Water Daily: June 2022

7-1-22 - Exulting

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

There is no joy quite like the joy we get when we're filled to the brim with the Holy Spirt as we engage in some ministry and the outcomes are strong and good. Anytime I’ve dared to go out in public with a sign reading, “Want a Prayer?” I’ve experienced that. We think living by faith, walking in radical trust is difficult. But so often when we actually do it, we are blitzed by such euphoria, it’s a wonder we don’t make more of a habit of it. That seems to have been the experience of the seventy disciples Jesus sent out:

The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

The disciples exulted not only because they’d had human success – it was that they had felt the spiritual power Jesus had promised would be theirs. They had been able to exercise authority over demons and diseases, to navigate the welcome and unwelcome of different towns and households. And Jesus affirmed their sense. “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning” might have been his statement about a cosmic past event, or his recognition that his power was now working through his followers, and that spelled the end for the reign of evil and its master.

But he is also quick to say that such power and euphoria should not be the root of their joy – their inclusion in God’s realm for all eternity is where their sense of well-being should rest. When we are rooted in that identity, as God’s chosen, delighted-in daughters and sons, we are paradoxically better able to take those leaps of faith in ministry that bring about more euphoria. It’s a wonderful cycle.

We do not have to undertake risky ministries to be loved by God; that gift is already ours. But as we step out from that belovedness to walk in Jesus’ name into places we cannot yet know, relying on resources we cannot yet see, we receive more gifts that God wants to give us. We receive the Spirit in such measure, so much peace and love and joy and purpose, we can’t wait to do more.

And when we all live like that, evil is done for good.

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6-30-22 - Stay Put and Receive

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

As a Foreign Service family, mine moved a lot. Someone once gave my mother an inspirational poster with the words, “Bloom Where You Planted,” which she amended to read, “Bloom Where You Are Trans-planted.” I thought of that poster when I read Jesus’ instructions to his followers as they head out to proclaim the Good News and heal the sick:

“Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’”

Remember, Jesus has already told them to go without any luggage, money or protection. They are to rely on hospitality offered to them. They are not to pick and choose, trying out the beds or finding out the menu before selecting a place to stay. Wherever they land, they are to remain until they leave that town and go to the next.

How does this advice relate to us in our contexts and ministries? There is counsel here to let others give to us, not go looking for the best deal or seeing what we can arrange for ourselves. Receiving hospitality is hard for many of us, wired as we are to give – which is also a way of staying in control. Many Episcopal churches have embraced the concept of “radical hospitality,” signaling that all are welcome, whether or not they know our secret handshakes, or what (or where…) an undercroft is. Jesus invites us to an even more challenging place: to be “radical guests,” just appreciating what is offered us, not even trying to return the favor.

This teaching is also about staying focused on our mission in God’s life. Picking and choosing the places we want to stay and what we want to eat and how we want to schedule our days takes energy and attention that might be better directed toward being open to the leading of the Spirit and where we see God-energy around us. I just came back from an overseas trip, and as always, I found the Holy Spirit was the best travel agent, arranging blessings I could not have planned or anticipated.

Above all we are called to live in a mode of radical trust as followers of the One who was always on the move, always eating at the tables of others or on what his supporters could rustle up. That doesn’t mean we can never host or give; it just means we have to increase our capacity to receive if we truly want to be filled with the love and grace that only God can give.

Only as we are filled with the full measure of God-Life can we proclaim “The kingdom of God has come near to you,” because we’re bringing it. Only as we trust in God’s provision can we bloom where we are planted, at least until God transplants us somewhere else.

6-29-22 - Boomerang Peace

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

I tend to think of peace as a static thing; I associate it with stillness, stability, rootedness. The way Jesus describes peace, though, it is dynamic, bouncing from person to person, house to house, community to community. This peace sounds downright restless: “Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.”

What is the peace of God? It is power and purpose and presence. Different from ordinary human peace, the peace of God is strong as iron, filling us unexpectedly, able to keep us rooted in times of anxiety or conflict. As I have grown in faith, I’ve often been surprised by the peace I’ve experienced; sometimes I just can’t find the anxiety I expect to be there. The peace of God is pure gift – Paul says it is a gift that comes when we make our petitions known to God with thanksgiving. (Philippians 4).

Jesus goes even further, speaking of peace as a force that can be directed to another person. The idea of saying, “Peace to you,” or “Peace to this house” when we encounter another person, and really meaning it – speaking it as a command to heavenly powers – could be world-changing. What if, instead of “Hello” we said, “Peace” – which, after all, is what the greeting “Shalom” or “Salaam” means. And what if, as we were saying it, we prayed that God would fill that person with the peace we feel? “Peace” to institutions we deal with. "Peace" to Congress. “Peace” on the highway, train, in the grocery store, at family dinner. Really sharing our peace at church instead of just saying hi.

That’s all we would need to do. If the person had no interest in the peace we have to give, it would bounce back to us. But if we don’t even offer it, someone who really needs God’s peace might miss out.

God’s peace becomes part of us, something we can share, the same way we share our intellect, our compassion, our money and time. We could give our peace a shape or color so we can become more conscious about sending it to others. Like any good boomerang, it will always come back to us.

6-28-22 - Traveling Light

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

No purse, no bag, no sandals? Jesus obviously hasn’t packed for a beach vacation! The trip he offers is for people who like a little danger with their sight-seeing, who are willing to be vulnerable among strangers and live off the local economy. As he sent out the seventy disciples to proclaim his message of the realm of God, Jesus said this:

“Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road.”

There are virtues to packing light, but these instructions go beyond that. Those who go out in God’s mission are to carry no baggage whatsoever, to bring no resources beyond their faith and radical trust. Without money, you’re forced to rely on what you can find or what is offered to you. Without a bag, you cannot accumulate anything for later. Without sandals you become like the poorest itinerant. And going like a lamb amidst wolves means you go defenseless. Who would sign up for that trip?

At least seventy people did that day, and many millions more since then. Over the centuries, though, missionaries started to carry baggage – literally, bringing to foreign places the comforts and customs of home; politically and economically, imposing their priorities and categories upon new friends; intellectually, insisting on their values and beliefs; and spiritually, offering a system of salvation that often became codified and rigid. Many went vulnerable and defenseless, and sometimes paid the price in blood; many others went weighed down with possessions and assumptions.

And many more of us don’t go at all, don’t even think of letting the world know about our faith in God’s goodness and love. This week’s story (every week’s story, really….) is an invitation to examine that reluctance and ask the Holy Spirit to nudge us out. In your own community, among those you know, what would it look like to go without purse, bag or sandals? What would it feel like to bring a meal to a homeless shelter not as providers but as people who want to get to know the men and women there? How would it be to go to community meetings not with answers and proposals, just to listen? How would it be to sit with friends who are sick or scared and not try to fix it or “do something?”

The last part of this passage is curious, “Greet no one on the road.” I can’t be sure what Jesus meant, but to me it says, Don’t get distracted from your mission. If you feel a Holy Spirit nudge to call someone, or do something, or go somewhere the light of God’s love needs to be shown, don’t dither or dally. Don’t let people divert or dissuade you.

It must have been scary for those men (and women?) to head out into strange towns with not so much as a toothbrush. But think how open their arms were, unburdened by baggage!

6-27-22 - Jesus' Advance Team

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

We don’t think much about mission these days – that’s something for “missionaries.” But if we become more intentional about thinking of ourselves as agents of Jesus Christ, we might see opportunities every day to proclaim the Realm of God and offer healing love. Jesus’ instructions to his followers as he sends them out in mission tells us a lot about how we might go out in his name in our own places and times.

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

This sending comes after a foray undertaken by the twelve, Jesus’ closest disciples. That was a successful initiative, judging from the elation both they and Jesus expressed upon their return. Now he’s scaling up the operation – seventy (or 72 in other versions) are being sent on mission. They are to go in pairs – no one walks alone in God’s realm – and they do not go to random places. They go to each place Jesus intends to go. This suggests to me that they went out as his “advance team,” to size up a community, see what opportunities there might be for proclaiming the Good News, what obstacles might be set in their way.

Political advance teams arrive ahead of candidates to do that kind of reconnoitering and to prepare the populace for the candidate’s message. They set up communications, build a grassroots operation, generate anticipation and enthusiasm for the candidate’s arrival. The prepare the ground for planting, as it were, make everything ready for a successful campaign in that place.

What if we saw our missional activities in such a light? We can assume Jesus wants to arrive at every place, every person, every heart. So what communities or people are you being assigned to prepare? We do this advance work by speaking naturally of our own experiences of love and freedom and healing through Christ. We invite people to consider learning more about him as he is revealed in the Gospels – and in our own lives, as we’re willing to tell our stories. We might even create some grassroots energy by inviting people into small groups for bible study or prayer or spiritual conversation. Like John the Baptist, we make ready a people prepared for their God.

Who were the “advance teams” that came into your life inviting you into a deeper relationship with Christ? Who planted seeds in you that resulted in your coming to faith more fully and profoundly?

This wording also reminds us that we don’t create the mission. God has already designed it, and will reveal to us more explicit instructions as we go. And we do need to go, even if we don’t leave home. Many of us have a huge reach online – don’t be afraid to be your spiritual self in digital space. Find a buddy and hit the road.

6-24-22 - Don't Look Back

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

Jesus was in a tough mood the day he was vetting would-be disciples. Not only did he tell folks not to run home to bury their dead ; he didn’t even want them going back to say goodbye before they threw in their lot with him: Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Okay – I get that our life as agents of God’s Realm of power and love may need to come before our other commitments – but do we have to throw away our other relationships completely? Just abandon our families and friends?

As with everything else in the Scripture, we have to hold this statement in tension with the other things Jesus is recorded as having said and done. I pray there is more than one pattern of becoming a disciple. And if we take ourselves off the “judgment hook” this statement can generate, we’ll be better placed to find the good news in what Jesus said. We all recognize the tendency to want to look back; where do we find life in not giving in to that impulse?

For me, it comes back to this: the life of God is always forward, always ahead of us on the road. What has been is real and important and shapes where we are now, but we do not need to look back at the last place we encountered God. We are to trust that those encounters will multiply as we follow Jesus – as we spend time with him in prayer; learn from him in scripture; work with him in apostolic action. The more we move forward, the less we need to look back.

And what about those goodbyes? Don’t they need to be said? Perhaps – and maybe we are invited to trust that we will encounter those beloveds again in different ways. Maybe we don’t need to spend a lot of energy on goodbyes, because in God’s economy we remain connected in spirit to those whom we love, even if we’re not with them in body.

Earlier this week we heard from the Shirelles and U2. Today, let’s give the last word to Peter Tosh and Mick Jagger (also frighteningly young in this video) doing “Don’t Look Back.” This song is NOT about following Jesus, but let’s just focus on the chorus, on the walking and not looking back part. God will take care of what’s behind us as we look forward.

So if you just put your hand in mine, We’re gonna leave all our troubles behind;
We gonna walk and don’t look back!

6-23-22 - The Walking Living

You can listen to this reflection here.

Oh, man! We missed by one week having this gospel reading fall on Father’s Day. What fun preachers might have had dealing with Jesus’ words about wasting our time burying our fathers: To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

Sound a bit harsh? Isn’t it normal, a way of honoring your father and your mother, to give them a proper funeral? What kind of child would say, “Sorry – too busy,” to such a life moment? Well, maybe Jesus would answer, “The kind of child who sees himself first as a child of God. The kind of child who knows she is my follower first, and puts every other relationship second.” Does this sound like a cult? No doubt some of the families of those who left everything to follow Jesus did think they’d joined a cult. No one knew this “cult” would last 2,000 years and turn the world upside down.

What did Jesus mean by “Let the dead bury their own dead?” He meant that those who have been born anew in the Spirit are the living, and those who operate only out of their human, natural, “fleshly” life are as good as dead. (Perhaps he would also suggest that the energy and resources we put into tending and laying to rest the bodies of our loved ones after they have ceased to inhabit them is a misplaced priority for those who are called to proclaim life…)

Jesus was always redefining family values. Over and over he taught that the company of those who believe in him is the first family for his followers. Our primary job as followers of Christ is to proclaim the kingdom of God – the realm of God-Life. In the course of doing that we live in relationships with the people around us, including our families of origin, but we are not to value them more highly than we do our families of faith. And when our biological families distract from our discipleship, or worse become active obstacles to following in the Way of Jesus, we are to put Jesus first.

What reaction does this remark of Jesus’ provoke in you? Would it make you want to turn away and not follow him? Where might we see the life in his invitation to put our families of faith first?

It’s not all or nothing – at least I hope not. As we claim the Life of God already given to us we become not the walking dead but the walking living. And as we get about the business of proclaiming that Life of God unleashed in this world, and as we experience that Life, our priorities will be quite naturally reordered. Love is love.

6-22-22 - Following Jesus

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

Whether it is the Peggy March singing “I Will Follow Him,”or Bono and U2 (appallingly young here) doing “I Will Follow," we have a rich soundtrack for our gospel story. When our hearts are full of love for someone, it is natural to proclaim our everlasting allegiance and intention to be with them wherever they go. Ask Dead Heads, ParrotHeads, and other fanatical band-fans.

So it was one day as Jesus walked with his followers toward Jerusalem. Even strangers got caught up in it: As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Jesus was saying, “You want to follow me, it comes at a cost. Things won’t be comfortable or predictable or stable. Wild creatures will have more security than you will.” We see in the gospels Jesus living a very peripatetic life, always on the move. We hear about his being “at home in Capernaum,” but he doesn’t seem to have spent much time there.

American Christianity has not followed this “I will follow you wherever” pattern. Other than traveling evangelists (often suspect characters in books and movies...), we prefer to do our following inwardly, quietly, spiritually, staying rooted to place and community. I am a staying put type myself (recent travels notwithstanding), and even when I move I seek security and stability. Does this compromise me as a disciple? Is it, “I will follow, as long as I know where I’m going to sleep?” Or is there a legitimate place for being rooted in community, in our neighborhoods?

Both/And, of course… God blesses us with homes and families and communities and work and all the richness of a web of relationships. And God invites us to hold these blessings lightly, to keep our focus more on the Giver than on the gifts – and to be prepared to let them go, trade them in, keep our hands open to new blessings. It can be a difficult balancing act, but it keeps us better connected to God, nimble and ready to pivot when the Spirit calls us to bring our gifts to some new thing God is doing. And God is always doing a new thing.

The lyrics to U2’s I Will Follow are in part about Bono’s loss of his mother at a young age, but there is also unmistakably religious language – “I was blind, I could not see…” “I was lost, I am found,” that suggests the band – deeply enmeshed in Christian life at the time – had broader themes in mind. Jesus invites us away from our sorrows and stucknesses, away from our self-saving strategies and sources of security to walk with him through this world, seeing it through his eyes. Sometimes that’s on the move, sometimes it’s still. Always it is being open to grace.

6-21-22 - Fire From Heaven

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

Many Christians of my “brand” – mainline Protestant, mostly progressive – are horrified at the violent rhetoric we hear from often conservative churches, particularly the identification among many American evangelicals with gun culture.* The language of vengeance and violence, though present in Old Testament texts, runs counter to the Good News proclaimed and lived by Jesus Christ. Yet not even his disciples were strangers to that flame-throwing impulse:

On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.

James and John are being hyperbolic – there are no recorded instances of fire from heaven consuming the wicked, though the prophet Elijah did a number with fire on a wet altar, after which he had 400 enemy prophets slaughtered (yeah, it’s in the book). Maybe their anti-Samaritan ire was kindled; maybe they were juiced by the power they saw in Jesus and were beginning to exercise themselves. Yet I am less interested in their blood-lust than in Jesus’ response: “Nope. Let’s move on.”

When our message or our ministry is rejected, it is tempting to get angry at the very people we hoped to bless. Such feelings are human. But when we act on them, we depart from the way of Jesus. He was clear in his instructions to his disciples when he first sent them out: If a village does not receive you, shake its dust off your feet and move on to another place. (Luke 10:10-11) How long we are to try, and when we are to go elsewhere are matters to be discerned. The spiritual reality is that God’s work never has to be forced. When we are moving with the Spirit of God on God’s mission, it flows; things come naturally, connections are made, “coincidences” abound, and fruit results.

I have been slow to learn this. Too often I try to push things or make projects happen on my own steam, ending up tired and frustrated. I’m learning to release my efforts and initiatives and blockages into God’s hand, to sit back more and watch the Spirit arrange things so that my gifts and time are most fruitfully used. This is what happens when we learn to expect blessings – and if we’re not experiencing blessing in one endeavor, see where else the Spirit is leading us.

Are there areas in your life that feel stuck or stale? Ways you have been trying to live the Gospel that don’t appear to bear fruit? Offer them to God in prayer. Ask for insight about when to persevere, and when to fold your tents and move on.

God does want us to command fire from heaven – the fire of the Holy Spirit moving through us to cleanse and make holy our hearts and the world around us. The more we invite that holy fire into our hearts, the freer we are to minister God’s grace.

*Please watch The Armor of Light for a powerful look at how one such conservative, the Rev. Rob Schenk, a leader in the pro-life movement and in conservative church circles, came to see how incompatible opposition to gun safety laws was with being pro-life… it’s been on PBS, and hopefully will be again soon, or get a copy to show. It's more urgent than ever.

6-20-22 - Hospitality

You can listen to this reflection here.

This week’s gospel reading finds Jesus and his disciples on the road again. He is heading for Jerusalem for the last time. The roads on which he travels are not particularly friendly: When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.

What’s happening here? We need to know a little about the mix of religion and politics to make sense of it. Samaritans were also people of Israel – they were descendants of the Northern Kingdom in the days when North (Samaria) and South (Judea) were separate and ruled by different kings. One reason for the split was that when King David established Jerusalem as a capital, THE place where the Spirit of God had come to dwell, the leadership there sought to make Jerusalem – and the temple David’s son Solomon built – the ONLY holy place where sacrifices could be offered. All the holy places and shrines in Samaria, the northern part of Israel, were denigrated. This did not sit well with the residents and priestly class of Samaria. Gradually the feud became a schism between two branches of one family.

When Jesus’ advance team came into this Samaritan village to see if Jesus could stay there, they were rebuffed. Whatever the natural hospitality of the people might have been, they were not going to play host to any religious leader heading to Jerusalem. The wounds were still fresh this many centuries later.

This is so often the case when we disapprove of what someone else stands for. We might not even bother to get to know the person, rejecting her for her opinions or positions on issues. In our polarized times, some are allergic to even hearing views that they find abhorrent, calling them toxic. And sometimes those views really are abhorrent. When do we listen and when do we say, “Enough?”

Maybe a better question is: what is hospitality? Is it only the willingness to host people we like and agree with? Or is it being willing to let God “set a table for me in the presence of my enemies,” as the 23rd psalm puts it?

Hospitality is a good framework for how we engage the “Other,” whether that person is of a different ethnic, racial, sexual, financial or political group than us. What if we saw such encounters as the equivalent of offering water and a place to sit to a weary and parched traveler? We have different expectations of guests than we do of friends, and different expectations of ourselves as hosts. I still hope one day to launch a program interrupted by the Covid pandemic, a series of dinners I was calling, “Eating With Strangers,” which would invite people to break bread together and find ways to speak and listen respectfully across divisive issues.

Hospitality is a spiritual practice we are invited to cultivate in all kinds of ways. It could transform our lives – and our culture – if we found ourselves practicing it with people of whom we disapprove, even if we don't like where they've been or where they're going.

6-17-22 - Don't Follow Me

You can listen to this reflection here.

For a short story, our gospel tale has already had quite a few twists and unexpected turns, but there is one more in store for us. After the dramatic removal of the demons from this deranged man, after his remarkable healing and restoration to his “right mind,” there is a curious coda. The man wants to follow Jesus, and Jesus refuses him. What?

Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

Through the gospels we see Jesus inviting people to “Follow me.” So often he demands they leave their homes to travel with him. Here he has a willing recruit, and he turns him away and sends him home? What’s up? It’s not surprising that this man would want to come with Jesus – he has just set him free from years of unimaginable torment from evil forces and his neighbors. Who would want to stay around people who chain you up and try to subdue you? His desire to be with Jesus is understandable. But why would Jesus deny him?

Perhaps Jesus was not ready for a Gentile disciple; we can assume this citizen of the Decapolis was Gentile. Though the Gospels record several encounters between Jesus and non-Jews, these are often awkward and Jesus sometimes seems ambivalent about them. Certainly, the Jewish leaders and populace would not have accepted such a man as part of Jesus' inner circle.

But that would be a “strategic” reason. Perhaps Jesus had a missional one: he wanted this man to bear witness to what he had experienced among his own people. Like genetic cancer treatments in which a healthy cell with growth ability is implanted among cancerous tissue, to disrupt toxic growth and convert cells to health, perhaps Jesus wanted this man to seed conversion among his own people. “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” This would make him not a "disciple reject" but one of the first missionaries in the gospels.

Sometimes the mission of God calls us to leave the familiar and bring new life to places that are unknown to us. And sometimes we find our mission right in our midst, in our towns and communities, our workplaces and families, our gyms and book groups and social networks. Where is God calling you to declare how much God has done for you?

This newly healed man did just that, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him. That is ALL any of us is expected to do. We do not have to persuade or convert or explain the mysteries of God – only to speak of what Jesus has done for us. I can tell you, Jesus is doing amazing things in my life and churches every day. You too? Declare it! Tell the stories!

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6-16-22 - Fear of God

You can listen to this reflection here.

As an animal lover, with a soft spot for pigs (though also for bacon and pork chops), I have to admit I abhor the next part of our story:

Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country.

Maybe Jesus, as a Jew, had little use for the value of swine. But why did the demons have to go into anything? Couldn’t he command them into the lake without the pigs? Couldn’t he command them back to hell and bind them? All I do know is that the news spread quickly. (And here comes an echo of another iconic bible story – Jesus’ birth, and sheep herders running off and telling the wondrous things they’d seen to everyone they met...)

As the news spread, the townspeople came running to see. They were both amazed and frightened – but not so much at the destruction of the herd. What scared them to the core was the transformation in the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons.

Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.

It was not the economic loss or property damage that frightened them – it was the damage to their sense of reality, this glimpse into the raw power of God as conducted by Jesus. It was having their convictions about what is possible overturned right before their very eyes that frightened the daylights out of them. It was having their conceptions about this man and his place in their community completely shattered. He was even wearing clothes! What happened?

The next thing we know, they’re asking Jesus to leave, “for they were seized with great fear.” And don’t we often want to separate ourselves from what we don’t understand, what frightens us? That is the root of so much prejudice and hatred, division and conflict.

Have you seen someone transformed by healing? People who know addicts sometimes get to see this kind of contras, though not the course of a single day. Those who work with wounded veterans and the mentally ill sometimes see such transformation. If we saw instantaneously, it would scare us too.

When we find ourselves afraid of God’s power, we can talk to God about it. We can ask the Spirit to gently lead us into a greater awareness of what God can do and has done. If only those townspeople had taken this miracle as an invitation to expand their ideas of this God they did not know instead of sending Jesus away, so much more healing and transformation might have taken place. Let’s not make their mistake.

6-15-22 - Demonizing

You can listen to this reflection here.

Our country is once again in the throes of processing its latest eruptions of gun violence. (I first wrote that sentence six years ago and nothing has changed…) The drill has grown numbingly familiar – we learn about the shooter and his motives; we honor and remember the victims; support the survivors; call for action; pledge to pray; opine on social media. As the rhetoric flies, it is very easy to demonize different elements involved, especially the perpetrators of violence and those who enable them.

That is not what Jesus would do. This week’s story, among others, shows that he had a gift for separating disease, sin and evil from a person afflicted by them. He did not confuse people with the problems they manifest. Confronted with this terrified and terrorizing man, Jesus sees what’s wrong and addresses it head on. In this case, that means dealing first with the demons oppressing the man.

Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

This man’s neighbors were not so discerning. They took the human approach – they saw the problem, not the human being. They sought to control him, subdue him, ultimately to enchain and isolate him. It didn’t work – he was at the mercy of evil run rampant, beyond his control – and theirs.

Am I suggesting that people who manifest evil are not responsible? This story does not yield such a conclusion. We are not told that this man was destructive to people other than himself. But even in the case of mass murderers and hate-mongerers (and Jesus would put these on the same moral level), we do well to remember what Paul wrote to the Ephesians: “Our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

Remembering that our battle is with the powers of evil – and that it has been won by Jesus Christ, who gives us his power to wield in further skirmishes – is the key to approaching evil with love. Whether we are dealing with a person bent on destruction, or someone in the grip of addiction, or simply someone who annoys the daylights out of us, we are called to separate the person from the condition they bear or the problems they bring. We are to do our best to build up the person’s spirit, weak as it may be, while working to free them from the ills that beset them.

Does anyone in your life come to mind when you think about this? Has anyone done this for you, seen you apart from what was wrong with you? Sometimes that is the key to opening hearts so healing can begin.

It has become so easy these days to demonize other people, those whose values or behaviors or actions or opinions strike us as unholy and destructive. Technically, though, only one entity in the universe can actually demonize someone, and that is the Devil, the enemy of human nature. We don’t want to be doing his work for him, do we?

6-14-22 - The Living Among the Dead

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

Talk about your welcome wagon – the first person to greet Jesus and his disciples as their boat docked in Gentile territory was someone considered the “local loco.”

As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”— for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.)

Each time we reread Scripture a different word or phrase might snag our attention, new echoes or resonances ring their chimes. The phrase, “he did not live in a house but in the tombs” sets off in my mind the words of the angel outside Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”

This man, so beset by the demons in residence in him, had long ago ceased to live in any meaningful way. Naked, but for the times he was bound and chained by his neighbors; crazed; desperately alone; no doubt terrified and constantly barraged by the voices inside him, it is no wonder he sought the quiet and isolation of the burial ground. Perhaps he longed to join his silent companions in death.

Yet there was enough life in him to get him down to the shore that morning. There was enough "self" left in his spirit for Jesus to project his strength into. He did not belong among the dead, but among the living. Jesus is always in the business of life, and as his followers that is our calling too.

I have known people so deep in depression they were nearly catatonic, hospitalized. And I have seen Jesus bring them back to life, through my prayers, visits, even my refusal to accept this end for them. I have been a conduit for Jesus’ Spirit to strengthen their spirits until they were whole enough to return to the living. I can think of two or three off the top of my head. This power is real.

What “dead places” are you aware of in your surroundings, or among your relationships?
Who do you know who is "living among the dead" – emotionally or otherwise – surrounded by toxic people or ideologies, or deep in death-dealing activities?
How might God be inviting you to bring life into those circumstances, to call these people back into life?

In the life of the Christ-follower, every day is Easter morning, Every day we seek the living among the living.

6-13-22 - The Other Side

You can listen to this reflection here.

The life of faith always includes a call to the Other – the other side, the other perspective, the other who is a stranger – and perhaps also strange. This was certainly true for Jesus, who was pretty much always on the move, along with his disciples. In this week’s story, he takes them on a short journey to a far-away land.

Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him.

Before we enter this rich and multi-faceted tale, let’s look at the set-up. Jesus and his disciples cross the Sea of Galilee: One day Jesus got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.”

They were leaving familiar territory and going to the “Ten Cities,” Gentile land, where dwelt foreigners, non-Jews, “others.” The other side. The land beyond. Do we hear echoes of the “other world,” that Kingdom place Jesus was always talking about? That realm sharing time and space with this one, yet completely Other, contained in no time or space as we know it; where our rules don’t apply?

We might see Jesus’ incarnation this way. He crossed to the Other Side, to this realm from that celestial home. He brought with him the practices and “rules” of that realm and invited us to see them at work in this one. He came here to make it possible for us to cross into God-Life, and to take God-Life to the “other sides” in our world.

Only three words, “the other side,” but they invite us into The Story. Anything can happen on the other side. It might be scary. It might be exciting. It might change your life, or you might change someone else’s. Indeed, the first “other” Jesus encounters is not merely Gentile; he is also seriously possessed by the demonic. There is need for healing and deliverance in this land, cause for fear, cause for faith.

What if your story today started, “One day Jesus got into a boat with me and said, ‘Let’s go to the other side.’” Where might that be? Would you be happy to go? In prayer, imagine your conversation with Jesus in that boat. “Where are we going?” Why can’t we stay here?” “What do you want me to do when we get there?” I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I believe it will be a rich way of praying. And I know Jesus will go with us wherever he asks us to go.

The life of God does not seem to include a lot of staying put. We settle just long enough to share the Good News and see it catch, and then we’re led to the next place or activity or relationship or initiative. And that new thing is almost always among the Other. How else can the Other become our friend?

6-10-22 - How the Love Gets In

You can listen to this reflection here.

I want to end our week with the epistle reading appointed for Sunday, Romans 5:1-5; specifically the last line, which says: “…God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

If we wonder how the Love we worship and rely on is delivered to us, Paul clarifies that it is a by-product of the Holy Spirit, God’s most essential gift to us. The idea that this love is inside us, ours already, rather than outside to be somehow sought or obtained – or, worse, earned – is a radical reminder to us of what grace is. Grace is unmerited favor, gift without contract or condition.

There are many gifts packed into the gift of Holy Spirit – peace, power, presence; courage, compassion, contrition; healing and hope; to name but an alliterative few. All of these are contained in the supreme gift of God’s love, God’s “yes” in the face of all the world’s “no’s.” God's love is gift to us.

And God’s love is gift throughus. We are the means through which God intends his love to reach those who do not yet know him, whose hearts perhaps have not be open to receiving her love or her Spirit. It’s up to us to make the introductions, to live and speak and interact with such light and love that people around us can see that love in us, and come to want it for themselves.

Do you feel the love of God in your heart today? I do believe it is there, but I also know all kinds of things in our lives and persons can block its flow: fear, insecurity, envy, resentment, sin… Our task is to release this love poured into us so that its flow into, around and through us is unimpeded. If you are aware of an obstacle to that flow, I invite you to lift it in prayer and invite the Spirit to help you move or transform it.

However you feel today, take some time to be present to the Love that has been poured into your heart through the Holy Spirit. How does knowing that pool of love is there change your day, your work, your life? Where and to whom do you want it to flow next? The prayer is simple: Come, Holy Spirit.

6-9-22 - The Sharing Economy

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

Jesus uses a lot of possessive pronouns when he describes the life of God, at least, the way John’s Gospel renders his words. He speaks of what is the Father’s, what is his, what the Spirit gives. And he indicates that all this richness shared by the three-personed God is also shared with us:

He [the Spirit] will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

What has been declared to us? The future of God’s reign. The fullness of Life. All the key pieces of information and insight we sometimes feel we’re missing. God is not holding anything back for later – it’s already ours. It's just that we don’t have the capacity to receive the whole signal; our systems would crash.

So, does it do us any good if we have it but don't don’t “get it?” So often we operate out of human understanding, and make choices based on fear or self-protection rather than faith. Here’s what I think: a part of us does get it. All of it. Has received the Good News of life without end, here and in the world to come, and has been set free by that Good News. As we grow spiritually, that part of us is able more and more to share this knowing with the rest of us, until the faith-receiving self is in command, and the fear-responding self has been integrated and converted. Then we look more like Jesus. We are in a sense our own first mission field.

It’s not only God who incorporates three persons in his being; perhaps we incorporate a very different kind of trinity: our true, God-given, spiritual self; our world-shaped natural self; and the energy it takes to navigate life from that dichotomy, which can take on a life of its own.

The good news about the Good News is that what belongs to the Father belongs to the Son, and what belongs to the Son has been declared to us by the Spirit. It is the Spirit who brings about our integration and conversion, as we allow her/him access. And as we receive the fullness of God-Life we share that God-Life with the people around us and within ourselves, and that feeds back into the Triune Life of God, an infinite loop. It is the original sharing economy, and it never, ever runs out.

6-8-22 - The Gift of Three

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

Trinity Sunday often inspires questions like, “Why is God three persons? Why not four or two or eight?” To which we might answer, “It’s a holy mystery!” But we could come up with better reasons: There are three because Jesus referred to a Father, a Son and a Holy Spirit. No one else is mentioned.

And there are three because there are two persons in a father/son (or parent/child) relationship, and the connection - the spirit - which flows between, through, around and from them. The reason we cannot “divide” the Trinity too sharply, the reason we insist on One God in Three, is that the Spirit is the spirit of the Father and the Son. We can’t take the Spirit out of the picture any more than we can lose our shadow.

Does it matter that God is triune? What does it get us, besides a headache from trying to figure it out? For me, it’s precious because it tells us from the get-go that God is about relationship and relatedness. God is not a concept – God is a being with capacity for giving and receiving, loving and being loved. So when we say we are made in God’s image, that’s where we begin.

In some sense, all our relationships have a triune quality – ourselves, the Other, and the spirit of connection that flows between us, which we might also call a third entity created by our connection. We see this with couples – we know each partner as his or her own person, say, “Mary” and “Joseph,” but we also know them as “Mary and Joseph,” whom we think of in a slightly different way than we do Mary or Joseph individually.

In the same way, there is you, and there is God, and there is “you and God,” a product of being united with Christ. All God wants from us is to help grow that relationship. That is one thing God cannot do without us. And we do not have to do it without God. Come, Holy Spirit!

6-7-22 - The Holy Translator

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

If we set out to build a profile of the Holy Spirit, we would do well to attend closely to the things Jesus said about him before he took his leave of his disciples. We might learn, for instance, that the Holy Spirit functions as a sort of spokesperson for the Godhead, aka the Holy Trinity:

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”

More than once, Jesus says that it is God the Father whose Word matters – who uttered a Word that became flesh in the Son, a Word that creates worlds and holy occasions through the Spirit. The Spirit gives voice to what the Father says – and declares what the Father purposes, “the things that are to come.”

When we hear the voice of God, then, it is the Spirit we are hearing. And when God hears our voice, it is the voice of the Spirit. “… that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words,” Paul told the Christians in Rome, adding that the Spirit intercedes for us. (Romans 8)

What a way to think of the Spirit, as a divine translator facilitating the communication between us and God. We don’t need to pray on our own, or be prophetic on our own; in fact, we cannot. The Spirit does that in us, as we invite God’s Life into our lives.

What if we too were able to cultivate that practice – not to speak on our own, but to speak only what we hear from God? How might our churches, our relationships, our lives be affected by inviting the Spirit to speak to us and through us, not speaking unless we felt it was God’s word? I wonder if I could do it for an hour, let alone a day.

We can start by being more aware of the Spirit’s function as communications intermediary, taking the thoughts we have on our wavelength, and interpreting them into the heavenly realms; and taking God’s thoughts – which are on a spectrum virtually impossible for us to comprehend – and articulating them in us. Just asking to receive the translation is a prayer I believe God will answer.

6-6-22 - The God Team

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

One major cause of conflict between Christianity and other monotheistic religions has been our understanding of God as One and yet also Three; our insistence that we worship the One, True and Holy God, while simultaneously claiming that this One God incorporates three distinct persons within his One-Ness.

I don’t think any theologian set out to devise a doctrine so complex and ultimately incomprehensible to our cognitive faculties. The early thinkers of the church came to this formulation through their close reading of Jesus’ teachings handed down from those who had known him. Jesus spoke of his Father, and of the Spirit, and of himself as Son, and of all of these entities as God. Wrestling through that yielded the conclusion that this one God was also three. Both/And.

So it was on his last night in human flesh, as he tried to reinforce for his disciples all that he had taught them during his time of ministry – and remembered that he did not have to do this alone: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…”

What a relief it must have been for Jesus, coming to the end of his human mission, about to endure his suffering and death and tests of faith, to remember that he was part of a team, not a solo operator. He knew he could communicate on a human level, with words and signs and symbols – but he could not speak directly into the hearts of even his closest followers. He knew his Spirit, who would be released following his death, resurrection and ascension, would have that kind of deep access to those who loved him.

That access, as we grant it, means we have the Spirit boost too. We don’t have to grasp the truth about God’s love and mystery with our minds alone – we have the Spirit to help us. When something in the Scriptures, or about our faith as we have received it, puzzles or troubles us, we don’t have to think our way to an answer – though thinking is part of the process. We can pray, “Spirit, show me what this means. Help me understand.” We may not get enlightenment at that moment, but we will have taken the best action we can take, and can release the matter into God’s hands.

At some point, a new way of seeing that particular issue may dawn on us, and in the meantime we will have invited the Spirit of God more deeply into our hearts. That's a win/win.

6-3-22 - Everybody In the Pool

You can listen to this reflection here.

One amazing aspect of the Pentecost story is how the apostle Peter interprets it as he is experiencing it. When Jesus’ followers get slam-dunked by the Holy Spirit and go out and start proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ in languages they don’t know, some observers scoff, "They must be drunk on new wine.” But Peter begins to preach to the whole crowd, saying, “We’re not drunk; it’s nine o’clock in the morning, folks! God is up to something – and it’s something God has been promising for a very long time.”

“…this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”

This idea of God’s Spirit poured out on all of humanity is startling. Don’t people need to be holy enough? Don’t they need to be part of the tribe? Don’t they need to correctly understand theology? Don’t they have to want to have God’s Spirit poured out upon them? All flesh? Really? Everybody?

That’s the vision the prophet Joel had spoken of old, and that’s where Peter found the scriptural basis to anchor this bizarre turn of events. It would be some years before he finally understood just how radical God’s welcome to people outside the community of Israel truly was, but even here, at the beginning, he understands that this outpouring of God-Life is not to be reserved to a chosen few. God wants to give his Spirit to everyone God has created.

So, does one have to be a Christian to receive the Holy Spirit? Not according to the story we read in Acts 10, where the Spirit comes in power upon Gentiles listening to Peter preach.I John 4 suggests we need the spirit of Christ to recognize the Spirit of Christ. Yet there are people who don’t claim Jesus as Lord and Savior but revere his spirit, as do Muslims and many Jewish and Baha'i people. I’ve known many non-Christians who seem Spirit-filled, even manifesting gifts of the Spirit like healing. Perhaps God’s Spirit is poured out upon everyone who recognizes the power of sacrificial love. After all, the water in a pool gets everybody in it wet, no distinctions. Is the same is true of our Living Water, by which John said Jesus meant the Holy Spirit?

My prayer is that those of us who do claim Jesus as Lord and worship him might desire the filling of the Holy Spirit, so that we can more actively share that Spirit outside our communities. Six years ago, my congregation in Connecticut held Pentecost worship in a downtown park. This Pentecost Sunday, what will you do to demonstrate the gifts of the Spirit outside the sanctuary? God wants everybody in this pool.

6-2-22 - Getting the Word Out

You can listen to this reflection here. The Pentecost story is here.

I have always struggled with French. I studied it for much of my childhood when living in Francophone countries. My German was solid, Italian came easily, but not French. And then once in Brussels I was at a cocktail party, and had had a pretty strong drink, and was amazed to hear myself having a full, reasonably fluent conversation in French! Must have been the spirits.

It fascinates me that the primary phenomenon manifest at that first Pentecost was the supernatural ability to speak in languages the speaker had never learned. More common manifestations of the Spirit are things like tears, speaking in tongues, sensing messages from God to convey to the community (prophecy), or even something that happened at many churches in the late 20th century, waves of holy laughter seizing the whole congregation. (Yes, the Holy Spirit can be wacky…) But that first time it was the ability to communicate across barriers of ethnicity and language.

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.

God wants God’s word to get out. In fact, we know Jesus as the Word of God who got out, out and about, and then sent his Spirit to go where no human being could go: directly into the hearts and minds of other human beings. Yet even when we are filled with the Spirit, we don’t fully understand God-speak. We can’t, in this life. But the closer we come to God, the more we do understand God’s language.

It is as true in our human relationships. No person can fully understand another – our emotional languages are unique, even if we share a common tongue. But as two people draw closer to each other, they begin to be able to read cues and pick up signs, even mentally translate words sometimes. We learn to understand each other somewhat.

Our mission is to be translators of God’s Word to the people around us, many of whom have never heard God-speak. That means we have to know God’s Word – as the Bible, as Jesus, and as the way the Spirit is speaking to and through us now. And we need to be willing to speak about how the Word has been spoken into our lives. Mostly it means we need to be filled with the Spirit, who does the translating for us.

God's Word can get out, as we’re willing to hear it, and then speak it. We’ll be amazed at the languages we become fluent in once we let the Spirit do the talking through us.