Water Daily: March 2023

3-31-23 - Hosanna!

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

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

It often amazes us how quickly the throng who lauded Jesus on his entry into Jerusalem could a few days later call with equal ardor for his crucifixion. It’s not so surprising – anyone who’s ever been a teenager knows how quickly strong and seemingly incompatible emotions can pass through us in swift succession. “I love so-and-so!” “I can’t stand so-and-so!” “I’ll die if you don’t let me go to that concert!” “I’m never leaving my room!”

Okay, but weren't those are supposed to be adults in that crowd? Yet any rational behavior we might expect from a group of adults can be neutralized by the Crowd Effect – which can quickly become Mob Rule. Something happens to human beings in crowds; normal inhibitions and rational thinking can be overcome by fervent emotion, which can quickly grow destructive. It happens at sporting events, excitement about a team turning into a murderous rampage.

And when you add a threat to people’s security, it’s not difficult to see how this crowd turned on Jesus. The temple authorities not-so-subtly suggested that Jesus’ continued activity and renown would awaken the wrath of the Romans, and all their Jewish subjects would suffer. “…It is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish,” said the high priest Caiaphas. Anyone who had witnessed Roman brutality would do much to avoid a repeat occurrence.

In a way, the “crucify him!”s are easier to understand than the “Hosanna!”s when Jesus entered Jerusalem. The chant of the crowd explicitly acknowledges Jesus’ Messiahship as the Son of David. People put their own cloaks on the road, presumably so the feet of the donkeys’ bearing the holy cargo wouldn't have to touch the ground. Those who shouted “Hosanna!” were expressing trust in Jesus. When they saw him a few days later, in custody, beaten, seemingly powerless, perhaps their sense of trust felt betrayed, which fueled their rage.

Christians the world over will participate in the re-telling of this story on Palm Sunday, asked to join the crowd in both the hosannas and the calls for execution. I suspect many have trouble relating to both cries. We’re too familiar with the Jesus story to feel the excitement of recognizing the Messiah, and perhaps too removed from oppression to feel a strong need for a savior. To call for his death is bewildering. Where do you locate yourself among those positions?

Consider praying your way through the whole story before Sunday (Matthew 26:14- 27:66), being attentive to where you respond, who you relate to as it unfolds. Can you find in yourself that impulse to praise Jesus for who he is to you? If you feel he’s a stranger, if you’re one of the curious in the crowd, you might ask him to show you who he is.

“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” they shouted, something many of us sing every week in the eucharist. If you feel Jesus has blessed you, tell him. See what that opens up.

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3-30-23 - Who Is This?

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

Every once in a while I come across a news item about some reality or sports star I’ve never heard of, who has gained some notoriety, or picked up another million or so Twitter followers – and I go, “Who the heck is that?” Evidently that’s how some people on the edges of that crowd hailing Jesus with palm branches and Hosanna!’s felt: When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, "Who is this?’ "The crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee."

Some in the crowd recognized him as the Christ, the Messiah. Many assumed that the Messiah would have a military mission, liberating them from the hated Romans as their forebears had been liberated from Egyptian domination. A greater majority probably saw Jesus as a prophet, for only a prophet sent from God could do the kind of miracles Jesus was doing and speak with the authority with which he spoke. It was a big deal to be regarded as a prophet – but to be seen as Messiah? That was less likely.

The proportions in that crowd may be similar to the way Jesus is seen in the world today. To many he is a prophet. Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and other traditions, as well as some atheists and agnostics, see him as an important world religious figure of inestimable influence. I suspect some who claim the title “Christian” also view him this way, as an important moral teacher and prophet, but not divine. Baha'i see Christ as divine, though not in quite the same way as Christians do. To credal Christians, though, and to some in that crowd that day, Jesus was more than prophet. He had been revealed as Lord, Adonai, the long-awaited Deliverer.

Many people in our own day still say, when they hear of Jesus, “Who is this?” It is our privilege to introduce him, to say who we have experienced Jesus to be. We can also be sure people hear of Jesus. We don’t have to spout a party line or to tell other people’s stories – we can speak out of our own experience, and out of our tradition.

This time in our church year, when we mark Holy Week and Easter, is a particularly good time to tell our stories and make our introductions – invite people to come and experience the story for themselves on Palm Sunday, to hear the scope of God’s love for humanity at the Great Vigil of Easter, to soak up the celebration and joy on Easter Sunday.

And if our experience of Jesus is limited to what we’ve heard or read; if we’re still asking “Who is this?” ourselves, then we can ask him to make himself real to us in a new way this year, so that we can receive – and share – the gift more fully.

Wherever we find ourselves in this story, I hope we will share the ministry of that donkey – to bear Christ into the crowds, humble and patient, lifting him up for all to see, getting him to the places he needs to be in order to transform the world.

3-29-23 - Provision

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

As Jesus moved through his final days in this life, many details seemed to be supernaturally pre-arranged. Twice he sent out disciples to take care of needs, adding a mysterious element – “Go to x, do y, and if anyone asks you, here’s what you say…” When they needed a room in which to celebrate the Passover feast, it was very “cloak and dagger” – “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters and tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished; prepare it there.”

And here, when the need is for a donkey, the disciples sent are also told what signs to look for: "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, 'The Lord needs them.' And he will send them immediately.’”

How did Jesus know they would find a donkey as soon as they entered the next village? And that the donkey’s owner would respond affirmatively to the notion that “the Lord” needed the animals? That means he was someone who knew Jesus to be Adonai, the Lord, not just Master and Teacher.

In the Bible, we find a principle at work: God provides what God needs to accomplish God’s mission, whether it’s stables, rooms, loaves and fish, donkeys – or tombs. AND we see that God relies upon human beings to collaborate in that mission if it is to bear fruit. Theoretically the man with the donkeys could have refused, or asked a fee, or the man with the guest room say, “It’s already rented.”

Can you think of a time when you’ve received provision unexpectedly as you went about God’s work? I bet that’s a story to tell… who needs to hear it?

And how would you respond if something as precious as livestock or a car were asked of you? Think back… What have you given for God’s use? What have you held back?

What do you sense God asking you to lend at this time in your life? Time? Family? A skill or talent? A house, or money? I’m not asking what you have to offer – I’m asking what you sense the Holy Spirit asking for. It could be that there isn’t anything… or it could be that we need to inquire, to offer, to make ourselves receptive to the request.

Think about it: God tied himself in with human beings a long time ago, at least in the Story we have (maybe God has a whole other story going with wolves or pigeons or bees…). God created the world without help, and then created humankind to help tend the whole enterprise. And even after that little initiative ran into trouble, God continued to rely upon people - upon the faith of patriarchs, and the voices of prophets, and the hands and feet of apostles to spread God’s message and reveal God’s power. It’s an intricate relationship between us and the Holy Spirit at work in us – and it is how God will continue to reveal God’s self in the world until he has restored all things to wholeness.

Which makes me wonder how much more whole things would be if we all offered our donkeys and extra rooms and special gifts as generously as the unnamed people in our stories did. What you got?

3-28-23 - The Donkey(s)

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

When you really spend some time with a passage, you often notice things you’ve missed in the past. Like, a donkey and a colt? Which was it?

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.’” This took place to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet, saying “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’” The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.

He sat on them? That’s a stretch, to say the least! Now, we might chalk this up to Matthew’s penchant for tying every event he can to an Old Testament prophecy, no matter how far a reach (ba-dum-bum...) Mark and Luke each speak only of a colt, singular. Or maybe Matthew wants to be sure we get the connection to kingship, at the risk of absurdity. This ride of Jesus’ is not a mere victory lap – it is the entry of a king into his capital. But this is a king so humble, he not only rides upon a donkey, but even upon its foal.

We don’t always associate monarchy with humility, but they merge in so many stories of Jesus’ earthly life, from his birth in a rough-hewn animal shelter to his traveling company of fishermen, prostitutes and tax collectors. In fact, it’s not the humility that is hard to locate in this story – it’s the kingship. The royal gifts presented by the magi, the defensive measures of King Herod, and ultimately the crown of thorns - these disclose Jesus’ true nature, a monarch disguised as a commoner. That is why the epistle reading for Palm Sunday is always the hymn about Jesus found in Philippians 2:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.

Unless we really think about where the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, came from, it can be hard to grasp just how dramatic a lowering of status he endured, consenting to be bounded in a human body, in time and space, to be subject to the care and cruelties of limited human beings. (Matthew West and Vince Gill sing a song called Leaving Heaven, which flips the perspective… )

Today in prayer let’s try exalting Jesus, even imagining him in the courts of heaven or a throne room, whatever those might look like for you. And then let’s imagine ourselves there with him. What feelings come up in you? Do you want to praise him? Flee from that presence? Go nearer? Go with the feelings, pray into them.

The divine reality we celebrate is that the God who made everything loved us so much, he decided to come into our earthly reality to woo us, to court us, to come and sit with us. Maybe that other colt is meant for you, for me, to ride along next to him, to the cross and beyond, into Life.

3-27-23 - To Jerusalem

You can listen to this reflection here.

How to focus Water Daily the next two weeks? The Gospel appointed for Palm Sunday is the whole Passion story, and the following week it’s Easter. But who wants to explore the empty tomb while we’re still in Holy Week; that’s like peeking at the last page while you’re still in chapter 5. This week let's do the “other” Gospel story for next Sunday, the story of the palms for which the day is named, which occupy only the first ten minutes of the service.

So… onward, to Jerusalem, where the week begins with Jesus riding in triumph lauded by crowds, and goes horribly, horribly wrong, ending with his brutal crucifixion. Jesus had been saying for some time that he must go to Jerusalem, where he will be arrested, tried and executed. Earlier, Pharisees had warned him to avoid Jerusalem, because Herod wanted to kill him. Jesus responded,

“Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.” – (Luke 13:32-33)

The people of Israel had a funny relationship to their prophets. They revered them – and frequently sought to have them killed because they didn’t like their messages. Those messages veered between, “You’d better, or else…” or “It’s too late; you’re in trouble...” Amidst those, however, we hear another divine theme: “I love you. I want so much for us to be together. If you might only do what you promised, honor me, honor each other…” But the people never could. How could they relate to such a fearsome God?

Philip Yancey offers an analogy to the incarnation in his book The Jesus I Never Knew – he talks about how the fish in his fish tank regarded him with terror, even though he fed them faithfully, and kept their water clean and chemically balanced. His interventions seemed to them like destruction, and they fled to their hiding places whenever he came near. “To my fish I was a deity. I was too large for them, too incomprehensible.” He thought one day, “I would have to become a fish and ‘speak’ to them in a language they could understand.”

Only, it turned out that even when God came among us in a form like ours, speaking our language, those who were deeply invested in the old ways, who had gained power by fostering people’s fear of God, weren’t any more receptive. This prophet, too, must be silenced, eliminated.

How do you think you would have regarded Jesus in his earthly time? Would you have been drawn to his miracles and messages, or put off? Would you have gone to him for healing or forgiveness? Would you have been unsettled by the threat to good order he represented, or thrilled that at last deliverance from oppression might be at hand? With what aspect of Jesus do you most easily connect? Least?

Knowing how we most naturally connect to Jesus can help us strengthen the relationship, and balance it. And there’s no wrong answer, even if we identify with the Pharisees. We know Jesus forgave them too.

3-24-23 - Life Wins

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

Why did Jesus restore Lazarus to life when he was so very, very dead? Was it “for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it," as he indicated to his disciples a few days earlier? Was it because he was so moved by Mary’s weeping that he started to weep himself? “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.” Or was he “greatly disturbed in spirit” because he knew what God was equipping him to do next, and it scared the daylights out of him? Certainly, Jesus was in some turmoil – the most literal translation suggests actual gut-wrenching.

Jesus wept – and then Jesus acted. Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” We, reading from this side of Easter, inevitably think of the women on their way to Jesus’ tomb, wondering who will roll away that stone. Stones are there to keep death in and life out. And here comes God to overturn all of that order… just as God had said long ago he would.

We hear a story of the dead revived in our reading from the Hebrew Bible this Sunday – but this is only a vision, in which dry bones, representing Israel’s defeat and dead hopes, are given sinews and flesh, and have the life, the breath of God, blown back into them. Included in Ezekiel’s strange vision was a prophetic promise: “And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act," says the Lord. (Ezekiel 37:12-14)

Scripture suggests that death is something God tolerates until he can do away with it – which is what we claim God did in Christ on Good Friday, and proved Easter Sunday. This is central to our belief as those who bear the name of Christ. So one of our greatest faith challenges is to live this belief, that death has been neutralized, while in this life we encounter it as still so very real and so very destructive. These stories we read and learn and tell are counter-narratives to the one we live out in this physical life. We must develop our spiritual selves as well as our physical selves – to see Life beyond death, and to see it so fully and clearly it carries us through “the valley of the shadow of death” when we find ourselves there.

What is your relationship with death? Do you fear it? Dread it? See it as natural, as a release, or an enemy? Does your view change when you’re contemplating someone else's death? What is your relationship with life – the kind of life that transcends death? Does it feel real? Where is God for you in the whole subject of death?

In nine days, the Church will enter its annual deep, week-long contemplation of death and life, so this is a good time to entertain these questions and take them into prayer. If it feels to you like death still has the upper hand, still wins – that’s something to talk with God about, to question and see where answers might emerge. We can say, “Lord, I don’t understand death, why it’s still part of life when you’ve vanquished it – but I do understand life.”

Our promise is that God’s life is already in us. As we learn to dwell in that, it will carry us into the life beyond this one. We can ask daily to be filled with that Life that truly prevails over death – and gradually that Life is what we become.

3-23-23 - The Unbound

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

The Gospels tell us almost nothing about Lazarus. Yet he is the centerpiece of Jesus’ most powerful and unsettling miracle. We’re told he lived near Jerusalem, that he and his sisters were beloved in Jesus’ inner circle. We hear he was felled by an illness and died somewhat unexpectedly, from which we might surmise that he was not old. And he made a four-day journey into death and back into life – only to die again at a riper age. He has inspired innumerable works of literature and art – but in the only Gospel scene in which he appears, he enters bound in grave cloths, four days dead:

Jesus said, “Where have you laid him?” They said, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

We are fascinated with tales of those who have physically died and somehow been revived. Proof of Heaven, Heaven is for Real, 90 Minutes in Heaven are only a few titles. But no one tells us what Lazarus experienced being awakened after so long, what it would be like to undergo a reversal of decay, movement in limbs long still. Yet Jesus’ command, “Unbind him, and let him go!” reverberates through the centuries, a powerful metaphor for release and new life.

Few of us will experience such a physical revival, but I suspect we have all seen life returning to people bound in one way or another, whether by poverty, addiction, crime, illness, abuse, self-destructive patterns.I once saw a documentary about an extraordinary orphanage for girls – the only one – in the desperately poor, crime and murder-ridden city of San Pedro Sula in Honduras. Spencer Reece, a poet and Episcopal priest, spent a year there teaching poetry and helping the girls to write. He said he’d witnessed resurrection in these girls, abandoned, sick, starving – and brought back to wholeness and strength in the community of love in the home. He experienced a profound spiritual renewal himself, coming to know Jesus in that place in a way he’d never experienced him.

I've seen women in prison respond to ministry like plants receiving their first water in weeks - I could almost see their spirits unfurling and growing stronger as they were told and shown their belovedness over a couple of days at Kairos.

Have you had a death-into-life experience? When? What was it about? Have you observed life returning to a person or thing or place? Take note of it, so you can become more aware when it’s happening to you or around you.

You know who I think had the most faith of anyone in this scene? The guys who rolled away that stone, and Lazarus, who came out when Jesus called him. Few people are so open to the impossible they are willing to go with it when it comes their way. Yet the more open we are to the impossible, the more possible it becomes every day.

3-22-23 - The Contemplative

You can listen to this reflection here.

Isn’t it amazing how people can grow up in the same family and be so different from each other? Where Martha is all action, Mary seems geared toward reflection and a quiet devotedness. It is Mary who sits at Jesus’ feet listening to his teaching instead of helping Martha cook; Mary who anoints Jesus’ head and feet with a whole jar of expensive ointment shortly before his arrest, an act of extravagant, wasteful worship (arguably the way worship should always be…).

So it is here, in this story. When word comes that Jesus has finally arrived, Martha goes out to meet him while Mary stays at home. But as soon as Martha tells her that Jesus is asking for her, she goes to him:

[Martha] went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, "The Teacher is here and is calling for you." When she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him... When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

Mary utters the same words of gentle rebuke and profound faith as Martha did. But where Martha and Jesus engage in theological conversation about death and life and resurrection and Jesus’ identity, with Mary it is her open display of feelings that communicates with Jesus’ spirit: When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.

In these two sisters we see different elements of a spiritual whole. A healthy spiritual life makes room for emotions and intellect, receptivity and action. Most of us tend to emphasize one mode over another. How is it that you most readily experience holiness or the presence of God? In thoughts and actions? In silence and feelings? Some combination of these?

How do you most naturally express your spirituality? Are your emotions available to you in your prayer and worship life? Are you able to sit still on occasion and wait on the Lord, see what the Spirit is saying?

When we know how we’re wired spiritually, we can discern if we’re missing anything. Is God inviting us to play with a form of spiritual expression or reception that comes less naturally to us, but opens us to a new dimension of God-life? If you only ever read the bible (or this...) as a devotion, how about singing a hymn in your personal prayer time? If you only feel connected when you're serving people, try going on a retreat alone, and seeing where God is in silence and inactivity.

Martha and Mary of Bethany are among the most fully drawn characters in the Gospels. We know little about them, but they are a rich gift to us, these sisters, embodying different ways to love Jesus, and different modes of receiving his love.

3-21-23 - The Pragmatist

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

Of all Jesus’ close friends and followers, the family we get to know best in the Gospels are three siblings, Lazarus, Martha and Mary, who live in Bethany, outside Jerusalem. Luke gives us a glimpse into their relationships in the story of Martha’s preparations to feed Jesus and his entourage, as she expresses her frustration with her sister’s sitting with Jesus instead of helping with the meal. The way Jesus gently rebukes her and affirms Mary’s choice tells us they are close.

So it surprises everyone that Jesus does not immediately return to Judea at the news of Lazarus’ illness: When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”

Martha is not one for sitting around – we see that in the story of the dinner party. She goes out to meet Jesus on the road. And their closeness is again evident in the way she gently rebukes Jesus: “Lord, if you had been here…” Her faith in Jesus is strong – “…my brother would not have died.” But is she asking for Lazarus to be healed now? “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him…”

Jesus answers her straight on – and she thinks he’s being metaphorical. Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

So much is made of Peter’s confession of Christ’s messianic identity – the church even marks it with a feast day. But here is Martha, articulating as clearly or more that Jesus is the Son of God, the awaited Messiah. Where is her feast day?

And here is Jesus, talking straightforwardly with a woman about his mission and identity – so much for the suggestion that the Jesus movement was anti-woman. Jesus treats the women in his circle with the fullness of respect and honor that he accords the men. In that, he was much more controversial than if he’d suppressed the women. Jesus meets Martha as she is – active, bold, not sitting around waiting. He accepts her “If you’d been here…” as honestly as he accepts her “Yes, Lord, I believe.”

How about you? Are you able to be yourself in your relationship with Jesus? Do you tell God how you feel when things do not work out as you'd hoped, when prayers seem unanswered? What do you think Jesus means when he says, “I am resurrection, and I am life?” What does that mean in your life, in your experience of death and loss?

We may not share Martha’s conviction, her ability to say without hesitation, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Son of God.” Yet each of us can share her forthrightness, her refusal to accept without questioning, her taking the initiative to go out and meet Jesus as he approaches. I believe Jesus yearns for us to know him as Martha did. Let’s go find him on the road to us, and learn just who he is – and what he promises.

3-20-23 - Timing

You can listen to this reflection here.

This week we delve into a really long story and a really big mystery – Jesus’ raising of Lazarus after he’s been dead four days. This story is only told in John’s Gospel, and is presented as the penultimate sign of God’s power. This miracle leads many to believe that Jesus is who he says he is. It also seals his fate with the ruling authorities, spurring them to seek his execution. A man with power like this must be eliminated. A story like this must be suppressed.

Only, as we know, the story rose again, very much alive. We are still telling it 2000 years later. Which suggests that God’s timing is never too late. This can be hard to trust in the midst of life. It’s normal to believe in “too late,” when that’s what we feel we’ve experienced. And when death has come, we are by definition in the “too late” zone, right?

That’s what Jesus’ disciples argue when he takes his sweet time going to Lazarus’ side after receiving a message that he is very ill. Jesus says, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” ..., and though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Then Jesus then decides to go, saying Lazarus has died (what happened to “does not lead to death?”), though the whole region where Lazarus lives is now dangerous for Jesus. His disciples protest, but Jesus says something cryptic about “Twelve hours of daylight.” Did they think he’d gone crazy? Thomas says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Four days too late, and in perilous territory. Why go at all? Jesus says God will be glorified through this in some way, but who could imagine how? Of all the times Jesus asked his followers to hang on and believe, this must have been the most challenging.

What about us? In what circumstances of our lives does it feel like God has intervened too late, or not at all? It would be a good exercise to think about that, and write down the times you remember. Can you see any benefits that came from those outcomes? There may not be… and there might.

How do you feel about those situations now? Are you still angry or grieving? Did it impair your trust in God? Can you speak that in prayer today? The psalmists and the prophets did not hold back their dark or troubled feelings toward God… It’s a relationship. It requires honest communication.

Are there circumstances in your life now where you feel you’re waiting on God? Ask in prayer whether there is any action you can take or receive. Maybe there is… maybe not.

We’ll be asking some big questions this week. When do we acknowledge that things we value or love have died (people, pets, relationships, jobs, prosperity, sobriety, health…), and grieve? And when do we allow the Spirit to whisper hope of new life? That takes growing in discernment. This story reminds us that what looks like the end isn’t always. Sometimes it’s the beginning of an even stranger trip.

3-17-23 - Seeing

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

I once I saw a beautiful documentary called “Visions of Mustang: Bringing Sight to the Forbidden Kingdom,” about a medical mission to bring eye care to the ancient kingdom of Mustang, a remote and inaccessible part of Nepal. Extreme exposure to sun and wind and altitude means many residents develop cataracts and other easily treated eye problems. The team saw 1650 patients, dispensed nearly 800 pairs of glasses and performed many surgeries, restoring sight to the blind and giving a first glimpse of clarity to many who never knew what sight was supposed to be.

Jesus too was on a mission to restore sight in the forbidden kingdoms of this world, and his description of that mission is puzzling. He says to the man he healed, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains."

Did Jesus really want those who thought they had God all figured out to become blind… or to recognize their blindness? He is particularly hard on these leaders who are so sure they see correctly. Because they have rejected his message and revelation, he says, they are stuck in sin. These self-righteous ones, who think they are “first,” will be last of all. Yet to more obvious “sinners” who come to Jesus for life, he throws open the gates to the Kingdom; the last shall be first.

What about us? Are we among the “first?” What about the “last” who never hear about Jesus’ love, or just do not experience faith? This is a mystery to sit with, and reconcile with the whole of Jesus’ promises of life over death. The life of faith is about learning to see ourselves clearly, knowing our weak spots as well as our strengths; to see others clearly and without judgment; and to see God clearly.

And once again, Jesus affirms relationship over religion: Jesus heard that they had driven [the man born blind] out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him.

As we are open to meeting Jesus, we come to see him more clearly too. We might pray, “Okay, Jesus let me see you, find out who you are.” We might experience him in prayer, or pick up a New Testament and read a Gospel, check out his "profile," as it were. We can spend time with people who know him, hang around him, build our trust.

Scott Hamilton, who put together the expedition depicted in the film, spoke at the screening I saw. He feels the reason they succeeded was due to “monk power” – the eighteen Buddhist monks who accompanied them up to Mustang and went to remote settlements to invite people to the eye clinics. The trust engendered by those relationships made it possible for many to have their sight restored.

Jesus came in human flesh into our forbidden kingdom so that we might trust God to get close to us. As we open to relationship with him and let him come close, close enough to touch our eyes, we will find new sight, clearer than we could ever imagine. Then we can go out, like those monks, and find others and help them trust Jesus to draw near.

3-16-23 - Truth To Power

You can listen to this reflection here.

A student of power dynamics could have a field day with the Christian gospels. The next part of this week’s story shows how much power the powerless can have, and how much control people with an illusion of power can try to exert over others. The Pharisees depicted here could put a hostile Congressional hearing to shame.

Unsure what to make of this miracle of healing, these leaders interrogate the man born blind. When he maintains his story – “This man came along, made a paste with mud, put it on my eyes, sent me to wash it off, and then I could see” – they decide to question the man’s parents. They don’t contradict the story, so they go back to the man himself.

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” (I think we call that leading the witness… ) He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?”

Where does this man get the boldness to answer the authorities with such wit and sarcasm? Perhaps knowing that God has healed him so powerfully frees him to stand up to these ecclesiastical bullies. He gets a reaction: Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

Talk about transformation! This man who used to beg every day, the only occupation his disability allowed him, is now revealed as a theologian and a lawyer, turning their logic back on them. “If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” Clearly, his spiritual vision functions as well as his new eyesight. This man, who recently held the lowest social status, now speaks with authority to the authorities.

Where can we get the courage to stand against power that abuses authority and distorts logic? We may encounter such people in our own lives, workplaces, even families, not to mention governments. How do we speak truth to them? We locate our power in the same place the now-seeing man did: knowing we are so beloved of God, that God would move heaven and earth to make us whole. It is in our awareness of our need, weakness before God, reliance on God's strength, that we find the power to stand for justice and truth.

Today, remind yourself of the different ways God has healed and strengthened you over the years. Recall the ways you used to have trouble functioning, that you’ve overcome. Name your gifts, and the transformations you’ve undergone. You might also name ways in which you still feel disabled, ill equipped, out of control. Invite the Spirit of God to pour God’s love into those areas in you, and make you whole.

St. Paul reminds us that God’s strength is perfected in our weakness. Anytime we’re unsure of where we stand, we can remember that we stand in the might of the God who made all that is, seen and unseen. As we stand in that power and love, we see more and more of God’s love at work.

3-15-23 - In Trouble Now...

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

It’s amazing that Jesus has been held up as a role model to generations of children, given his penchant for talking back and getting in trouble. We might call him the “Dennis the Menace” of world religious figures. John’s gospel in particular features increasingly tense encounters with religious authorities as Jesus’ miracles (“signs,” to John…) confront these leaders with evidence of divinity they’d rather not acknowledge.

It doesn’t help that Jesus doesn’t seem to care what day it is. Healing on the Sabbath leaves him open to charges of violating the Law by "working.” This miracle with the man born blind really shakes things up:

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided.

They interrogate the newly sighted man a second time; this time he says, “He is a prophet.” Not liking that answer, they call in the man’s parents to testify that he was indeed blind from birth, and that he now sees. The parents are terrified – they’ll admit he was born, and born blind; they refuse to comment on this new turn of events. “Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.”

Banishment is an extreme threat – and a measure of how threatened the Jewish leaders were by everything Jesus represented. The evidence of Jesus’ holiness and spiritual power was always before them – but to accept his claims seemed blasphemous, and would mean acknowledging his authority. These men were clinging to limited power under the thumb of the Roman occupation… too much was at stake.

How about us? What order in our lives might be threatened by acknowledging the “God-ness” of Christ, accepting that his power is real and still at work in the world around us? Are we keeping Jesus at a safe distance, locked up in a pretty building, visiting him for an hour or so each week?

Or do we invite him into our lives, into our cluttered living rooms, our frenetic days and never done to-do lists? Are we willing to let him roam freely through our work and relationships and leisure activities, perusing our bank accounts and spending patterns? What if he suggests some changes to our priorities? What if he asks us to commit time and resources to other things, other people?

There’s a lot to pray about in these questions – and a lot to offer to God, as we open our hands and hearts. We must issue the invitation; the Spirit of Christ seems rarely to come where not invited. And, most of the time, Jesus doesn’t even knock things over that much. He takes his time and lets us come around to his way of seeing before inviting us into new patterns of being.

Sometimes. Other times, he can be a little “Dennis” like… but, you know, like Dennis, kind of lovable.

3-14-23 - Seeing What Is Not

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

How would you respond if somebody you knew to be blind could suddenly see, or someone paralyzed came dancing down the street? Or course, now we have medical advances… but imagine if you were around when this blind man received sight he’d never had? It caused a stir, to say the least…

The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, 'It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.”

Funny how, when we’re positive something cannot be, we can convince ourselves we’re not seeing it. Even when the man said, “I’m the guy…” they couldn’t quite buy it.

He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.”

Do we need to understand “how” to accept “what?” The man himself seems remarkably untroubled by how this came about – even before he gets the third degree from the religious authorities. Maybe it’s because he had no prior visual data to contradict his new reality. He did not have to overcome a lifetime of “that’s impossible; if you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist.” He had never seen anything with his eyes. Maybe that’s why children believe so much more easily than adults – less contradictory data. Madeleine L’Engle has written that as a small child she routinely descended the staircase in her home without touching the steps. She did that until she learned it was impossible.

We can get so locked into our understanding of how the universe works – an understanding that the best scientists admit is incomplete – that we can’t entertain the possibility that the Creator of the whole thing has “laws” we have not yet discovered. Or have not discovered fully. That’s the “Kingdom of God” Jesus was making known, what I like to call the Energy Field of God.

Have you ever been asked to believe something that you knew to be impossible? Was it really? Or was your understanding too limited? Is there something in your life now that you’re being invited to believe? A step of faith you’re being invited to take? A prayer you’re being invited to try on? Can you take a step in that direction in prayer today?

The God we worship as Christ-followers is One who ”calls into being things that were not.” (Romans 4:17). Faith is our ability to believe in what God is calling into being. We don’t have to be limited in prayer by what we’ve already seen. We do have to open ourselves to the possibility that God’s ways are bigger than we can imagine. That’s the beginning of faith vision, seeing what we have not previously been able to see.

God is calling things into being all the time. Imagine the sensory rush as our Spirit-vision kicks in and we truly begin to see the Energy of God at work around us.

3-13-23 - The Impossible

You can listen to this reflection here.

This week we dive deep into another Jesus encounter, this time with a man who was born blind, whose sight Jesus restores – to the dismay of a great many people. One would think such a healing would result in rejoicing – but overturning the laws of nature and probability unsettles people, especially those with an illusion of being in control.

As the story begins, the man does not ask for sight – who would ask for the impossible? He’s never known what it is to see. Jesus and his disciples pass him and the disciples ask, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” In some communities, misfortune, illnesses, even infertility are assumed to be consequences of sin, just as prosperity and health are seen as signs of God’s blessing.

Jesus rejects that kind of causality, but suggests something that to my ears is equally troubling: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” Was Jesus suggesting this man was singled out for misfortune just so God could swoop in with a razzle-dazzle miracle later in his life? I don’t think so. I think he is saying that all situations of suffering, no matter their source, are opportunities for us to transmit the power and love of God to transform them. I read his words as, “Don’t waste your time wondering what happened in the past – God’s power is about what happens next.”

And Jesus takes the opportunity to reveal the power of God right there.

…he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

Among the many mysteries in this story is this: Why does he go through this strange exercise of making a paste of mud and saliva, when he could just speak healing upon the blind man? Why does he send him to wash in the pool to somehow “release” the healing? Archeologists have discovered ruins suggesting the Pool of Siloam was spring-fed, which would have made it an acceptable place for ritual bathing and purification. Are there echoes here of Jesus’ words about living water? Did he have the man wash at the pool so that the sacred places of Israel would be part of the healing? Did he make the mud paste to convey that ordinary things can become sacramental, vehicles of the holy for us?

Jesus heals in different ways in our Gospel accounts – sometimes just with a word, sometimes with matter, sometimes in person, sometimes remotely, sometimes with established rituals. He uses his own saliva also in restoring speech and hearing to a deaf-mute, and in another healing of a blind man. We may be squeamish about spit, but this story does tell us that God is not limited to one method or set of words – and that the healing power of God is alive in the very matter of our minds and bodies. God’s healing is always mediated through a person who prays, whether with words, or with a touch, or through a prayer shawl. The “stuff” of our lives can become holy as we invite God to consecrate it.

Today, let's offer a prayer of thanksgiving for our bodies, starting with our feet and moving upward; for the way our body and senses carry us, enable us to do ministry, to make God’s love and power known to others. And if there is someone you know in need of healing, pray for God’s healing to be released in that person as it was in the blind man.

His story continues, “Then he went and washed and came back able to see.” It was "impossible" then - and "impossible" now. Except, the same God is at work in us. So look out...

3-10-23 - Telling Our Stories

You can listen to this reflection here.

This week’s story is a lesson in faith-sharing – or evangelism. A woman meets Jesus, and discovers that in him is the power of God. When he then tells her that he is, in fact, the Anointed of God, the Messiah long-awaited by Jew and Samaritan alike, she believes him. At least, she is sure enough that she drops her water jar and runs back to tell her neighbors in town about him – and then they come to check him out themselves.

She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile, Jesus’ disciples come back with lunch – but he doesn’t want any:
Jesus said to them, ”My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.”

Is Jesus having a moment of discovery? Has he found, in this alien territory, a mission field he had discounted, assuming he was only to bring his gifts to the Jewish people? Perhaps this encounter has reminded him of his broader mission. Or maybe he knew all along, loitering by that well.

He and his disciples will soon find out just how ripe these fields are when they spend a few days in that town: And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

Our job as Christ followers is to tell the stories of our encounters with God – often across boundaries of culture, race, age or gender. We don’t have to persuade anyone about the Nicene Creed, just speak our God-stories. And if our stories are tepid, we may be too locked into thinking our “God-encounters” are things that happen in church. Church stories can be dull to those outside the congregation. But “God stories” are rarely dull – this woman’s story certainly wasn’t. And her excitement and passion helped ignite curiosity and anticipation in her neighbors.

What kind of news do you tend to share with excitement? Great things that have happened? Achievements? Stories of travel? Cultural events? Meals? Your children’s exploits? This weekend, try to notice when your energy rises in conversation – what are you talking about at those points? Can you think of a “holy moment” that generates that kind of energy in you, which you might share with someone? Pray about who needs to hear that story.

If telling people how great our church is was an effective means of spreading the Good News, our churches would be full. They’re not. Yet, the fields are still ripe with people hungry for spiritual connections that are authentic and personal. Let’s do what this woman did, and go tell our neighbors about our encounters with Jesus, with God, with the Holy Spirit.

We just need to introduce people to Jesus; he will do the rest. Then maybe we’ll get to hear those joyful words too – “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe. We have heard for ourselves, and now we know.”

3-9-23 - True Worship

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

When Jesus names some uncomfortable truths about her life, the woman he has met at a well does not comment. She changes the subject, bringing up the source of division between Jews and Samaritans: “Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem."

I always saw this as an evasive pivot away from the topic of her personal life. But I wonder – is she actually trying to deepen the conversation? “Okay, Mister, if we’re going to talk truth, let’s talk about why your people and mine don’t get along. Let’s talk about our relationship. Why do you say we all have to worship in Jerusalem?”

Jesus gives her a full and perhaps surprising answer, not condescending:

“Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

This truth Jesus offers should be emblazoned on our church buildings and service bulletins. How and where we worship can both lead us into divine presence, and keep us far away. It is human nature to seek connection with the holy – and when we find it, to attempt to recreate the circumstances we believe led to that moment. Thus we get ritual, and we repeat it and soon deem it sacred, and then all kinds of actions and objects and spaces and even clothing accrue – and before we know it, we may put our focus on all the apparatus and lose sight of the divine connection we were seeking in the first place.

Worship, as Jesus defines it, is not something we do. It is how we open ourselves to encounter with the Living God. It is a spiritual activity, engaging our spirits – and, because our spirits are embodied, also our senses, minds and bodies. And worship is truth-seeking. We don’t need to be in church to worship – church can help sometimes, and get in the way others. What we need is an open heart and humility.

When do you feel yourself most fully alive in worship? Is it during a service? If so, what elements draw you in? Music? Prayer? Proclamation? Teaching? Movement? Sacrament?
It’s good to be aware of how you feel most connected to God.

Maybe you feel yourself most worshipful in silence or in solitude or in nature or doing something for someone else – it’s good to know that too, to honor that as worship.

If you don’t feel you connect to God in worship of any kind, you might ask the Spirit to show you a way for you.

Worship, above all else, is encounter – a profoundly cross-cultural encounter across boundaries of difference more pronounced even than the ethnic, religious and gender barriers Jesus and this woman were bridging. Worship is an encounter between a mere human, unique and ordinary, and the God who made all things, holy and transcendent. Yet this God invites us to meet, to break bread, even to dance.

The hour is coming – and is now here – when God is in our midst, in spirit and in truth. God has shown up. Will we?

3-8-23 - Miss Communication

You can listen to this reflection here.

One of my favorite things about this week’s gospel story – and it is one of my favorites – is the subtle way the characters reveal themselves by what they say and don’t say. For instance, the narrator does not tell us that our heroine has had a complicated romantic life… there is a hint in her coming to draw water at noon, when the sun is hottest but she’s more likely to avoid the stares and murmurs of her community, but we only learn about her when Jesus shares this information he had no way of knowing.

Jesus and the woman exchange many words, but they seem to keep talking past each other. He asks her for water; she wonders why he’s willing to ask her. He says if she knew who was asking, she’d be asking him – and that the water he gives never runs out. Then she goes literal – and sarcastic: “Okay, so give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Then Jesus changes the subject. Abruptly. "Go, call your husband, and come back." The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband' for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” If this is meant to shut her up, it doesn’t work: The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet,” and swiftly changes the subject again.

We aren’t told how she felt when Jesus spoke her past to her. He had no earthly way of knowing this about her, unless she sported tattoos with different men’s names on them. But she doesn’t deny it – and even more significantly, she doesn’t break off the conversation. She changes the subject, sure, launching into a discussion of proper locations for worship… but she doesn’t leave. There must have been something about the way Jesus spoke and looked at her that invited her to be real, not hidden.

That is how the Holy Spirit works in us. In some ways, we are to God as wild animals are to humans – skittish, afraid to get too close. And God comes into our lives, sits down, invites us into conversation. We might try to obscure it or stay on a surface level of needs and thank yous, so that we can avoid really being known… but eventually we learn that we are in the presence of the One who already knows us, knows everything thing about us, the good, the bad, the ugly – and isn’t walking away.

Have you had that kind of conversation with God lately? Ever? What would you rather Jesus didn’t know about you? Can you bring it up first? Just lay it out there… see how he reacts, what he says?

Chances are, you will come away feeling more accepted and loved than blamed or shamed. We can see how this works on a human level in 12-step meetings – people are accepted as they tell the worst about themselves, and are loved into sobriety. If this can happen with people, imagine how thoroughly God can love us into wholeness as we make ourselves available.

We learn later that this moment with Jesus had an impact, for the woman runs back to her townspeople – the ones whose judgment she was presumably avoiding – and tells them, “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did!” She has not been shamed. She has been liberated by discovering that the Lord of heaven and earth can know everything about her and still offer love and forgiveness. I hope you have discovered that freedom, more than once. As we receive it, so are we able to give it.

3-7-23- Always Replenished

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

A tired woman comes to a well at the peak of the day’s heat, repeating a chore that no doubt has shaped her days for some time. It is her job to fetch water for the household. It’s not so bad going, but carrying the heavy jars back to town is a burden she’d gladly give up.

A man is there, a Jew, a rabbi from the look of him. She doubts she need fear him, but wishes he were not there to disturb her solitude. Jews are so condescending to her people, as though they weren’t just another branch on the same tree. She nods at him and sets about lowering her jar. He speaks, “Give me a drink.”

She answers, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" His answer is puzzling, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink’, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

She is in no mood for riddles. Does he not know the holiness of this well, its history? “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?”

He is more mysterious still: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” What could this mean?

A spring of water in us, gushing. Here is an image of abundance, of movement, of life. If you’ve ever been mesmerized by the rushing water in a brook or river, or stared at a waterfall or waves crashing, receding, returning, crashing again, you know how powerful a representation this is of not running out. And Jesus locates this gushing spring not outside of us but inside, where we always have access. This spring is God’s life, renewing us.

What have you been “going to the well” for your whole life, that you most wish to never run out of? If your answer is something material – food, money – it’s good to name it. If it’s emotional – love, affirmation, attention – it’s important to be aware of what motivates you. God guarantees no provision in those areas. But spiritual commodities, like peace, healing, forgiveness, love – those all come with God’s living water in us, and they are always being replenished.

Today in prayer you might image that river of God-life flowing through you, dislodging all the debris of sin and hurt, and bearing it away, renewing and refreshing everything in its path. You might reflect on areas in which you feel empty or dry, and invite the river to flow to those places. If you feel a need of healing, invite the river to flow into that area. If you’re burdened by anxiety about the world or other people, invite the river to flow through those places, a visual prayer.

As we become more practiced at accessing the living water inside us, the spiritual gifts it brings may just make us more content about those material and emotional areas we worry about. After all, this living water is the river of God, which Jesus likens to the Holy Spirit. Our mouths may thirst, our stomachs may hunger – yet with this spring in us, our spirits need never go dry.

3-6-23 - A Man, a Woman, and a Well

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

It's high noon, on a dry and dusty day. The man is alone, tired and thirsty. A woman approaches, a woman with a past - and quite a present. They are strangers who perhaps should not speak to each other - but they do. And both are changed.

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)

As we explore this week's gospel encounter with Jesus, let’s start with the who/when/ where's: We have Jesus, alone. We have a Samaritan woman, her ethnicity stated to convey her status as a not-quite-Jew. Samaritans descended from the original northern kingdom of Israel which, for a time was united with Judea in the south. But when the leaders in Jerusalem decreed that all worship was to take place in the temple there and no longer at the many other sacred sites of Israel, a division began which eventually separated Jews from Samaritans. The familial enmity persisted and deepened into a profound suspicion in which Samaritans were considered heretics and lesser-than.

And what about the time of day? Those with a cultural memory of Westerns might anticipate a clash when we hear “noon” – and certainly we will see some verbal gunplay in this encounter. But what might “noon” mean for the writer of John’s Gospel? The time when the sun is highest, the most light possible is in the day? A symbol of completeness, the mid-point of the sun’s journey across the sky?

Our location is a well, in a place steeped in the history of Israel, a place the patriarch Jacob gave to his best-beloved son, Joseph. Jacob, remember, was Abraham's grandson, whom God blessed after a night of wrestling. In that struggle, Jacob was given a new name: Israel, which became the name for the nation descended from Jacob's twelve sons.

The well might ring other echoes for John’s listeners: in the story of the patriarchs of Israel, at least three matches are made at wells: Abraham’s servant, sent to find a wife for Isaac, meets Rebekah at a well; Jacob meets and falls in love with Rachel at a well; Moses meets his wife at a well. So, should we expect a love story? Jesus often encounters women in the gospels, sometimes with intimacy – emotional, and even physical in the case of the woman who anoints his feet. This won’t be an encounter of romantic love, but a profound connection will take place.

Today, in your imagination, you might approach that well like the woman in the story. Imagine the setting. See Jesus there. How might you feel about Jesus being in a place where you expected to be alone? What needs do you bring to this solitary place? What kind of conversation might you have? Let it unfold, and follow where it goes. Write down any conversation that transpires.

Place, time, personae – the setting is ripe for something to happen. Something always happens when we meet Jesus.

3-3-23 - God So Loved

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

If you ever had to memorize bible verses in Sunday School, chances are you can recite this one, John 3:16, favored by sports fans and poster-makers:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

This verse can evoke mixed emotions. It is a marvelous expression of God’s love for the world, a love so extravagant God willingly gave up his only son to save it. And it makes an extravagant promise – eternal life for those who believe in God’s only son. How we respond to this promise has everything to do with how much we feel the world is in need of saving, and how we feel about the “perishing” part.

For most of the Christian era, it has been generally accepted that people were lost in sin, for which the legitimate penalty was death without chance of pardon; and that God had designed a remedy to meet the demands of that penalty in such a way that we could be spared it – by having his own son, the only perfect sacrifice, take on that death sentence for us. Theologians calls this “substitutionary atonement,” Jesus taking our place. Such a reading of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection is supported by this passage. Jesus says, straight out, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

I cannot debate here the thorny question of whether humankind needed saving, or if God really ordained death as the punishment for sin. I will assert that a God who desires not to condemn but to save is a God worthy of our worship and trust. Condemnation lies at the heart of human sinfulness; our tendency to judge and condemn other people and ourselves is one of the most corrosive attributes human beings share. And so one of the most powerful verses in the New Testament for me is Paul’s declaration, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)

To be reminded that Jesus himself said God is not interested in condemning anyone is a crucial corrective to centuries of judgmental, condemnatory, narrowly legalistic, rule-based teaching by the church. Condemnation is a reflection of our sinful nature; gracious love is a reflection of God’s nature, and ours as creatures made and redeemed in the image of our extravagant God.

Is there any pattern or behavior in your life for which you continually condemn yourself? Are there other people, individuals or categories, whom you routinely find yourself condemning? Perhaps today we might bring those people and patterns into the light in prayer, asking God to show us how God’s love might lift from us the burden of condemnation – whether we’re the condemned or the condemner. What strategies might you devise to become more aware of the action of condemnation in your life? Where might you invite the winds of the Holy Spirit to blow you into greater freedom and acceptance, of yourself and others?

“For God so loved the world…” Might we ask to be so filled with that gracious love that we find ourselves loving the world in God’s name? When all is love, we need not speak of perishing and saving, only of Life everlasting.