Water Daily: April 2023

5-1-23 - Somewhere

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

There’s a place for us; somewhere a place for us.
Hold my hand and we’re halfway there; Hold my hand, and I’ll take you there…

In the musical version of Jesus’ last night with his disciples, maybe he’d break into song. Somewhere. A place for us. (I’m reminded of a lot of pop songs in this reading… stay tuneful this week!). He is trying to comfort his followers, as they begin to realize he is soon to be taken from them.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”

If only we could believe it when people say they’re coming back for us. If small children could trust that mom’s not disappearing for good, they’d need fewer blankets and bears. If young women could trust that men really do just “want some space,” there’d be fewer bad love songs. We cannot believe what we cannot conceive – and how could Jesus’ friends conceive a life beyond death, not to mention a place “out there” with him and lots of dwelling places and plenty of room for everyone?

How can we? This passage is often used at funerals. Perhaps it comforts the bereaved to know their loved one has a front-door key waiting on a hook somewhere – though I doubt anyone who’s enjoying Total Love has much use for a zip code. But we like to know where our people are, to imagine them in a place. Maybe we like to imagine ourselves in a place, so we've have taken the Bible's few symbolic hints about heaven and worked them into a city with golden streets and gem-encrusted gates.

I’m not overly concerned about arranging for my pied-a-terre in the afterlife. I know I can start living that life where I am now. We can access the heavenly places in all kinds of ways – in worship, in prayer, in a walk on a fine day – anywhere and anytime we feel ourselves connected to Jesus, in the presence and light and love of God.

What is your view of the afterlife – your afterlife?
Where and how do you best find yourself in touch with God in the here and how?

Is that anything like the heaven you imagine?
Maybe in prayer today you can ask the Spirit to make you aware of the Somewhere God intends for you to dwell in.

We are invited to live already as though we know that place, that Somewhere, where Jesus is, where God is. When we live out of that conviction, we bring it into being in the here and now. Forgiveness and love and giving our stuff away to people who need it become a lot more natural – we’re living the life of heaven.

Somewhere. We'll find a new way of living/ We'll find a way of forgiving …Somewhere …
Somewhere is here, my friends. Some time is already.

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4-28-23 - The Abundant Community

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

Abundance has its drawbacks, I reflect when allergies strike. The spring growth spurt that bedecks our streets in pink and purple and green also generates a super-abundance of pollen. When a whole community is living the abundant life, it generates as much growth as the flowers and trees. Jesus calls us to live abundantly, and Sunday’s reading from Acts about the early church gives us a glimpse (perhaps slightly idealized…) of just how beautiful and fruitful abundance can be in community:

Those who had been baptized devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.

It’s a simple recipe for the good life – and yet most Christ-followers find it impossible to live this way. This is a puzzle, and a shame, for observers outside the faith have pointed out how much more appealing Christianity would be if its followers were more Christ-like. (Mahatma Gandhi was perhaps the most noted, saying, “Oh, I don't reject Christ. I love Christ. It's just that so many of you Christians are so unlike Christ.” He is said to have continued with something like, “If Christians were more like Christ, all India would be Christian.”)

Yet even that early community didn’t stay focused on mutuality and abundance. We read in Acts that early on someone decided to withhold some of the proceeds of a land sale, and lied about it, which was the more community-breaking act. Conflict and scarcity raised their ugly heads.

So, should we abandon this as an impossible ideal? I hope not. All it takes is one person to recommit to living Jesus’ abundant life. Two is even better. They begin to influence others, who decide to reorder their lives, and on it goes. Sociologists have shown that human behavior is remarkably contagious. Greed, fear, and control are having a pretty good run, don’t you think? Might we regain some ground for love, faith and peace?

If you made the lists yesterday of things and people who steal your goodwill, peace, confidence, joy; and the people and places that help you gain those gifts, you have a blueprint for action. If you’re in a covenant relationship with someone else, hold each other accountable when the “scarcity thinking” starts to mess with your abundant joy. As our communities commit to live this way, increasing our capacity to trust that resources we need will be there when we need them; learning to stop and shift whenever we start to make a decision based on fear of scarcity – we will grow, in faith, in joy, and even in people.

Abundant life has a generative principle – abundance generates more abundance. That passage from Acts ends with this: “And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” If we mourn the scarcity of people in our pews, let’s take on the discipline of abundant living and abundant trusting. Few things are more attractive than someone living at peace and trusting in “enough.”

When all the energy in the tree is focused on pushing out buds, it bursts into flower. And when all the energy in our communities is focused on living into Jesus’ promise of Life in abundance, we’ll burst into flower too. That's nothin' to sneeze at...

4-27-23 - The Abundant Life

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

Want a simple principle to guide life choices? Discern which option leads to more life, and which is likely to drain life away. When energy and time are finite, we need to invest in people and activities we find life-giving, and which give life to others, rather than ones which run us down, involve unnecessary criticism or lead to toxic thinking or behavior. It's not always that simple, of course, and might involve some rewiring. Yet that is the kind of transformation the Holy Spirit works as we make room for God’s life in us.

Jesus draws a contrast between life-giving and death-dealing in this week’s passage: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy,” he says. “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

“The thief” might be anything or anyone who stunts our life or brings oppression, be it emotional, political, spiritual, economic, or any other kind. Jesus was painting the religious leaders with that brush, and of course the Roman occupiers. He probably also meant our spiritual adversary, the devil, intent on drawing people away from trusting the love of God. We know what death-dealing looks and feels like.

The abundant life is harder to describe, since life is hard to quantify – but we know it when we’re living it. It consists not so much in an abundance of things or time or even love, as in our awareness of richness, our being tuned to abundance. The abundant life is a balanced life, where we are renewed as we pour ourselves out for others. It is a life of laughter and insight and rich conversations, of wonder and play. It is life that we live here and now, and it does not end with death. That, Jesus says, is why he came – that we might have life, and have it in abundance.

What are the “thieves” who steal your good will, peace, confidence, joy? Make a list of all the culprits. It might include people you love; surfacing that can give you incentive to work on those relationships. This exercise is not without complications!

In what places do you find the most life? List those too. Do you get to put enough of your time and energy into those things? Can you find a way to invest more? Any investment advisor will tell us to put our resources into things with a good yield, what Jesus called “fruitfulness.” Are we investing wisely with our time and gifts and love?

When our hearts are tuned to abundance, we find feasts large and small. We make feasts for others at the drop of a hat. We trust that resources will be there when needed, and usually find they are. We move with the wind of the Spirit in our sails, and when we’re becalmed, we rest in it. We feel our feelings fully, even the less happy ones. We forgive ourselves and others easily. We love ourselves and others.

The abundant life is not where I began, and it’s still a place I need guidance to navigate. As the Holy Spirit remakes me, in union with my spirit, I’m learning to dwell there more and more. I hope you are too.

4-26-23 - Coming In and Going Out

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

“I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”

Earlier this week we explored Jesus’ saying that he was the gate of the sheepfold, the means of entry. I said it was hard to imagine a person as a gate. But here’s something I learned about sheepfolds in Jesus’ day: scholars think they often had no gate. The shepherd, when the flock was safely enclosed, would lie down to sleep in the opening as a way of securing the flock. Thus, the shepherd became a gate.

Putting aside the amusing image this prompts of a sleepy shepherd trampled one morning by hungry sheep going out to pasture, it helps make sense of Jesus’ words. The shepherd is the one who leads the flock in and out of the fold. Jesus says those who enter the Life of God by way of relationship with him will come in and go out and find pasture.

It occurs to me that sheep don’t get sustenance in the sheepfold – for nourishment, they go out to pasture. What they get in the sheepfold is rest and security. What does that say to us as churchgoers? Often people say they go to church to be fed. What if instead we saw church-time as a time to rest and recharge, be renewed, safely enclosed in the fold with the rest of our flock – and then sent back out to find God’s nourishment in our lives the rest of the week?

What if we were fed in spiritual conversation with other people, by sharing our faith stories with people who aren’t in our “fold?” What if God wants us to be "pasture" by which others to be fed? The going out becomes as important as the coming in, maybe more.

Why do you go to church? What do you seek there? What do you seek when you leave and head back to your “life?”
Where do you, or where might you find spiritual nurture in the week between worship services? Where might you offer it?

In prayer today, we could ask, “God… what pastures are you leading me to in my life right now? Who might you be asking me to provide a feast for?” See what occurs to you, or who crosses your path.

We don’t come and go alone. The Great News is that the shepherd goes with us, coming in and going out. The shepherd leads us to green pastures and the shepherd leads us home again. We don’t have to search for pasture – we only have to learn the voice of the Shepherd and follow him.

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4-25-23 - The Shepherd's Voice

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

Are sheep responsive to sound? I don't know, but Jesus - who must have known more about sheep-keeping than I do - says that sheep know the shepherd’s voice:
“The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.”

This passage evokes for me Jesus’ encounter with Mary Magdalene in the garden on Easter morning. Deep in grief at finding the tomb empty, assuming the body of her beloved lord has been stolen, Mary has a conversation with someone she takes for a gardener. It is only when he says her name that she recognizes Jesus by his voice. “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”

I can’t claim to know Jesus’ voice, but I have had enough prayer conversations with him that I believe I recognize his voice – by content if not by tone. When I get a response in prayer that is simple and profound and sometimes a little sharp, something I’m pretty sure I would never have thought of, I attribute it to Jesus. And if it bears good fruit, I feel that hunch confirmed.

One way to describe spiritual growth for Christ-followers is to become familiar with the Shepherd’s voice, so that we are led to green pastures and still waters, to fruitfulness and refreshment. Christ’s leading, which comes to us through the Holy Spirit, can also steer us away from ravines and precipices. As we learn to trust God’s guidance, we also become more hip to false shepherds who try to lead us away from the One who makes us whole.

How do you experience Jesus’ voice in your life? Through scripture or prayer? In worship? Inner promptings? Other people offering interpretations?

If the very idea of “hearing” Jesus seems strange to you, consider a prayer like this: “Okay, Jesus, if you call your own sheep by name and lead them out, call me in a way I can understand.” And then see what happens over the next hours or days or weeks… check in periodically with that prayer and see if your relationship is changing at all. It’s not up to the sheep, it’s up to the shepherd… yet it helps if the sheep are open to possibilities.

Jesus had to watch a lot of people who drifted into his community be drawn away by fear-mongering leaders who warned people not to trust him. I imagine it pained him to watch people come close to the love he offered and then wander off. But Jesus never forced anyone to follow him, and he doesn’t now. He only calls to us, with open arms. Do we hear with open ears?

4-24-23 - The Gate

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

Someday maybe I'll understand the Easter season lectionary. After a few Sundays exploring the events of Easter Sunday, on Easter 4 we leave behind the Resurrection of Christ and jump to one of the “I am the good shepherd” passages. At first glance, “Good Shepherd Sunday” sounds nice and comforting. But as we read these passages, we find they are anything but cuddly. Thieves, rustlers, predators and unreliable hired men abound.

It turns out that Jesus is talking – as usual – about the corrupt and oppressive religious leaders whom he feels misrepresent God and choke the spiritual life of their people: “Very truly, I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.”

Is it any wonder they wanted to kill Jesus? He compares them to thieves and bandits who would rob people of their assurance of God’s love and mercy. Of course, comparing the people to sheep is not the most flattering allusion either.

And it is easy to get tangled in the words as John presents them; isn't Jesus the shepherd? But later Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”

My literal mind has trouble imagining Jesus, a person, as a gate. Maybe it helps if we think of him as one who creates entry space for contact with God – a threshold we cross to gain access to the Holy One, the Creator of all. After all, we affirm that it is by Jesus’ holiness, not our own, that we have access to the Father. He’s our way in… and out.

Does Jesus function that way in your spiritual life? Is he a threshold you can cross into the holy, a space-creator? Do you think you need Jesus to get closer to God? Do you want him in that between-space?
Have you suffered from poor shepherds in the past, who made intimacy with God more difficult? Perhaps you can pray for them, and even forgive. That makes space too.

My prayer for today is, “Jesus – if you’re the gate, show me how I can get closer to the fullness of God by getting closer to you.”

4-21-23 - To Have, Not To Hold

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

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.

The post-resurrection Jesus had astonishing properties – he could appear in locked rooms and disappear at will. Perhaps it wasn’t so much “appear” and “disappear” as “materialize” and “dematerialize.” After all, the risen Jesus was spirit – not a ghost, he points out, but spirit. He seemed to be able to take on substance, or matter, when he needed to be seen. (Perhaps he had those properties before resurrection as well… His little stroll on the Sea of Galilee and transfiguration on the mountain offer tantalizing hints into the physics of Jesus’ incarnation…).

Jesus pulls this disappearing act in several resurrection appearances, the Gospels tell us. He says to Mary in the garden, “Don’t hold onto me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father.” (John 20:11-18) He did hang out and have breakfast with the disciples on the beach after the miraculous catch of fish (John 21), but his interview with Peter implies his coming absence. In Luke’s account of the upper room appearance, he talks about sending the Spirit to them (Luke 24:36-49). It is clear he’s not sticking around.

Jesus was not back to stay. His post-Resurrection, pre-Ascension walkabout had a purpose, to reinforce the teaching he’d given his followers for three years, and to prepare them to receive the Holy Spirit, who would kick the whole operation into gear. And here we are, more or less still in gear, two thousand-plus years later.

We tend to want to keep what feels good, to rest in it. And that is not the way of God. Jesus always seems to be moving on to the next place we will find him. Maybe our wiring is too weak to withstand the frequency of God’s presence all the time. I know I have trouble abiding with Jesus for even a little while, though there is something about that presence that I crave. Maybe Jesus’ appearances, whether in those 40 days, or in our prayers and worship and ministry and community now, are always brief and for a purpose. Maybe he leads us on to new ways to experience him and new ways to make him known to the world, because there are so many who do not know him and need a multiplicity of on-ramps.

Where did you last experience the presence of Christ? How long did that experience last? Did you feel ready for it to end? If you would you like to experience the presence of Christ, and aren’t aware of having done so, here’s a prayer for today: “Risen Lord – I want to know you, to feel your presence, your love. Open my eyes, ears, heart and hands, and find me where I am today. Amen.”

I don’t know what will come of that prayer, but you can pray and release it. God will answer in God’s time and in a way that works for you. I don’t believe God hides from us. And whenever you do encounter that presence, tell someone! Those disciples got up from the table and ran seven miles back to Jerusalem to tell the story, only to find that Jesus had showed up in there the same evening.

I don’t think anyone, even the most prayer-soaked mystic, experiences God’s presence in a constant, unbroken way. Jesus did make a promise, though, that we can rest in, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the ages.” At the end of the ages, we’ll be able to sit in his presence full time. For now, we take the moments and string them together like pearls of great price.

4-20-23 - Breaking Bread

You can listen to this reflection here.

“Lord Jesus, stay with us, for evening is at hand and the day is past…” So begins a well-loved prayer from the Episcopal service of Compline, or “night prayer.” It comes from this week’s Gospel story. The two disciples do not recognize Jesus, despite his insight and authority on sacred history, but they want to continue conversation with him, to remain in his presence. Even as they reach their destination, and he is preparing to walk on, they urge him to stay:

As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him…

Something about Jesus’ resurrection body must have been different – in nearly every post-Easter appearance we read in the Gospels, people who knew and loved Jesus did not recognize him until he did or said something familiar. At the supper table that night in Emmaus, when Jesus took the bread, blessed, broke and gave it to them, they suddenly saw who it was they’d spent the afternoon with. How often had they seen him bless and break bread – when they fed 5,000 people on a hillside with five loaves and two fish; when they’d gathered only a few nights earlier for the Passover feast. Such strange words had accompanied that action: “Take, eat. This is my body, given for you. Whenever you eat this bread, do it in remembrance of me.” The familiar action made manifest the holy.

Breaking bread is a universal rite of community, whether at meal time, to celebrate a special occasion, to reconvene family or reconcile the estranged. It became a central act for Christian communities, not only the Eucharistic blessing, breaking and sharing, but also as a common meal celebrating the people gathered.

At our Eucharistic feast, the bread is a symbol of Christ’s body. It is broken so as to be shared, given away, as his life was. So, too, the community (also the Body of Christ) is broken apart after worship to feed the world. As a friend once described the eucharist: “You give us this little piece of bread, and we give it away all week, and come back for more.” Yes. And when next the Body comes back together, reconstituted, there is a new loaf of bread to be broken. And on it goes, this breaking and making whole in Jesus’ name.

With what do you associate the breaking of bread? What are the holy feasts in your life? They may not be centered around worship, but around family or holidays or celebrations – picnics, banquets. Do you think of Jesus when the bread in those feasts is broken and shared? Such moments can become a quotidian reminder that his presence is a promise to us, a daily invitation to enter his brokenness and his wholeness.

Maybe you would like to make that Compline prayer part of your end-of-day practice:

Lord Jesus, stay with us, for evening is at hand and the day is past; be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and awaken hope, that we may know you as you are revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread. Grant this for the sake of your love. Amen.

For the sake of his love, he has already granted that prayer. That way is ready for us to walk in.

4-19-23 - The Guidebook

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

Do you ever read guidebooks about a place before you visit it? I try, and find I can’t really retain the details – it’s too abstract, too flat. Once I’ve been there, though, I enjoy going back to the book, to let its information fill out what I’ve now seen and experienced.

The Bible can be that way – a whole lot of information and other people’s stories, until we experience God for ourselves and have a personal context from which to process those writings. Perhaps that’s how the Scriptures were for Jesus’ followers before the resurrection, sacred writings that spoke of God’s activity in the past and promised some future restoration that they couldn’t imagine. But after Jesus rose from the dead? Ah, now, let’s read that prophecy again.

Is this what the two disciples on the Emmaus road experienced when the stranger walking with them began to teach them?

Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

Later they say, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” With interpretation, all those words and stories of God suddenly made a kind of sense. They were leading somewhere. They had their own validity in their original times and communities – yet now they also had a new interpretation, both broader and narrower, pointing to what God was up to in the mission of Jesus Christ on earth.

Guidebooks are great, but we often benefit from having a guide as well, someone who’s been further up the road to help us interpret the path we’re traveling. In Jesus, those sojourners found a Guide who could help interpret the Guidebook. In the Holy Spirit, we get the same gift; as we read the Scriptures alone or with others, aided by Christ’s Spirit, they come to life, and bring life to us.

Who has helped you better understand parts of the Bible that you’ve read? Who have you helped?What other guides have come alongside you on the spiritual path, to help make sense of your surroundings – spiritual directors, teachers, authors?

If reading the bible is a challenge for you, you might take a small chunk each day and pray before you read, “Holy Spirit, be with me in my reading and receiving – show me what gifts your Word has for me today.” Read and see what catches your attention. Read it again. Try reading it aloud. Stay with that passage for another day if it’s giving you life.

If you’re not part of a bible study group, I highly recommend joining one – having other people’s insights and perspectives opens it up for us. (Ours starts back up tonight! 7-8 pm EDT on Zoom – link here. We're going to dive into Galatians.)

This Book of ours is a good guidebook, even as some parts can be dull, and others seem out of touch, even angering. The terrain it describes is vast and intricate, ancient and yet to come. But with the Spirit’s help, this Word can nurture our spirits and strengthen our faith… and occasionally even start a fire in our hearts.

4-18-23 - Dashed Hopes

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

Every so often I have an “under a rock” moment; I get too busy to check the news or even social media, and am unaware of major events, celebrities, social moments and movements. The stranger whom the two disciples encounter on the road to Emmaus seems like that, shockingly ignorant of the big news in Jerusalem. Surely even those beyond Jesus’ circle had heard the weekend’s big story, the holy man condemned by the temple leaders, crucified by the Romans – and mysteriously missing from the tomb into which his body had been placed just 36 hours earlier. But here he is, asking,

"What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’" They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?" He asked them, "What things?’" They replied, "The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him.”

Maybe something about this stranger invites them deeper, for they go beyond the facts to the feelings they are wrestling with: “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” There it is. “We had hoped…” In addition to the trauma of the past week, they are face to face with their own lost hopes. It was hard enough to put their trust in someone of such simple origins, from Galilee; a rabbi, teacher. Oh yes, there were the miracles, but also the upside-down teachings… Were they just plain wrong?

Are we? Be honest – have you never felt disappointed by God? I don't think it’s possible to be a person of faith and not be disappointed by God. We are invited to put our trust, our weight on someone we cannot see, touch or feel, except in indirect and inward ways. Anyone who’s ever gone out on a limb in prayer and not seen it answered in any positive way, or faced a heartbreak in life, can have a beef with God. Our Scriptures are full of people who have a beef with God – and often express it in eloquent and poetic ways. That’s the key – to express it, have it out with God in prayer, the way we do in any relationship we hope will be lasting and life-giving.

Those men did not know they were confessing their disappointment to the Lord himself – but we do. Tell God the big life stuff, and the little, niggling things. If you feel like you’re at a wall in your faith, say so. The very act of expressing it creates space for the Holy Spirit’s healing, restoring love to work in us.

And, while we're at it, let’s give thanks for the times we have not been disappointed. It’s all part of the picture. The more complete the picture is, the stronger our faith can be.

Those men on the road had more to say, crazy stuff: “Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.”

We don’t always know what God is up to when our hopes are dashed. Sometimes we find out later that God has moved heaven and earth on our behalf. Sometimes we discover that Jesus is right in front of us, even if we don’t see him.

4-17-23 - Strangers On the Way

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

Often I see posts on social media from friends who are walking all or part of El Camino del Santiago, the pilgrimage route through France and Spain to the shrine of St. James (Sant’Iago) at Campostella. Some have told me that people who come together do not always end up walking together. Walking speeds and rhythms diverge; disagreements can crop up. For varied reasons, people often fall in with strangers on that trail, and sometimes those strangers have just the gifts they need for the spiritual journey that parallels the physical one. (Check out “The Way,” a good film starring Martin Sheen as a reluctant pilgrim on the Camino…)

If I ever make that pilgrimage, I will think of this week’s gospel story, about the disciples on the road to Emmaus and the traveling companion who joined them. In our Sunday readings, it's still the Day of Resurrection. On Easter Sunday, we visit the events of that morning. The next Sunday, it’s that evening. On the third Sunday of Easter this year, we find ourselves in the late afternoon of that same day, on a road outside Jerusalem, with two of Jesus’ followers:

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?”

Why were their “their eyes were kept from recognizing him?” Sometimes we just don’t see what we don’t expect to see, especially if it is far outside the bounds of probability. These two were already under great stress from the events of the past few days – watching their Lord betrayed, arrested, tried, mocked, flogged, crucified… and just as they were coming to terms with that reality, Reality itself was turned upside down with the empty tomb and reports that people had seen Jesus alive, had talked with him. Could these things be? Was it a conspiracy? A hoax? Could it possibly be true?

We process things by talking about them. So these two, in the midst of great upheaval, were discussing, trying to make some sense of it all. And along comes a stranger who doesn’t even seem to know the events of which they are speaking - yet knows more than anyone they've ever met. He helps them understand, and sends them running seven miles back the way they’d come, their world transformed.

Have you ever found yourself talking about traumatic events with total strangers? Sometimes such conversations happen in hospital waiting rooms, or in the midst of disasters. Maybe you have been the stranger that helped someone else process something painful. Were you aware of the presence of Christ in such an encounter? Of Christ in you, or in another?

Today, let’s give thanks for the companions who join us along our way. Ask God to send you alongside someone who needs the gift you bring, the gift of the presence of Christ in you. Tonight, think back and see how that prayer was answered. Try it again tomorrow.

Whatever hikes I may take, I will assume that Christ is showing up beside me in the people with whom I walk. In fact, this principle may well be true on the roads I find myself walking today, actual or virtual. Where is the risen Christ joining you on the Way today?

4-15-23 - Peace Be With You

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

By the time we meet Jesus’ disciples huddled in that upper room on Easter night, they’ve had a very long, strange, dislocating day. It began before daybreak, when some women hurried to the tomb to do for Jesus’ body what Sabbath laws forbade them to do when he died; a day that went from sad to joyful and bizarre as they were met at that now-empty tomb by an angel (or two) announcing that Jesus was risen. And then, there he was, right there on the road in front of the women, saying, “Tell my brothers to meet me in Galilee,” a travel order which has always struck me as a bit prosaic from someone who’s just been to Death and back…

Yet Jesus’ disciples have not gone to Galilee but are holed up in that room – perhaps the one where they’d celebrated the Passover a few nights earlier, a lifetime ago:
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

“Peace be with you.” I can imagine many emotions those men and women probably experienced that day, and none of them involve peace. Here they are, trying to process the cosmic developments they’ve witnessed, while hiding in a locked room because the threat to their lives has just intensified. And here is Jesus, just suddenly there, despite the doors shut and locked? “Peace be with you?”

But Jesus doesn’t only say, “Peace” – he can impart peace. This is the man whom they saw still a violent storm, and calm a violent man. This is the friend they watched endure ridicule and torture and betrayal and a horrible death. When Jesus says, “Peace,” he has the power to generate it. It works on them – soon they are rejoicing.

And then he breathes upon them, imparting the Holy Spirit and authorizing them to release or to retain sins, to bind or to set free. Jesus’ mission was to set humanity free. Now he sends us to participate in that mission, and he breathes upon us his Holy Spirit. Take a deep breath in…. hold it, let it expand in you…. Feel the life of God fill you. And then exhale, breathing God’s forgiving love out upon someone (maybe yourself..). Then do it again.

Jesus invites us to rejoice too, even in the pain and disruption of all that troubles us and this world. Jesus is still risen! He still speaks peace to us, and as we let his presence live in us, we can feel that peace spread through our minds and bodies and spirits. This is one way we know we have received God’s Spirit. This is one way Easter becomes real for us.

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

4-14-23 - Believing For Life

You can listen to this reflection here.

This Easter week we’ve been exploring the Gospel appointed for each day. Today’s passage from Mark 16:9-15, 20 sums up several of Jesus’ resurrection appearances – and in each paragraph we find some variant of “… but he/they did not believe it." John says, in the passage set for this Sunday, that he wrote his version of the Jesus story so that his readers may come to believe in Jesus’ messianic and divine identity, and “through believing you may have life in his name.” Paul, too, links spiritual vitality with believing in Jesus’ divinity. Even Jesus says that those who believe he is who he says he is will have eternal life. This believing stuff is not a minor detail.

Yet, if seeing Jesus risen from the dead did not quell doubt in his early followers, how will reading stories about his resurrection activities and conversations confer faith on us? What the written record does is invite us into the Great Story of God’s love for us expressed in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. It brings us to the threshold. It’s up to us to step in and live it, as it was up to those disciples to say “yes” with their hearts to what their eyes and ears reported. We need to experience the Risen Christ for ourselves.

Do you feel you have experienced the reality of Christ in some way or fashion? If we expect to see him the way Mary or the Eleven or the two on the Emmaus road did, we may feel we’re lacking that experience. Visual and aural Jesus sightings are rare… possibly non-existent. Jesus said as much to his followers; he said when he left, the Father would send the Holy Spirit to them. So it is the Spirit who brings the presence of Christ to us in a way we can experience him.

When we feel the Holy Spirit in or around us – whether by a sensation, or an insight, by answer to prayer or some other way – it is the Spirit of Christ we are experiencing. When we have a holy encounter with another person, we may be meeting the Spirit of Christ in them. As we learn to become more aware of that presence, we more readily accept that Christ is a part of us, in our lives – and thus we are led to believing more fully. His life in us leads to believing, and believing leads to more of his life in us. We become instruments for others experiencing his life, and on and on it goes.

That’s what the last verse of my song “Was That You?” is about.

So where did you last see him, where he wasn’t supposed to be?
He told us he’d be with the poor, the lost, the last, the least …
He said that we would know him in Word and bread and wine;
He promised to be with us, now – and to the end of time.

Is that you breathing peace to me when storms rage in my head?
Is that you releasing power in me, the power that raised the dead?
Is that you, loving me more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That it’s you, always next to me.
Jesus, you, right here next to me.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. The readings for Saturday in Easter Week are here(we’re a day ahead). Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

4-13-23 - Out To Sea

You can listen to this reflection here.

This Easter week we are exploring the Gospel appointed for each day - today it's John 21:1-14. Today, we’re in a fishing boat with Peter and six other of Jesus’ disciples, two unnamed. (John takes care to mention the exact number of fish caught in the nets – someone counted them? – but can’t be bothered to find out the names of two of the crew?). These disciples must have fled Jerusalem for the safer home turf in Galilee, and Peter figures he may as well do what he knows, now that everything he thought he learned since leaving his fishing boat has been turned upside-down.

As happened when Jesus first called him away from his nets (Luke 5:1-11), Peter and the crew fish all night and catch nothing. In the morning they’re ready to call it a day, but someone on the shore suggests they throw their nets over to the right. Though that’s pretty much what Jesus had done three years earlier, they don’t recognize the guy as Jesus – not until their nets become so full they’re ready to burst. Then they know who he is, though perhaps he looks different. (“Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord.”) Peter, who has been fishing in the buff? throws on some clothes to jump into the water and get to Jesus as fast as he can. That’s love – when you can’t wait to reach the other.

Then Jesus utters my favorite words in the whole Bible: “Come and have breakfast.” He’s got a fire going and some bread, and he invites them to add fish from their catch – his catch, which he has allowed to become their catch; that’s how God’s abundance works in our lives. He blesses the bread and the fish – and thankfully doesn’t say, “Do this in remembrance of me,” or our Sunday mornings would be a lot messier. He shows them that feasting is a sign of God’s kingdom, and that no goodbye is really final in that realm.

Where has Jesus provided you with a feast lately?
Where are you seeing abundance in these trying times?
To what feasts, or ministries, do you feel Jesus inviting you to bring “your catch?”

Here is the verse of “Was That You?” that goes with this story. (Whole song is here).

A bunch of us were fishing, just out doing what we knew.
The blues are all we’re catching, but what else we gonna do?
At dawn some guy calls from the shore, “Over there, you’ll find some fish.”
As nets start bursting from the haul, we meet our deeper wish:

Was that you, with abundance when I never see enough?
Was that you, showing what strength is, when all I know is being tough?
Was that you forgiving more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, watching out for me.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. The readings for Friday in Easter Week are here(we’re a day ahead). Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

4-12-23 - At the Table

You can listen to this reflection here.

This Easter week we are exploring the Gospel appointed for each day (today it's Luke 24:36-48). Today, we’re back in that upper room with Jesus’s disciples, grieving unimaginable loss (“How could he have died?"), processing unimaginable news (“He is risen?” “Some of the women saw him?” “Was it just a vision?”), enduring unimaginable terror (“They’re coming for us next…”). Into that swirl of emotions, Jesus appears. He doesn’t come in through a door or a window – he is just there, speaking peace, showing his wounds, explaining God’s Word and naming them witnesses of what God has done and is doing.

And, to quell their fears that they are seeing his ghost, in Luke’s version of the scene Jesus invites them to touch the healed wounds in his hands and feet. “Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." He asks for something to eat; they give him broiled fish. Not much of a meal for someone who’s just returned from the grave, but they get the point.

Then Luke makes a wonderful statement: “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering…” The risen Christ brings us joy in the midst of disbelieving and wondering and grieving, not only after. We are invited to be people of joy in all circumstances, and especially in seasons when we have to process intense and competing emotions, too much information – and too little – and cope with trauma, personal or communal.

For those who don’t feel very “Easter-y,” we need only remember that Jesus’ first followers didn’t know it was “Easter” either. It was just a Sunday, and they knew he had died, and learned he was risen, and being seen. And there he was. If we can let go of our expectations of what “Easter” is or should be, and remain present to where Jesus is around us, we might find ourselves filled with joy while disbelieving and wondering.

Here’s another verse from my song “Was That You.” There is no recording of this verse – it didn’t make the cut in what is already too long a song, but it’s the one that goes with this resurrection appearance:

Tonight we hid for safety, just huddled there in fear;
Even though we’d locked the doors, he suddenly appeared.
He spoke to us of peace, and he showed his hands and feet,
As if to prove he’s not a ghost, he asked for food to eat.

Was that you coming back where you’d spoken your goodbyes?
Was that you inciting joy in the face of all our “whys?”
Was that you imparting more than we could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, bearing peace to me.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. The readings for Thursday in Easter Week are here(we’re a day ahead). Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

4-11-23 - On the Road

You can listen to this reflection here. Today's gospel passage is here.

Today, we hit the road to Emmaus with two of Jesus’ followers. We don’t know why they are going to this village seven miles from Jerusalem, but we are told their conversation is all about the events of the weekend, Jesus’ awful crucifixion and burial, and then the astonishing reports from the women who found his tomb empty and angels announcing that he had risen. How could this be?

Then something more confounding occurs: they are joined by a stranger who asks what they are talking about. Is there anything else they could be discussing at this time? Has this guy been under a rock? They fill him in, and he surprises them further by interpreting all these events in light of their scriptures and what the prophets had foretold about the Messiah. “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” he asks. Perhaps it hadn’t occurred to them to see these events in terms of God’s deliverance? It just looked like God’s failure.

But still they do not recognize their companion as Jesus. it is not until they sit down to supper with him, and he takes the bread, blesses, breaks it, and gives it to them that their eyes are opened – and as soon as they realize who they are supping with, he vanishes. It is that familiar gesture, which he had done just a week earlier at their Passover feast, that reveals Jesus to them, just as his saying Mary’s name had revealed him to her.

We don’t have the advantage of lived experience with Jesus to draw upon. How can we know when he is with us? Sometimes we have an experience of our “hearts burning within us,” as these men had on the road when Jesus explained the scriptures to them. That happens to me more often in prayer or song than in bible study, but all of these are forms of worship. Sometimes we realize we’re in Jesus’ company in an intimate encounter with a friend who sees and knows and loves us. And churchgoers have experience of seeing the bread taken, blessed, broken and given – we too can recognize Jesus in that action.

Could it be that Jesus is always on the road with us, always willing to illuminate scripture for us, always ready to sit at table with us? Maybe we just have to open the eyes of our hearts and name him – invoking his name is like issuing an invitation to him to be right here.

The second verse of my song, “Was That You?" goes like this (the whole song is here):

Met a stranger last night, just outside of town
He didn’t seem to understand why we were so cast down.
But he sure did know where God had been, and he stayed with us to eat;
When he broke the bread and blessed it, the picture came complete:

Was that you coming close when I didn’t have a friend?
Was that you giving me hope when I was facing a dead end?
Was that you blessing me more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, walking next to me.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. The readings for Wednesday in Easter Week are here(we’re a day ahead). Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

4-10-23 - In the Garden

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

Today, we go to back to Easter morning, to that garden with Mary, distraught and bereft at reports that Jesus’ body has been taken from the tomb in which she saw him laid on Friday. …She turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

We tend to see what we expect to see. Blind is blind. Over is over. Dead is dead. And a man in a garden is likely to be a gardener, right? The man in this garden is solicitous, asking Mary why she weeps. In reply, she speaks her urgent need to locate Jesus’ body, which she assumes to have been stolen, as had been threatened. Answering the angels a few moments earlier, she articulated her deeper pain in these poignant words, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him.” Someone she loved deeply, and depended on, and centered her life around has been taken from her; she does not know how she will endure a loss of that magnitude.

Most of us have experienced that feeling, or will. Loss is inevitable when we love; I remember where I was sitting the moment that little insight hit me. But something happened for Mary in this moment where she made herself vulnerable to a stranger, crying out her pain. Jesus revealed himself. And once he spoke her name, she knew without any doubt that it was him, that he was alive.

Could it be that Jesus is with us in our moments of deepest loss and despair, and we don’t know? We can, in prayer, bring to mind some of those times and ask Jesus to show us where he was, even if we couldn’t see him or recognize him. It is a way of praying healing into those wounds.

Some years ago, I wrote a song exploring several of the encounters people had with the resurrected Jesus, in many of which they did not recognize him until he did or said something familiar. You can listen to the first verse, about Mary here; I will share other verses through this week (the last is about us). The whole song is here.

Ran into a gardener, my eyes were blind with tears
Pretty hard to see straight when you’re living your worst fears.
The one I loved the most, gone without a trace -
Then he said my name, I knew that voice… my heart began to race:

Was that you standing next to me when all my hopes were done?
Was that you, alive and breathing, when it looked like death had won?
Was that you loving me more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, standing next to me.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. The readings for Tuesday in Easter Week are here (I skipped Monday). Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

4-7-23 - Mary of Magdala

This week we will look at the gospel reading appointed for each day and reflect from the perspective of one the people on the fringes of the story. We too are on the fringes of this story – and we are invited to come into its heart this week. May these holy men and women draw us closer. Today's gospel passage is John 19:16-30
You can listen to this reflection here.

Mary of Magdala: My name is Mary. I come from Magdala. I’m one of those women, one of those who followed Jesus from Galilee and helped take care of him and the disciples.

This man, this man they killed today? This man healed me. He set me free from the worst kind of bondage you can imagine. He cast out seven demons from me, who tortured me constantly. I didn’t think I’d ever get free of those voices, the incessant chatter inside, telling me to hurt myself, telling me how worthless I was, how I’d be better off dead. He gave me back my life.

After that he was my life. I would have followed him anywhere. He was my Lord. Following him and tending to his needs and those of his disciples – what else could I do? He set me free, and all I wanted to use my freedom for was to serve him.

That’s how it was for all of us – this motley collection of people who had been set free – from demons, from sin and degradation, some from blindness, crippling diseases; some from despair and loneliness and meaningless lives; some from greed and lust. Just a bunch of people who love him because of what he did for us. Selfish kind of love, when you think about it. But it was real, it was real when you were with him. He made it real. He made us all able to love in a way we didn’t naturally know.

And now he's gone. How can that be?

So... now we have to bury him. I hear some guy from the Sanhedrin has given us a tomb to use until we can bury him properly. It’s too late now to anoint him before the Sabbath begins. We’ll have to do it first thing Sunday morning…

I’d better find the others and find out where they’re taking him. Oh, my sweet Lord. My sweetest friend. What have they done to you? What have we done to you?

As you move through this Good Friday, whenever or wherever you will worship, take some time to ponder what Jesus has done for you - what you feel personally he has given you. Reflect on that. Reflect on how worthy you are to receive his gift, not because of anything you've done or will do, but simply because God says so. And then pass it on.

If you would like to join me for the Liturgy for Good Friday online tonight, join here on Zoom at 7 pm, or live on Facebook, here. If you would like to move through an interactive Stations of the Cross, you can find that here.

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

4-6-23 - Andrew of Capernaum - Again

This week we will look at the gospel reading appointed for each day and reflect from the perspective of one the people on the fringes of the story. We too are on the fringes of this story – and we are invited to come into its heart this week. May these holy men and women draw us closer. Today's gospel is John 13:1-17. You can listen to this reflection here.

Andrew of Capernaum - My brother! Jesus sure nailed it with the nickname he gave him, Petros, the rock. Never met anyone so hard-headed. And lovable, ornery, faithful, cowardly – all rolled into one ball of leap-before-you-look, speak-before-you-think energy. He’s been like that since we were kids – got me into trouble more times than I want to remember, and usually all I was doing was watching.

So tonight, when Jesus got up from the table, tied on a towel and started to wash our feet, we’re all looking at each other, mortified – it’s Simon who put into words what a lot of us were thinking. “Lord, you’re gonna wash my feet? Think again!” Jesus just looked at him with that mixture of irritation and love he so often had for Simon, and said, “If you don’t let me wash you, you have no part with me.” But Simon doesn’t let it rest – he has to argue. Argue with our Master! On this night, above all nights. “Okay, wash all of me, then! Why stop with my feet?”

Jesus had an answer for him, of course. He always did. It was their game – Simon pushing as hard as he could, Jesus coming right back at him. How they loved each other. Love each other.

It was hard for Simon to submit to being cared for. Hard for all of us. When Jesus got to me, I didn’t want him touching my feet. They’re not pretty. They were filthy, as feet are in our time and place. But he focused on that task like it was the only thing in the world he had to do. He got them clean, he rinsed and dried them, and I just had to sit there and receive. I think that was the hardest of all the things Jesus has asked us to do in the three years since I met him along the banks of the Jordan. Just sit and receive his gift.

I didn't know that that’s all I would be doing for the next 24 hours – watching him give his life away for me, helpless to help him, nothing left for me but to receive his gift. And if I have trouble being this still and powerless, what on earth must my poor brother be going through?

How are you at receiving the gifts God wants to give to you? How are you at receiving care from others? It’s harder for most people to submit to having someone else wash their feet than it is to wash another’s (unless we’re paying for a pedicure…). Yet arguably our most important spiritual task is learning to receive the love and grace and power of God so we can share it freely with others.

So tonight, if you're going to a Maundy Thursday service (and I hope you are!) - push past your discomfort and allow someone to wash your feet, knowing it is Jesus working through them. It is in receiving that we learn how to give.

4-5-23 - The Other Judas

This week we will look at the gospel reading appointed for each day and reflect from the perspective of one the people on the fringes of the story. We too are on the fringes of this story – and we are invited to come into its heart this week. May these holy men and women draw us closer. Today's Gospel reading is John 13:21-32.
You can listen to this reflection here.

Judas, son of James: Why is this night SO different from any other night! The tension at the Seder table is thick enough to cut. Even after the weirdness of the foot washing, it is clear the troubles are getting to him. Jesus can stand pressure better than most, but nobody can take months of rumors and interrogations and death threats and not be affected. Nothing he said or did tonight made sense, not the washing, certainly not the words about the bread and the wine… His body? His blood?

Then he said one of us would betray him. One of us? We love him! We believe in him. We left everything to follow him. Why would one of us turn him in to the authorities? We all looked at each other, at Jesus. He wouldn’t give a name – he just said, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.”

I am glad he didn’t say the name – because it was Judas! He handed the bread to Judas Iscariot. The other Judas. Or is it me who is the other Judas? Yes, Jesus had two disciples named Judas. You know a lot about the Iscariot. Me – you only know by name, in a list of those disciples called by Jesus to be among his twelve closest followers. I don’t even make every list – I’m only mentioned in Luke’s story.

But I have been there, day in, day out, traveling with him, helping to heal the sick, proclaim the Good News to those who would listen. I have been with him in the rain, in the mud, in the sunshine, at the dinner parties. We never knew what was going to happen next. Only that he could transform the worst circumstances into something with life and hope.

The other Judas has been with us through it all too. I don’t understand how he could turn like that. Sure, he was really upset a few nights ago at dinner, when Mary poured all this expensive ointment on Jesus’ feet. He looked like a walking thunder cloud. Would that be enough to cause him to sell Jesus out?

Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do,” and Judas left the room. Left our company. We thought maybe he'd gone to pick up some supplies before the Sabbath began tomorrow, but… he was on a different errand.

I still believe Jesus can transform the worst circumstances into something with life and hope. But even this?

You’ve probably been at some tense family meals in your life… you may even have known betrayal. How does it help our faith to know Jesus experienced those things?

Can we spare some sympathy for Judas Iscariot?

Can we forgive those who have betrayed us? It’s never too late. We can start by asking God to give us the grace to see that person as God sees them, with compassion. And then allow God’s grace to take hold of us, gradually or all at once. New life...

You are welcome to join my congregations for online worship this evening - here is the link. Our Holy Week line-up of services, many online or hybrid, is here.

4-4-23 - Andrew of Capernaum

This week we will look at the gospel reading appointed for each day and reflect from the perspective of one the people on the fringes of the story. We too are on the fringes of this story – and we are invited to come into its heart this week. May these holy men and women draw us closer. Today's gospel is John 12:20-26.
You can listen to this reflection here.

Andrew of Capernaum: Wow – this movement of ours is really growing! Philip just came over and told me some Greeks wanted to meet Jesus – they’d heard of him! They’re in town for Passover, and they want to meet Jesus! Our Jesus. I was really excited to go tell him.

But he didn’t seem thrilled – he just got really quiet. He said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” – but where you’d think “glorified” was a good thing, he seemed to dread it. And then this cryptic thing about grains of wheat falling into the earth and dying…

We’re all worried about him. And about ourselves – if they arrest him, will they take us too? I can tell my brother Simon is nervous – just makes him more blustery and “Let ’em come for me.” After the thing with Lazarus the rumors got more intense – those leaders at the temple don’t want Jesus getting this kind of attention. And maybe they’re afraid of his power. Because no one has ever seen anything like his power – bringing someone four days dead back to life? Who does that?

“The hour,” he said. Has everything we’ve been doing with him for three years been leading up to one moment? Is something going to happen that will change everything? I thought we’d just keep going as we have been, traveling around with him, preaching and healing, proclaiming freedom and forgiveness, gaining followers. Is this all about more than gaining followers? Is God up to something even bigger? Is that what Jesus means by the seed – “If it dies, it bears much fruit?”

I don’t want to die. And I don’t want him to die! I love that man; I’d give my life for him. I don’t want him to give his life for me… But that’s what he said: “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” What did he mean? Will he be broken open, like a seed? Will I? Am I ready to be broken open?

How about us? Are we willing to let some of our dreams and demands die and fall into the earth like seeds, so they might be transformed into fruit-bearing God dreams? Are we willing to become more fruitful with God?

Let's walk closely with Jesus this week, allowing him to be real in our lives - not the suffering crucified one, but the risen Lord of heaven and earth, bearing abundant fruit through us.

You are welcome to join my congregations for online worship this evening - here is the link. Our Holy Week line-up of services, many online or hybrid, is here.

4-3-23 - Lazarus of Bethany

This week we will look at the gospel reading appointed for each day and reflect from the perspective of one the people on the fringes of the story. We too are on the fringes of this story – and we are invited to come into its heart this week. May these holy men and women draw us closer. Today it is John 12:1-11. You can listen to this reflection here.

Lazarus of Bethany: So, they want to kill me – I, who have already tasted death. More than tasted – spent four days in that place where there is no light. Came back to myself in a cold, dark, rancid place; came back to myself at the sound of his voice calling me. Stumbled toward the light beyond the rock they’d just moved to let me out, not sure where I was, or who.

If I hadn’t seen the power and love in this man who became my friend, I might say Jesus was the worst thing that could have happened to my family. His visits caused my sisters to squabble, his friendship drew unwanted attention. But I can say with my whole heart that meeting Jesus was the best thing that ever happened to us. He drew out the gentleness in Martha, who so often uses her intelligence and competence to control events and other people. And I’ve seen our sister Mary show a new boldness and courage since coming to know Jesus.

Like tonight, at dinner at our house – she took a whole jar of nard that must have cost her the earth, and anointed Jesus’ feet with it. Just got on her knees and anointed him and then wiped his feet with her hair. It was extraordinary, and unsettling. Didn’t make his disciples happy – don’t know if it was the extravagance or the intimacy that bothered them most. But Jesus defended her, talking about her having “bought it for the day of my burial.” He knew the end of this life was coming soon; I wonder if he knew how ghastly that end would be? Did he fear it? The suffering? The dying? Did he know what would come next – really know? Or did he have to walk by faith, like all of us?

And now, because so many have come to believe in Jesus because he raised me, they want to kill me. The symbol. The forerunner. You know what? They don’t scare me. Death no longer scares me. Like my sisters, I believe Jesus is who he says he is, the Anointed of God, the Messiah we’ve been awaiting.

And I know that the next time I leave this life, it won’t be to the place of complete darkness. For he will be with me, the Light of the World will illumine even that darkness and make it holy. I just wish he didn’t have to pass through the darkness himself first…

What in Lazarus’ story – or Martha’s, or Mary’s – brings up a story in you? A story of new life returning from dead places? A story of hospitality and service? A story of extravagant sacrifice to honor Jesus or your faith? What do you want to offer Jesus today?

You are welcome to join my congregations for online worship this evening - here is the link. Our Holy Week line-up of services, many online or hybrid, is here.