometimes we pray for healing or transformation, and think God has not answered. And why do we think that? Because we haven’t moved! We’re still sitting in our dis-ease and sometimes despair and mistrust, still seeing the matter from the same angle, perhaps influenced by disappointments in the past. But as we get up and move around, we have to see it differently, for our position changes. (Not to mention the physiological benefits for our brain chemistry of moving…).

We can assume that God has heard our prayers, and assume that the God who loves and desires freedom and wholeness for us is indeed acting in and through us. So we give thanks even before we see the fullness of the healing we desire. We begin to walk, to move ourselves into the healing stream of God’s love and power. Maybe we limp at first; maybe we move cautiously; but we are to move toward that freedom and wholeness, our attention fixed not on our remaining symptoms but on the unwavering love of God in Jesus Christ.

God’s healing stream is that Living Water Jesus promised would well up inside us to eternal life. And God’s healing stream is that mighty river of God Life that flows around us as we move in the Spirit. If the flow is impeded by anxiety or anger or unforgiveness or unhealed trauma, we invite the Spirit to help remove those obstacles. It is remarkable how much healing can happen even as we’re getting free of some of these impediments.

Today, pray for healing in whatever area you’ve been considering this week. (Or pray with another – the faith of two is stronger than one). Believe that God desires wholeness and freedom for you, whatever that will look like. Give thanks for God's activity even before you see the fruits. And then begin to walk in faith, into healing. First the blade, then the ear, then the fullness of life!

5-18-22 - Another Way

You can listen to this reflection here.

I once knew someone whose life had become a living hell. So many traumas and losses had accrued, exacerbated by and exacerbating physical and mental illness, family and financial troubles, she was like a fly caught in the web of a very busy spider. Listening, I didn’t know where to begin; she was sure no good outcome was possible.

Isn’t there always a good reason to lose hope? We don’t have the support we need; something came up that derailed us; we’re in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong people. The sick man in this week’s gospel story laid the blame for his continued infirmity on the other sick people around him who, he said, never let him get into the healing waters when they were stirred.

The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”

I love Jesus’ response: he says nothing about the pool. He doesn’t tell the man to stop feeling sorry for himself. He doesn’t advise how to compete with the other people. He simply gives a command that has the power to effect what it commands: “Stand up, take your mat, walk.”

I wonder how these words landed on this man, so sure there was only one dim possibility for reversal, if he could get into that pool at the right moment. Did he think Jesus was mocking him? Crazy? Or did he feel a sensation in his body and limbs that told him something was awakening, something had changed? Did he worry what people would think if he attempted to stand? We don’t know; we’re told only that he did stand and began to walk.

This man did not heal himself. He did not change his attitude and become more open to healing. This was Jesus’ work entirely. That’s important for us, both as we seek healing for ourselves, and as we minister to others. We don’t have to put ourselves or others into the right frame of mind. We only need to bring Jesus into the picture and believe in his presence. And if we hear a command – we may not always – act on it.

If you were to tell Jesus in prayer today about the most “stuck” area of your life, the one about which you feel the most despair, what would it be? Try it, and try listening inwardly for a response. It might come through a word that fixes in your mind, or an image or scene, or you might find yourself sitting or walking with Jesus in your imagination. Whatever unfolds, go with it. Do you think Jesus will discuss your reasons for stuckness with you? Or will he just command you to be free?

In the life of God there is always another way healing can come. It may come through prayer, or medical care, or new information, or none or all of the above. We are to take the actions before us, but not get tied to them. At any moment, even thirty-eight years later, Jesus can come into our picture and set us free. He doesn’t have to unbind the spider’s web; he has only to command it in love, and the bonds fall away. As we invite him in, healing can come that much sooner.

5-17-22 - Do You Want Healing

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

There is something deeply frightening about asking for healing. Alarmed as we might be by illness, symptoms, loss of freedom and mobility, or even approaching death, it can be scarier still to ask for God’s transforming power to effect a change. What if God doesn’t answer in a way we can recognize? Then, in addition to the scourge of illness, our faith has taken a hit. This fear is enough to keep many people stuck in infirmity.

One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”

It’s a fair question. I have wanted to ask it of quite a few people, and maybe some have wanted to ask it of me. Thirty-eight years seems like a long time to endure illness, but dis-ease can easily become a habit. I’ve known robust, active people rendered prematurely homebound by pain or difficulty moving around as they used to; it seems to the people around them that they’ve given up way too soon – but the shock of limitations deals its own blows to the psyche.

We don’t know the circumstances of the man in our story. He comes off as a bit of a whiner. But whiners take to whining when no one listens to them, and this man may have had very good reasons why his illness became chronic. And once that became his way of life, and possibly his livelihood through the charity of others, he may no longer have been able to imagine himself well. After all, when we are sick all our energy goes into getting through the day; we don’t have much left for imagining wellness or praying for healing.

But God can always imagine us well. God’s desire for us is wholeness. Perhaps the first prayer we make is not “Heal me,” but “Show me your vision of me whole.” Perhaps in prayer we imagine Jesus looking at us and asking, “Do you want to be made well?” in whatever area of our life we feel broken or wounded.

And answer honestly. Do you want to be healed? Do I? Are there advantages to our conditions, physical, emotional or spiritual; attention we get, or ways in which expectations are comfortably lowered, responsibilities shifted to other people? Are there relationships that would be upset if we were healed and whole?

The power to heal comes from God, and has already been given to us, as Christ lives in us through baptism. The question for us is what impedes the flow of that healing stream in and around us? What keeps us on the banks of that stream, afraid to jump in? Knowing that can help release the Love that restores us to wholeness.

5-16-22 - Faint Hopes

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

Context is everything. If you read about a bunch of people lying around a pool every day, you might think it a place of joy and leisure. This place was anything but. This was a spot where invalids gathered, drawn by a tradition that said healing could be found when the pool’s waters were stirred.

Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.

The invalids may have been there for several reasons – it might have been a good place for their caretakers to park them for the day, where they could keep one another company. People blemished or infirm in any way were considered ritually unclean and thus unfit for entry into the temple courts where they might defile others. It was a harsh, isolating life for the blind, the lame, the paralyzed, with no promise of medical treatment. We are told that the man at the center of this week’s story had been ill for thirty-eight years; how many of those had he spent in this place? This faint hope of healing in the pool must have kept them going one day to the next, a community of invalids stuck together by misery, hope and occasional blessing.

You don’t have to be blind, lame or paralyzed to know the power of faint hope. Usually when people say, “I’m hoping for the best…” they have long since abandoned any hope for the best and have settled for a dim “maybe things will change…” Often we will endure unhappy or unfulfilling circumstances for far longer than we should because of our stubborn hope that something could change. And often the only thing likely to cause a positive change is our changing the way we engage that situation.

As we begin to explore this story, let’s bring to mind the places we feel stuck or running on fumes. Where in your life might clinging to a faint hope actually be blocking movement toward a more robust change?

Who do you know who puts up with circumstances that could perhaps be altered – enduring pain or misconnection or half-life because it seems too scary or difficult to seek a better strategy? This story might give us some clues into how we might facilitate some movement in our stories of stuckness.

The invalids gathered at that pool were hoping for the best without knowing what the best really was – that the Best had walked into their midst that day when Jesus showed up. Even we who know his power sometimes hesitate to hope for his best in our lives. And to us he whispers, “Let me show you!”

5-13-22 - We're Going To Need a Bigger Box

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

“Even to the Gentiles.” That is what the Jewish Christian believers in Jerusalem concluded when Peter finished his story about why he was keeping company with the “uncircumcised.” God has given “even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.” This was shocking, unprecedented (though not really...), outside their categories. And what convinced Peter and, through him, the other leaders, was evidence of the Holy Spirit.

“And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

We see that scene in Cornelius’ house in greater detail in the previous chapter. Peter has arrived, noted that it would not ordinarily be lawful for a Jew to enter the home of a Gentile, described the supernatural occurrences that led him there, and then begins to preach to them. His opener is startling: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” Wow. Is God really that accepting? Even Peter had trouble holding on to this truth, and Christ’s church has ever struggled with it.

As Peter winds into his sermon, something even more extraordinary happens: the Holy Spirit comes upon those listening, though they are not Jews nor, as yet, Christians. They begin to speak in tongues and praise God, just as the disciples did at Pentecost. Peter and his companions are astounded. Then Peter said, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

Jesus had told Nicodemus that the Spirit blows where it will. But we’re still surprised when that wind of God carries seeds into ground we did not think prepared to receive it. Where else have we been thinking too small or limiting the way or to whom we share the Good News of Jesus Christ? One excuse people give for not sharing their faith is “people have perfectly good religions of their own.” Some do, some don't - and maybe all might receive the Holy Spirit if we go where God sends us and bring our faith and our love.

It’s not our job to persuade, only to witness to our own experience. New grandparents will tell anyone they meet their good news, but they’re not trying to make other people into grandparents. They’re just sharing their joy. That's our call too.

I wrote yesterday that it is human nature to sort and categorize people. It is also human nature to try to define God and God’s activity. So we read our texts and repeat our stories and make our definitions and pronouncements and try to put God in a box that is manageable and vaguely comprehensible. And the history of God in humankind tells us this: We will always need a bigger box. Make more space for the Holy Spirit, and maybe we’ll also need bigger baptismal fonts.

5-12-22 - No Distinction

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

One of my favorite things about the book of Acts is the timing – more than once, people in different places are given instructions by the Holy Spirit more or less simultaneously, or in such a way that the timing dovetails perfectly. Each has to act on the instructions, exercising more than a little faith, and then finds confirmation when the other party is revealed. This happens with Saul after his Damascus road experience, and Ananias, whom God sends to heal Saul's blindness. And it happens with the centurion Cornelius, when he is visited by an angel who instructs him, “Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter…” Then we learn that his messengers arrive at Peter’s lodging at the very moment Peter’s vision of unclean foods ends. As Peter tells it,

“At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’”

There are so many remarkable details in that paragraph – angels, messengers, divine timing, salvation. But perhaps the most startling is what Peter reports the Spirit saying to him: to go with these Gentile strangers and “not to make a distinction between them and us.” So much of Jewish law and identity lay in making distinctions between Jew and non-Jew, sacred and secular, clean and unclean. In times of persecution, allegiance to these identity markers became even more pronounced. The early Christians were already struggling with whether and how to integrate "uncircumcised" – non-Jewish – believers in Christ. Now God is telling Peter to make no distinctions between Gentiles and Jews. How could this be?

It’s not only Judaism which excels in making distinctions; it is human nature to define oneself and one’s tribe in ways that include some and rule out others. I would go so far as to say it is human nature not only to make distinctions but to rank people based upon them. Could we function with no distinctions at all, just seeing every person as equally worthy of our love and attention and provision? What a wonderful world that would be! Or would it be total chaos?

And what about Christians? We’ve made a fine art of distinctions with our multiple denominations and their variations and permutations. Are we not to distinguish ourselves from those who do not follow Christ? Jesus said his followers were to be known by their love for each other; that assumes they should be recognizable as Christ-followers.

Once again, love is the answer. It’s not that we shouldn’t note, even celebrate, differences. We are just not to judge one more worthy than another, and we certainly are not to decide that we can consort with some and not others. Every person is worthy of our company and attention, no matter their beliefs, background – or even behavior. Peter’s experience tells us that the Spirit may indeed lead us to people who do not know Jesus as Lord. And often that is because he wants us to make the introduction.

Cornelius had to take a step of faith to believe that angel and send for Peter. Peter had to take a step of faith to believe that the Spirit had urged him forward, and then to go with the messengers and enter the home of a Gentile. Both men responded in faith – and created space for God to show up. And boy, did God show up! Stay tuned…

5-11-22 - What God Has Made Clean

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

After reflecting on Sunday’s Gospel reading for two days, let’s spend the rest of the week on the reading from Acts. These stories have so much life. This week’s in particular amplifies the message of “love one another.” The story of what the apostle Peter experienced in Joppa radically expanded the early church’s understanding of its mission.

We hear this tale as Peter tells it to his brethren in Jerusalem. They are suspicious about Gentile converts to faith in Jesus Christ. Many of the Jewish believers fear this is too great a departure from their tradition (here they are, only a few years since Jesus’ resurrection, already defending the tradition…) So Peter goes to Jerusalem to explain to these “circumcised believers” why it is he eats and drinks with Gentiles, non-Jews. Have they so quickly forgotten that Jesus too had to explain his choices of eating companions?

Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision…”

Peter relates a bizarre vision in which a sheet is lowered from heaven containing mammals, reptiles, birds, as a voice says, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” Peter protests that he has never eaten anything non-kosher, but the voice replies, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” This happens three times, and the moment he emerges from his trance he receives word that some men want to see him. They ask him to come and speak to a group gathered at the home of a Roman centurion, Cornelius. (These stories appear in greater detail in Acts 10 - what we have here is Peter’s re-telling). Normally, Peter would not have gone off with Gentiles, but with this vision fresh in his mind, and the Spirit’s nudging, he goes.

We’ll explore later what wondrous things happen in the home of Cornelius. Today let’s stay with the vision and message Peter received, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” Do we have here a hint of how the Holy Spirit expands our understanding of God’s word? Extending the Good News to Gentiles, and the early church’s grappling with that, is instructive for us in our church conflicts over biblical interpretation and social issues. Christians on the more “liberal” end of these tensions believe that the Spirit has enlarged our interpretative lens, if you will, while those on the more conservative side feel that the tradition must be honored and upheld. Yet it seems to me you can’t get a more radical expansion of Mosaic food laws than, “Do not call profane what God has made clean.” What else might the Spirit be inviting us to re-examine?

What are some areas in which you have had to wrestle with scripture, traditional interpretation of that scripture, and a call to a more expansive view? Does this vision of Peter’s help or hinder your struggle?

For Peter, this experience provided critical data that he needed right away when called to a Roman centurion’s home. What happened when he got there confirmed the vision a thousand times. That’s how God works – he shows us something new, leads us into the unfamiliar, and then let’s us know we are exactly where she wants us to be.

5-10-22 - Commanded To Love

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

We don’t tend to think of love as something one must be commanded to do. In fact, a commandment to love seems an oxymoron – love by its nature is freely given. Yet we also know that when love is only a feeling and not a choice, it can fluctuate the way feelings do, resulting in chaos and heartbreak. So we put structures around love with vows and norms and tax laws. People pledge commitments to one another for the days they don’t feel so loving.

Jesus must have known it wouldn’t be any easier to be his church than it was to be married. The commandment he gives his disciples on his last night with them is directed to those who would carry forward his name in the world, the community of Christ-followers. And he is direct: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Love was to mark the Christian community. Not congregation size or feeding programs or how many missionaries supported or peace marches participated in. Love. For each other.

How we doing by that measure, 2000+ years later? Does it surprise us that many churches have more real estate than people? Poll after poll shows that many, especially the Gen X- through Z-ers everyone wants in their churches, feel the Church is marked by judgmentalism, commercialism, hypocrisy, intolerance, greed and irrelevance. If Christians are not in the news for offending someone, we’re boring people to death. The liberal/conservative fault lines are so deep, there are such discrepancies between how certain scriptures are interpreted, and even which scripture to focus on - we’ve lost the heart of Jesus in the scramble to represent him.

We need to figure this out, because God has a dream for God's Church. It is intended to be the mystical Body of Christ, his hands and feet and voice and conscience given for the life of this world. There is still power in this ancient idea, this sacred community across time and space. This is the way God has chosen to make her love abundantly real to the world, the vessel through which his transforming love can work most powerfully.

But the only message the world will truly understand is love. How do we live into Jesus’ command to love our fellow Christ-followers, even when they seem to flout his commands? We can only get there by allowing God to love us, to fill us with his love. We can only get there by acknowledging the ways we judge and belittle others. We need to invite God to show us what she treasures about our brothers and sisters who offend us, to see the wounds that might cause behavior or words we consider harmful.

Today, think of a Christian you have trouble with. Hold him or her in your mind’s eye. And then pray for her or him to be blitzed with God’s blessing. Rinse and repeat tomorrow.

Jesus said his disciples were no longer servants, but friends, chosen in love, appointed to bear fruit, enduring, life-changing fruit. If we want to do that, be that, we need to learn how to love one another in the worst of times.

5-9-22 - Separation Anxiety

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

Nobody likes to be left, not even Jesus’ disciples. In our lectionary time travels through Eastertide, we’re back to the night Jesus was arrested, in that upper room where they have just had supper. He has washed their feet, said strange things about bread and wine, and predicted that one of them would betray him. Judas has just left to do that. Now he gives a lengthy farewell speech. Jesus has a lot to say to his followers before they go out into the Garden of Gethsemane.

He says something rather confusing about glorifying and being glorified, but the next part is painfully clear: "Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.'”

It makes me think of a child wailing, “Wanna come with! Wanna come with!” as his parents gently but firmly explain why he cannot join them for an evening out. “Where I am going, you cannot come.” But a parent usually adds, “I’ll be home later,” while here Jesus tells his disciples the worst: “I am with you only a little longer.” And soon he will be gone, gone, gone… and then mysteriously back, but not in the same way. Never again in the same way.

The movement of God is always forward, not back. The mystery of God is One in unity yet with Three distinct persons. And one of the mysteries we live with as followers of the risen and ascended Christ is being separate from him while mystically united with him. We claim his life lives in us through the Spirit, yet when we pray, it is to an Other distinct from us.

The disciples had to get used to Jesus’ absence. We have a different challenge: to become used to his presence, real though not embodied. For when Jesus made his final departure in bodily form, he promised that his Father would send his Spirit to be with his followers, that he would be with them through his Spirit.

Children learning to deal with separation from parents are often given a “transitional object,” a blanket or toy or stuffed animal that carries some of the presence of the parent and eases the separating process. Well, Christ-followers are given what we might call the ultimate in transitional objects, the Spirit of the Holy God to fill us, surround us, comfort us, empower us – and remind us that God will never leave us or forsake us.

Separation anxiety is real, and varies in intensity for each of us relative to our experiences in early childhood. But in the spiritual life, the Life we live in God’s realm, Jesus is always here, always present. And not only is he never leaving again; he wants us to come out and play with him.

5-6-22 - The Not-So-Gentle Shepherd

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

Reading the Gospels, we can see Jesus in different lights – and come away with a picture very different from the one our culture presents. Popular art and hymnody often portray him as gentle and mild, serene, a peacemaker and solemn teacher. Maybe it’s all those pictures of him carrying a cuddly little lamb in his arms, and our desire for a world in which the meek inherit the earth. He did say they would, and he meant it in the long-term, but “meek” was not the way Jesus went about doing business.

In fact, the image of Jesus as a gentle shepherd shows ignorance about what went into shepherding in his day. It was a dirty, dangerous, fierce and sometimes nasty business. Shepherds were hired to tend valuable livestock; if they lost a sheep to a predator or a poacher or a ravine, they were responsible for the cost. It was not a field that attracted the finest of men. I wonder if Jesus' taking on the label “shepherd” itself raised some eyebrows.

The Jesus we find in the Gospels is strong; fierce on behalf of the broken and marginalized; merciless with the self-righteous; challenging to the wealthy and powerful; harsh with his followers; often sarcastic and occasionally rude. He is frequently seen arguing with the religious leaders, whom he mocked to their faces and in his parables. He spoke with authority and did not hold back, even when threatened with death. He was “in your face” to the max – especially when it came to his claims about his relationship with God, as he does again in this week's Gospel reading: “What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

More clearly than we see in other passages, Jesus defines his “flock” and his mission as a gift from his Father, and with all humility elevates himself above all others. I say “with all humility” because humility means having an accurate, “right-sized” view of yourself, and Jesus was, after all, God. But he didn’t look like God to the religious leaders around him, so they often took great offense at such claims. After hearing him say, “The Father and I are one,” we’re told, “The Jews took up stones again to stone him.”

How we see Jesus matters, because it shapes how we reveal him to the world. Our churches often reflect the cultural view of Jesus – solemn and contented, comforting and complacent, slow to challenge the structures of society or provoke our members to action. No wonder we’re in decline. Too often the Jesus we project is someone to have tea with, not one to join in reclaiming, restoring and renewing all of creation.

Let’s become reacquainted with the Jesus of the Gospels, even if it means reading them back-to-back several times over. Let’s look at our congregations and see how well we reflect the Jesus that multitudes found so compelling they left everything to follow him, whom thousands testified rose from the dead, bearing that conviction to a martyr’s grave.

And let’s look at ourselves, how we walk with Jesus among the people we know, how well we reflect the Jesus of the Gospels. That’s a guy people want to know better. Let’s make him known.

5-5-22 - Held Fast

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here. Do you ever want to feel you belong to someone, someone who desires the best for you and will hold your heart, and not let anyone take you away? That is the basis of many a good marriage – and maybe some stalker scenarios. We want to be held tight and to have our freedom, often at the same time.

This is one of the promises Jesus gives those who follow him as Lord. We have the freedom to walk away, but he will not let anyone take us from him: My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.

I reflect on this promise when I think of people who seem to have been snatched away from Jesus by greed or mental illness or addiction or trauma, people who claim to have no use for the gift of life he promises. I have to believe that if they have once considered themselves as belonging to Jesus, even if it was only as children, they are still his, no matter what happens later.

And I wonder, if I were more conscious about being tethered to Jesus, would I feel more grace in daily life? Would I go easier on myself? Would I be easier on other people? What does it mean to feel held fast and fully alive, all at once?

As I write that question, an image fills my head, the famous one from the movie Titanic, Kate Winslet at the bow of the ship, her arms outstretched, face into the wind, exhilarated by freedom, as Leonardo DiCaprio holds her safe. Schmaltzy, yes, but perhaps not a bad way to understand the gift of being held so we can be adventurous and free.

I know God wants us to know his love. And I know God wants us to be free. And I know God wants us to be fully alive – in this world, and in the life that comes next, which flows in unbroken continuity from this one.

We are already living the eternal life Jesus has won for us; we get to explore it here and now, becoming ready for Life Without Any Ends. And we can be free to ride the winds of the Spirit knowing Jesus holds us fast. And no one can snatch us out of his hand.

5-4-22 - Hearing Jesus

You can listen to this reflection here.

In our gospel reading this week, we see the religious leaders of Jesus’ time demand that he state whether or not he is the Messiah. None of this hinting around. “Are you or aren’t you?” they ask. In reply, he throws an “Are you or aren’t you?” back at them: Are they his sheep, or not? He doesn’t even ask, because he knows they are not:

The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.

Jesus presents an argument that is hard to refute – and hard to accept. He says, “If you believe in me, you’re one of my sheep. If you don’t, you’re not – so you won’t recognize my voice and become one of my sheep.” He defines his critics “out” as firmly as he defines his followers “in.” That cannot have felt very good to these leaders, already suspicious of him yet desperately hoping he might in fact be the long-awaited Messiah.

How about us, reading this so many thousands of years later? Do you feel like one of Jesus’ sheep? He describes his relationship with his sheep as an intimate one, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” Do you feel known by Jesus? Do you let him know you? Do you feel you are following him?

It can be hard to follow him if we don’t hear his voice, and it can be hard to hear his voice in the din in which we live our lives – actual noise, constant input and stimulus from social media and email and voicemail, not to mention the incessant chatter inside our own heads… How can we hear Jesus’ voice? Well, here are some ways:

In prayer, inviting him to speak to us as we wait in silence;
In the Gospels, reading them with an eye to get to know the Jesus we find in them – chewing on his words as we encounter them;
In the sacraments, inviting him to speak through objects and actions both sacred and ordinary;
In hymns and spiritual songs, attending to phrases that stick or come to the surface;
In other people, especially people in need, in whom he said he could be found;
in our responses to suffering and joy;
In our own thoughts, as we invite the Holy Spirit to speak in us.In which of these ways do you hear Jesus most clearly?

We can follow him without hearing him – that’s called faith. Mother Theresa reportedly went for years without a felt sense of connection to God, moving forward on the strength of the revelation she'd experienced earlier. Yet I believe Jesus wants us to hear his voice. Let’s explore and see if one or more of these avenues opens the ears of our hearts to hear Love calling us in.

5-3-22 - Are You Or Aren't You?

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

Some people just want a straight answer. They don’t want to be told a story, or given a demonstration, or be delivered an elliptical discourse that circles around, making its points indirectly. Such people had trouble with Jesus.

Such people still have trouble with Jesus, especially as he is presented in the Gospel of John, much of which shows the Jewish religious leaders (“the Jews” in John’s shorthand) grappling with often contradictory “evidence” about Jesus: he teaches with authority, yet seems to flout the Law at will. He has undeniable spiritual power and holiness, yet he consorts with people who are “impure.” Worst, he makes radical claims about himself and his relationship to God, who he refers to as his “heavenly Father.” Who is this guy?

So the Jewish leaders gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.”

No one will win this argument, Jesus asserts, because the religious leaders will never accept his word; their suspicion blocks their ability to believe. And only believing Jesus’ word can dismantle their suspicions. As far as Jesus is concerned, his works of power (miracles) are incontrovertible testimony supporting his claims. If the leaders won’t accept that testimony, they will never believe. And they can’t accept that testimony because Jesus doesn’t look like or sound like the kind of Messiah they believe in. “The guy comes from Galilee, for Christ’s sake!” they reason (rough paraphrase…).

Not much has changed in the millennia since these encounters. It’s hard to accept Jesus as Risen Lord and Savior without faith, and it can be hard to receive the gift of faith without the Spirit of Christ. Hard, but not impossible for those who want to believe. It is more difficult for those who refuse to believe, or who are so sure that God could never look or sound like a poor, itinerant preacher and miracle-worker from a backwater county who died on a cross. Or those who would only follow a Lord who delivers on their prayer requests with more speed and accuracy than God has promised. Everyone has reasons for holding back their hearts from full faith and trust in Jesus.

There may be times in all of our lives when we want to say, “Are you for real, Jesus, or aren’t you? Because I’m tired of trusting and believing and not feeling the love, not seeing the fruits.” The Good News is that Jesus invites those questions and the longing behind them. Jesus entertains our expressions of doubt as he entertained Thomas’, just as he delights in our affirmations of faith. First and foremost, Jesus invites us into a relationship of knowledge and intimacy and trust – the trust of a sheep for their shepherd.

Where does the balance between faith and suspicion lie for you today? What do you want to know about Jesus? Ask him!