Water Daily: October 2023

11-1-23 - Holiness and Mercy

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

Today is All Saints Day, so let’s talk about holiness. Holiness is not a word we hear a lot these days. People speak of “the holy,” and of “wholeness,” but holiness is not in vogue. In an age when the disadvantaged hunger for food and thirst for water, while the well-fed hunger for things and thirst for distraction, who yearns for righteousness?

Holiness is at the heart of Jesus’ prescription for disciples:
‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Righteousness and purity of heart are overlapping categories. Righteousness, being right, true, justified (as in a printer’s margin), means being grounded in God’s love and goodness, aligned to God's will. Purity of heart is an undivided focus on God. To thirst for righteousness is to desire integration, to be authentically ourselves, to have our inner and our outer life cohere; to say what we mean and mean what we say. When we really yearn only for God, we are promised we will see God - and people will see God in us.

Between righteousness and purity of heart on his list, Jesus places mercy, perhaps in recognition that there is no such thing as personal righteousness without engaging with other people. As soon as we engage other people, we face the need to be merciful, as we hope they will be with us. Trying to be righteous without being merciful makes us self-righteous. Purity of heart requires compassion.

As we pray today, let’s locate in ourselves that thirst for holiness and “singleness of heart,” as the Prayer Book puts it. Let’s let that hunger fill us like an empty stomach does. Let’s ask ourselves where the flow of mercy in us might have hit a dam, and invite the Holy Spirit to help us remove those obstacles. The promise for us, as we orient ourselves to desire righteousness, mercy and purity of heart, is that we will be filled, we will receive mercy, and we will see God.

The multi-talented priest, composer and jazz-band leader Andy Barnett composed a lovely setting of the Latin American Bread Prayer. The words are simple and sink into the soul. Listen, and pray:
To all those with bread, give hunger for justice, And to all those hunger, give bread.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for All Saints Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

10-31-23 - #Blessed

You can listen to this reflection here.

There is only one gospel passage assigned for All Saints Day – each year, it’s the same old Beatitudes. I’ve often grumbled at this, dismissing the Beatitudes as a how-to guide (albeit, Jesus’ how-to guide...) and I’m not big on the idea of people striving for sainthood. That’s God’s to give. But if I can look past this little prejudice and more fully explore this famous laundry list of saintly characteristics – remembering that “saint” means Christ-follower – I just may find some gold.

Jesus is speaking to his followers on a “mountain” – probably a hill, but perhaps Matthew wants to draw parallels between Moses giving the Law on Mount Sinai in the old covenant, and Jesus giving the “law” of the new covenant. (Luke, a Gentile, seems less interested in demonstrating continuity between the Jesus movement and its Jewish roots. In his Gospel, this scene takes place on a plain, on level ground – in line with his theme of Jesus as the great leveler, equalizer.)

Jesus has been teaching every chance he gets, but on this day he has a particular message. In the face of the hardship his followers will endure, he wants them to understand an important marker of their identity as his disciples. He wants them, above all, to know they are, blessed. This is the one word he repeats over and over.

What does it mean to be blessed? It means to stand in the light of God’s love and favor. Just as we cannot make ourselves saints, we cannot bless ourselves – we have to let it happen to us.

And God’s blessing is often counter-intuitive – the attributes Jesus associates with blessing are not what the world equates with success. Once again Jesus overturns the “logical” order of human priorities and introduces the upside-down reality of God’s realm. The people of Jesus’ day thought prosperity and health and offspring were signs of God’s blessing… Jesus says, “Look deeper.”

With what do you associate blessing? In what ways do you feel blessed or unblessed?
Might you ask the Holy Spirit to show you in what ways God sees you as blessed? I often invite us to hold other people in our mind’s eye and imagine them showered with God’s holy, healing light – that is an image of blessing. So today maybe we want to imagine ourselves in that light. And know we are blessed, no matter what we feel like on a given day.

As followers of Christ, we are blessed to be a blessing. We are one of the ways God is blessing the world. And we’re a whole lot more effective when we’re in touch with our blessedness. The next time someone says to you, “God bless you,” whether or not you’ve sneezed, say, “I'll take it!”

10-30-23 - Saints Alive

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

Next Sunday has a normal set of passages in sequence with what we’ve been reading. It is also the Sunday after All Saints Day, which has different readings that will be heard in many churches.We will focus on the gospel for All Saints Day this week.

Let’s start by defining what is a saint. Or, more properly, who is a saint. There is a reason we call it "All Saints" – it reminds us that all who follow Christ as Lord are saints of God. “Saints” was the term used in the early church for Christ followers; Paul would write a letter to “the saints who are in Corinth,” or “the saints in Philippi.” Saints were those called out and set aside, consecrated, made holy to the Lord, the way we use special consecrated vessels for holy rituals.

“Saint” does not mean “a really good person” or “holier than thou.” In fact, true saints are humble enough to be quite aware of their faults and weaknesses. Our doctrine of saints recognizes that saints are made, not born. We are made holy by being united with Christ, not through our own attributes. Many of our best known saints, like St. Augustine or St. Francis of Assisi, had quite rakish pasts before the Holy Spirit got hold of them. Some, like St. Teresa of Avila, were quick of wit and sharp of tongue. Some were martyrs, some monastics, some simple, some highly educated. Saints come in all shapes and sizes.

What kind of saint are you? When are you most aware of having been made holy? Another way to ask that is, when are you most aware of the Holy Spirit working through you?

If you want to become more aware of your sainthood, I believe God is always pleased to help you with that. “Make me more holy, Lord.” If you pray that prayer today, ask the Spirit to show you all the ways you already reflect God’s holiness and love. Saints are a work in progress.

The Holy Spirit’s presence always leaves a residue. Thus we become tinged with the holy, and as we keep inviting the Spirit to dwell in, with and through us, that tinge of holiness grows stronger and thicker until the holiness is more obvious than the mere humanity. And then, lo and behold, someone is liable to say of you, “S/He is such a saint!”

10-27-23 - The Perfect Hanger

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

“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets,” Jesus said about the commandments he considered the greatest – to love God with all our heart, soul and mind, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

The literal side of me visualizes an actual hanger, on which hangs the fullness of God’s revelation, perfected in Christ. This hanger, like many in our closets, has three sides. The widest, the bottom stabilizing rod, is our love for God. The two angled sides, which rest on the base and join together at the top, are our love for neighbor and for ourselves – which, as we have observed this week, are interdependent and mutually reinforcing; if one side breaks the hanger goes haywire.

If we can manage to fully engage our love for God, neighbor and self, and give each of these loves equal energy, I believe our lives will be more centered and fulfilling. We will find ourselves thriving in the light of God, putting more and more of our life-blood into the enterprise of love. That is what we are here for, what Jesus came to make possible for us.

How might we orient ourselves into a more conscious, daily engagement with loving God, neighbor and self? We could take the hangers in our closet as a daily reminder. When you take out clothing in the morning, remember: “Oh yeah, my biggest job today is to love God, my neighbor and myself.” And when you put your clothes away in the evening (we all hang up our clothes every night, right?) review how well you remembered. Gradually this can become second nature, and we’ll see the fruit of it in our lives.

And when loving becomes second nature to more and more people, we start to see the fruits in the world around us. That world is frightening me quite a lot these days – yet I am constantly called back to John’s reminder that, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” The absolutely best action we can take is to love actively and consciously, and increase our capacity for love every single day.

Paul wrote to the Colossians: Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience… And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

We have a closet full of hangers, with all the holy clothing we need. And what supports these hangers? The rod, the perfect love of God, which can bear all the weight we need it to. God’s love enables us to love.

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

10-26-23 - Loving Ourselves

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

I still remember the evening in my twenties, at a Wednesday eucharist in New York City, when I realized that I would never be happy – and maybe not able to truly love another – until I learned to love myself. I’m still working on it.

Some people have a hard time with the notion of loving self. There is a self-suppressing strain in Western culture, and the Christian church has not always presented Jesus’ teachings about self-denial in a very wholesome way. We can equate loving self with selfishness, self-centeredness, self-involvement. And yet, right here at the center of Jesus' greatest commandment, is the order to love ourselves as we love our neighbors. Loving ourselves well is true humility.

If this is no challenge for you, great; you have a wonderful gift of grace and equilibrium to share with the world. If loving yourself does not come naturally, here are some ideas to help move into this way of living. First, see yourself as a child of God, created in love, for love. If you ask the Spirit to give you a glimpse of how God sees you, you may have a revelation of your belovedness. If you want a scriptural reminder of how chosen and precious you are to God, try the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.

When we are reminded whose we are, it opens the way to better discovering who we are. So a next step is to look at our wounds and faults with compassion instead of judgment. What prejudices have we been turning on ourselves, perhaps more harshly than we'd apply to our neighbors? If we are given to self-criticism, let’s offer it the way we would correct a small child, not by crushing her spirit, but calling her to her better self. Notice when your internal monologue toward yourself is harsh (“That was dumb,” “You idiot!”) and stop and redirect yourself to more affirming language.

Then we might move beyond accepting our “shadow sides” to actually celebrating our gifts and strengths. What are your best qualities? What is delightful about you? What do other people love in you? What do you love? And what kind of a future do you desire for this special and beloved creature of God? What do you want in your life? What do you want to do /see/ experience/ taste/ give/ receive?

Loving our selves and loving our neighbors must go hand in hand, for fundamental to the whole exercise is the understanding that we are equal in God’s sight. No one is better, or worse, more important or less, more or less worthy of regard and honor and dignity and love.

When we fully comprehend that, loving God with our whole heart and mind and soul will be a piece of cake. We are simply recognizing the inherent beauty of God’s creation, and acknowledging that God does flawless work. You are Exhibit A.

10-25-23 - Loving Neighbor

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

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus called this the second core of the Law: Love God with all your being, and your neighbor as yourself.

This commandment can tempt us to ask, “Then who is my neighbor?” A lawyer of Jesus’ day asked him just that question. Jesus answered with the story of the Good Samaritan, one conclusion of which is that the neighbor who cares for us can be someone we don’t like or trust very much. Our neighbor can be anyone, and is everyone.

Today I'm less interested in that question than in the second part of the verse – “as yourself.” Jesus (and the compilers of the law codes in Leviticus) links love for self and love for other in a way that merits deeper exploration. What does it mean to love my neighbor as I love myself? Since we don’t always love ourselves very well, we don’t always love our neighbors well either. If we are very critical of ourselves, or take poor care of ourselves, we’ll extend that tendency to other people. That is one way of loving our neighbors as ourselves – but not a very life-giving way.

How else do we love ourselves? Most of us are protective of our security – maybe loving our neighbors as ourselves means we’re equally concerned about theirs. Most of us are wired to be sure we have enough to eat and a sheltered place to live… a godly love for neighbor would include wanting the same for them. Yikes - this is a lot! Is it just too much to love our neighbors as ourselves? Too hard?

God doesn't call us to anything his Spirit can’t equip us to handle. We just have to let the Spirit rewire the faulty coding we get from this world, the message that says put yourself and your own kind first, don’t trust the Other. But can we ever love our neighbor enough to feed everybody in the world? Well, we know there is enough food; it’s just not distributed equitably. So maybe loving our neighbor as ourselves motivates us to work on that challenge, or on housing, or security. Maybe we keep less for ourselves so our neighbor has more.

Ultimately, this neighbor-loving business grows one neighbor at a time. When we go global in our thinking, we can end up paralyzed or discouraged. But one neighbor today? Maybe one you hadn’t planned on loving? Maybe start simply by praying for that person to be blessed? That we can do…

In prayer today think first of yourself. Try to imagine for a moment how God sees you. Love what you see, or at least trust in God’s love for you.

And then imagine someone who is your neighbor. If you’re feeling adventurous, ask God, “Who is the neighbor you want me to love today?” Who knows whose face is going to come up in your mind’s eye! Sit with the image. Ask how you’re being called to love that person.

In a world where we often assume scarcity, neighbors are one thing we’ll never run out of. And learning to love them is a challenge for our whole lifetime. We may as well get good at it, because I have a feeling that is exactly what we will be doing for all of eternity.

10-24-23 - Loving God

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

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” So reads what Jesus calls the first and greatest commandment. We might consider this the goal of the life of faith, to love God fully, without reservation, with all of our being.

This kicks up all kinds of questions in me: Do I love anyone or anything with all of my heart? Do you? In an age when our attentions are ever more fragmented, what would it feel like to focus all our heart, all our spirit, even all our mind on one thing, one person, one God?

Do I even love God at all? Taking a walk the other day, I found myself praying, “Jesus, I love you,” and then wondering what I meant by that, how much need and anxiety is wrapped in that statement? Loving God presupposes a relationship. I consider this the richest promise of the Christian life, that Jesus has enabled true relationship with the Living God. In Ephesians we read that through Christ we “have access to the Father in one Spirit.” (Eph 2:18) So I ask, am I fully engaged in that relationship, or dipping in occasionally from the sidelines? How about you?

I am not a scholar of ancient languages, and don’t know the nuances of the Hebrew word Jesus was saying, translated here as “love.” The English language has a limited vocabulary for love – we use one word to cover an array of different kinds. The Greeks used at least four. The Greek word used here for both loving God and neighbor has the root "agape" - a love that incorporates the divine, that is selfless and affirming. It is not the same as erotic or filial love, how we think of loving our parents or children or lovers or friends. It incorporates the unconditional love of God for us. It would seem that to fully love God we must first fully recognize our need for God's unconditional love for us. Then we might be able to love self and neighbor unconditionally.

How do we begin? How about with these three components, heart, spirit and mind? In prayer today, come into a quiet, centered place, and speak simply and honestly to God about where you are with loving God. Good relationships are based on honesty and authenticity. We don’t have to pretend to feel more than we do, or less.

Assuming we want to love God more fully, let’s offer our heart – and spend some time on what’s in your heart. When I think about mine, I envision a mixed landscape of joy and fear with pockets of despair. What do you see? Can you offer it to God in love, no matter what it looks like?

Then let’s offer our soul or spirit, perhaps asking the Holy Spirit to give us a picture of our soul. What do you see or discern? Can you offer your spirit to be infused with the Holy Spirit?

Then let’s offer our minds… perhaps even more cluttered than our hearts. What would it feel like to focus your mind on loving God, even for a few moments?

What might it feel like to love with all the fullness of your being, no separation, no shadow? It scarcely seems possible in this world. But I do know that the more we love God this way, the better we will be able to love ourselves – and others.

10-23-23 - Love and Law

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

Another week, another test. For the past few weeks our Gospel passages have chronicled one long game of “gotcha” between Jesus and the religious leaders, them trying to catch him saying the wrong thing, him neatly sidestepping their loaded questions. In last week’s test, he prevailed yet again, but another set of examiners was waiting in the wings. This week we see the Pharisees get back in the game – and since they were legal specialists, they asked Jesus a question about the Torah, the Law.

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

Easy A. Jesus answers with the best known of all commandments:

He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment.”

No surprises here. This is indeed the most basic command, where Israel’s relationship with God begins. Jesus might have checked the box and moved on – but he wasn’t finished. He went on to cite a much less known commandment and put it on a par with the first: “And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’"

What’s this? An obscure half-verse from Leviticus is up there with loving God? Yes, Jesus says - “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

He isn’t making this up – he is quoting the Law as given by Moses. Nonetheless, in combining these two commandments Jesus presents a radical new way of seeing God and justice. It’s not enough to love God. We have to live out that love by the way we love our neighbors and even ourselves.

We’ll unpack these different kinds of love throughout this week. Today let’s explore this linkage Jesus makes:

Do you associate loving yourself with loving God? Do you connect God and neighbor?
Do you feel the most love for God, for your neighbor, or for yourself?
How might the way we love our neighbor increase our love for ourselves?
How might the way we love ourselves – or not – connect to our ability to love God?

Sit with these questions in prayer as a kind of diagnostic on your "love life." Talk to God about it, notice where your energy increases.

It’s good to know where we excel in love and where we can grow, for in the realm of God, love is all and all is Love. We need that reminder all the more these days, when there is so much fear and conflict felt and expressed and acted upon. I am constantly called back to John’s reminder that, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”

The absolutely best action we can take is to love actively and consciously, and increase our capacity for love every single day.

10-20-23 - Patriots' Day

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

Every once in a while, Patriot’s Day – a Massachusetts holiday falling on the third Monday of April – coincides with Tax Day. One year when that happened I thought, "Wow - New Englanders really have it right, honoring the day we file our taxes as the most patriotic day of the year." Turns out it marks some military victories, but for my money, April 15th is the day on which all Americans are invited to celebrate their patriotism. There is nothing more patriotic than investing your resources (mandated or not…) in the future you desire for your country.

When did we allow the national conversation about taxes to become so negative? Public service and tax-paying used to be marks of a good citizen. Taxes are the way a healthy society funds the services, infrastructure and systems of justice that allow its citizens to thrive. Though they can be an instrument of oppression, under fair laws in an open society, taxes are a shared good; it should feel good to participate.

In Jesus’ time perhaps paying taxes to Caesar, the head of the often brutal Roman Empire, might not have been such a happy thing. But for us, who have a great deal of control over our destinies, despite some governmental chaos and corruption, paying taxes can be something to celebrate. I hate paying speeding tickets, but I remind myself they’ll fund some county program that is needed and get over it.

What does this have to do with our spiritual lives, which is why we read Water Daily? Opening up our view of taxes is yet another way to help us release our grip on the money we think is ours. If we can see taxes as an investment in the future of the wider community, perhaps we can more freely share our resources in the community of faith, to fund the ministries through which God is working transformation. Can we loosen our grip and pledge big this season*?

Yesterday we spoke about having dual citizenship in this life. We are residents of this world with all the responsibilities and joys of being members of societies. And we are citizens of the heavenly realm, that already/not yet space of inbreaking power amidst our heart-breaking powerlessness. As long as we’re here, we are invited to invest the gifts God has given us – money, time, privilege and talent – in both realms.

We can love our country and invest in its people and future AND love our God and look forward to our eternal future. When we open our hands to give, it’s amazing how quickly they are filled.

*Members of my congregations can do so here - La Plata or Wayside. Anyone else is welcome too!

10-19-23 - Church and State

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

Can institutional religion and institutional government co-exist in harmony when their aims are often so divergent? The Pharisees, in their sly interrogation of Jesus, implied that support for the state (admittedly, in this case a brutal occupying force…) was incompatible with support for God. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”

Jesus refused to indulge that duality – he seemed profoundly disinterested in engaging the question. After all, from the point of view of eternity, support for both the civil state and the church are temporal. Jesus is interested not so much in where we give our money as in how we give our hearts.

As human beings, we are both political and spiritual. So our societies necessarily contain both such structures, with different goals and ways of operating. Religious and civic life exist in essential and overlapping but basically distinct realms. When those realms live in creative tension, somewhat equally balanced in power and influence, human societies do alright. We go off the rails when either becomes too dominant - especially, I'm sorry to say, when it's religion that tries to run the show. Such is the power of Margaret Atwood’s 1986 novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” seeing new life as an award-winning television series, warning a new era about the incompatibility of theocracy and democracy. The danger to democracy posed by the "Christian Nationalism" movement is profound.

This week we are exploring how best to live in the tension of our dual citizenship, how to reflect the values of heaven on earth, and hold up the needs of earth before the power of heaven. How do you feel called to live that dual citizenship, bringing your spiritual self into the public square? When do we challenge secular values with gospel values? How and when might we invite the power of the Holy Spirit to work through us for secular good?

It's easy to get disgusted with government. We can instead wield the spiritual power we've been given as well as our civic freedoms, being both engaged citizens and prayer warriors. The healthiest way for church and state to mingle might just be in us.

10-18-23 - God and Government

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

Did God ordain governments? Some see governments as purveyors of chaos and corruption, when their very purpose is to prevent those things and secure a safe and equitable society in which all citizens might thrive. We know too many cases where government works against the values we hold, though it is also society’s chief agent of justice.

Some passages in scripture read as though God very much works through political systems and leaders, even ones outside the people of Israel (read up on the Cyrus passages in Isaiah, also appointed for this Sunday…). St. Paul, writing in Romans 13, seems to feel that no ruler on earth can exercise power without God’s authority – which makes me wonder what he thinks about corrupt and oppressive rulers, of which his day saw as many as ours. Jesus, in the passage we are exploring this week, seems to take governments as a given, not saying where they fit in God’s plan. As he tells Pilate under interrogation, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

Government is a natural human phenomenon, as is institutional religion. Human beings have to organize around power, supplies and spirituality, and all organizations soon take on a life and culture of their own. Like the human beings of which they are comprised, governments exist on a spectrum between good and evil, helpful and self-serving, visionary and banal. Government, in a functioning democracy, is us, and we are it. We don’t get to call it a “them.”

So where does that leave us as people of faith? Perhaps it leaves us with a call to be agents of healthier government and a more life-bringing body politic. In recent years our rhetoric has grown more and more polarized and shrill, though the urgency of justice often seems to call for turning up the volume. Many Christians have sought to find an appropriate place as promoters of equality and resisters of evil. What if Christ followers participated primarily as peacemakers, not trying to convince the irrational, but refraining from demonizing, holding up the values of justice and equity and freedom?

Sound like a pipe dream? We have at our hands the power that transforms worlds. Surely we can pray for our governments and those who claim a desire to lead us.

I don’t know if God ordains governments. I do believe God will work through anyone who asks. Let’s ask.

10-17-23 - Giving With God

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

Then Jesus said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Sounds simple, right? Give to God the things that are God’s. But what belongs to God? Doesn’t the emperor also belong to God? And if everything belongs to God – why does God need our gifts? Our pledges? Our offerings?

Maybe God doesn’t need anything from us. Maybe we need to give, because things get squirrely when we don’t, and because we are transformed when we do.

It is tempting to see the two kinds of “giving” that Jesus talks about here as similar, parallel tracks. We owe the government our taxes to pay for the goods and services we need governments to render. We owe God our “dues” to pay for… what? Clergy and church buildings? Charity?

Once we equate giving our money and resources for God’s mission to “taxes” or “dues,” it becomes an obligation, a contractual exchange. That is not what giving is intended to be for Christians. We are not called to give to God. We are called to give in relationship with God, to give because it is the best way we know to reciprocate in gratitude for all that we’ve received, to join into the celebration of blessing.

When our giving is stunted, it may be that we are not all that grateful, not feeling very blessed. We give because it sets us free, opens us up, changes our hearts. We give because we love seeing what happens for others when we do.

Where does giving bring you the most joy? Where do you feel the least willing?
Both answers offer ground for prayer – and action. Maybe we are being invited to give additionally in both categories. Maybe we want to strengthen our gratitude muscles.

We are to give as God has given us – and in Christ, God gave us everything. The great U2 song, “With or Without You” is not about a human relationship, but the struggle to exist in faith and intimacy with the God you cannot see. (The “she” in U2 songs often refers to the Holy Spirit or to grace…)
See the stone set in your eyes See the thorn twist in your side. (A Pauline reference.)
I can’t live, with or without you,” Bono sings.

And then comes the repeated refrain which applies to both God, and to us in relationship with the God whose essential nature it is to give, a nature we gradually take on: And you give, and you give, and you give yourself away. And we never run out.

10-16-23 - God's Currency

You can listen to this reflection here.

In this week's gospel story we witness yet another confrontation between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders, this time over whether to pay taxes to the Roman oppressors. They thought this a tidy trap – if he said "No," they could have him arrested for sedition; if "Yes," they could brand him a collaborator before his adoring crowds. Win/win, right?

Not for them. Jesus asks for a Roman coin. "Whose image do you see imprinted here?" he asks. "Caesar," they answer. "It's easy," he replies, "You owe this to the one who issued it. Give to the emperor what belongs to him, to God what belongs to God." And he dances out of another trap.

Genesis tells us that humankind was made in the image of God. St. Paul asserts that Jesus is the perfect image of the invisible God, and that we are united with Christ in baptism. So we are stamped with the image of God in birth, and in rebirth. We are the coins God has issued to the world, if you will, the currency by which God's generosity is realized.

What are coins? They are utilitarian, sure, yet also precious. And they are used to purchase things of value to their possessor. They can bring dreams into being. What is God’s dream? That all of God's children thrive in freedom and plenty and wholeness.

Does it change your self-perception to think of yourself as a coin bearing the image of your creator, the currency of the Almighty in the creation? How might we be expended as "God's coins" to bring that dream of God into being?

In prayer today, we might offer ourselves anew to God for service, and ask the Holy Spirit to show us where God wants to spend us today, or this week, or this year, or this lifetime. What visions come up as you sit in stillness with that question? Does anything resonate with your own dreams?

The currency we have bears the likeness of temporal authorities, and that's the realm in which we spend it. We bear the likeness of God, and so we give ourselves to be spent in God's realm. Bought with a price, we can more than double our value.

10-13-23 - In Or Out?

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

Jesus' parables often end with a tag line; this one's is:

"For many are called, but few are chosen.”

I guess this refers to the banquet hall being full of people who were invited without regard to their suitability, to be evaluated and sorted out later. It’s not much comfort, is it, the idea that just being in the room doesn’t guarantee inclusion in the household of God.

Are we “in?” Do we want to be? Are we actually at the party, or just hanging out on the sidelines? Put another way, are we lukewarm church-goers or passionate Christ-followers? I've heard an Episcopal version of this verse goes: “Many are cold, but few are frozen.” What is our temperature at this feast?

Today try to imagine yourself at a feast, a celebration, whatever that looks like for you. Bring the details to mind.
The room is crowded. Where are you? Near the table, hugging a wall somewhere, or in between? Why are you where you are?
Where is Jesus in that room? Can you have a chat with him?

I’d like to believe we are both called and chosen; I’ve never held to doctrines like predestination or election. At the very least, we are all invited, and we all have a choice to be present to the feast or pass it by. I hope you pull up a chair and pick up a fork – a sentiment conveyed much more eloquently in the 17th century by the priest and poet George Herbert:

Love (III)

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.

- George Herbert, 1593-1633

10-12-23 - Fashion Police

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

A few years ago I attended my goddaughter’s wedding in England, and faced a big question: Did I have to wear a hat? My airport driver said yes; the mother of the bride said most would not wear one. Whew! Heaven forbid the godmother from America be unsuitably attired.

Had I been in Jesus’ parable of the wedding banquet, the consequences might have been severe. As Matthew tells it, the tale takes an odd turn after the influx of late arrivals from the streets and lanes: “Those servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’"

Why does correct attire matter so much to this king in Jesus’ story? This part of the tale is puzzling; it seems so unjust. This man didn’t know he was coming to a wedding, right? How could he have been expected to wear a “wedding robe,” whatever that is? And isn’t Jesus the one who said, “Don’t judge a book by its cover?” Actually no… but close - Jesus did say to judge what’s inside a person, not externals. What the heck is going on here?

No one fully knows, of course. Some scholars think there were certain items of clothing people wore to weddings. Here’s my guess: that even those who don’t have much advance invitation to God’s feast have the opportunity to turn, to repent, to “clean up,” as it were. Is that what is meant by the “wedding robe?” Maybe this person was wandering around, clueless, unconscious, unrepentant and unresponsive.

There are verses in the New Testament that speak of being “clothed in righteousness,” and “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.”

And in Revelation 19:7-8 we have this promise: “...for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready; to her it has been granted to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure — for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.”

Do you feel “clothed in righteousness” today, or in some other attire? How well does it fit? How does it look on you? Might you try on another "emotional outfit" that better expresses how you want to be seen at God’s table?

Martin Luther wrote of God’s grace in Christ as the “Great Exchange,” by which Christ took on our filthy beggars’ rags and gives us his royal robes to wear. Christ has clothed us in HIS holiness. He covers even the most shameful parts of us, the parts we think are unlovable. He loves us into love.

In his righteousness, his holiness, his glory, we can stand unashamed, unhidden. We can allow our true selves to be seen, knowing that we are loved beyond measure by the God who made us, redeemed us, and loves us to the end of time. We are princes and princesses at a royal wedding – let’s dress like we know it, hats and all.

10-11-23 - Get Me Some Guests!

You can listen to this reflection here.

It is hard to read this parable of the wedding banquet and not think of the many half-empty churches all over America on Sunday mornings. In the story, the King has prepared a beautiful wedding feast for his son and invited all the people who used to come to his house… and now none of them will. Enraged, he says to his servants,

“'The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.' Those servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests."

Given how Jesus has been lambasting the religious leaders for their unmerciful self-righteousness, and how he’s been known to interact with the not-good-enough of his society – the lame, lepers, extortioners, “loose women” – it seems obvious that in this story these are who the folks on the streets represent. These outsiders are found, herded onto the king’s buses and brought back to populate his banquet hall. The servants aren’t choosy – they bring everybody in.

What would it look like if we sent buses around shelters and parks – and tony brunch places – on Sunday mornings and invited people to come to our feasts? Would we be prepared to deal with strangers, people’s disappointment and addictions, the chips on their shoulders? Would we be prepared to see them not as wounded strangers but as gifts, with assets and strengths we need in our congregations?

What would it look like if we took church out to them instead of asking them into our buildings? For a time, my church in Stamford did this in a “tougher” section of town. We started just bringing sandwiches to the curb as people sat in their lawn chairs with their bottles on Sunday afternoons, then began offering healing prayer, and before long I was telling “Jesus stories,” preaching on the street. It was amazing - until gentrification struck and the people who hung out there were dispersed, and that ministry faded away. But we had the muscle memory of doing it, a vivid reminder of what church can be outside our walls.

The poor and the lame are not the only people God wants at the feast. God also wants the stressed over-achievers, the multi-tasking moms, the doubters and questioners. This parable suggests that God wants everybody at God’s table. Who are we not inviting?

That is the spiritual task I suggest today: make a list of the sorts of people to whom your congregation does not seem to be extending an invitation. Who is calling to you? Many of the ones who are being invited are not coming. Who else are we to invite?

10-10-23 - No Thanks

You can listen to this reflection here.

I once had a friend who would decline to do things with me if she received other offers she preferred, even if she’d already accepted my invitation. While I admired her honesty, I felt I didn’t rate very high on her list. Not that I was about to burn down her village or anything…

The invited guests in Jesus’ parable of the wedding banquet have no qualms about turning down the king’s invitation to his feast – in fact, they seem to have no respect for this king at all. The first group just say, “No.” Then the king sends out other servants and says, “'Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.' But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, maltreated them, and killed them."

One to his farm, another to his business. In Luke's version the excuses are more creative – one just got married and didn’t want to leave his new wife just yet. Who are these people who so little value God's invitations?

On any given day it can be you or me or anyone we know. There can be no end to other priorities when it comes to engaging the spiritual life. Connecting with God has to be on our schedule, and not when the coach has called a practice, or the boss a new deadline, or there’s anything else we’d rather do. Just think of all the reasons people give for not coming to church.

And yet, if you’re reading this you have put engaging with God-Life above quite a few other demands on your time. Something about spending time and energy in the presence of God or God’s people, in praise and worship, in acts of mercy and justice, has been compelling enough that you’ve actually said yes to God's invitation to the banquet, not once but many times.

What made the difference for you? If we can identify that, we might be able to better frame the invitation so that other people can respond to it. Are there ways that we practice our faith that can obscure the life at its heart? Inviting people in needn't mean lowest-common-denominator consumer Christianity – some of the highest-commitment faith communities are the most robust. But the banquet does have to be lively, full of life, real, true life. That’s what people are hungry for.

Make a list today of all the reasons you’ve said yes to God’s invitation, and why you stay at God’s table. If there is a list of excuses you’ve made or continue to make, list those too. Look at both lists and see what common threads emerge. Where in these gifts and obstacles might you find the seeds of an invitation to a friend or acquaintance?

God’s banquet is waiting. In this life, we only experience the feast in parts – but oh, how rich even those morsels can be. Who is God sending you out to invite?

10-9-23 - Who Doesn't Love a Wedding?

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

Oh, a nice story about a wedding; what a relief after the violence of last week’s vineyard parable. Who doesn’t love a wedding? Except that this nice parable about a wedding looks more like a Quentin Tarantino flick, with an enraged host, slaughtered guests and a bewildered party crasher. Granted, this is how Matthew relates Jesus’ story, and he seems often to ratchet up the violence; in Luke’s telling it is a lot milder.

This parable is not actually about a wedding – it is a story about invitation. An invitation spurned by indifferent guests. It’s a story about a host who won’t take “no” for an answer.

The nutshell version: A king gives a wedding banquet for his son. He sends servants to gather the invited guests, but they won’t come to the feast. He sends other servants with the message that the feast is ready, but these are mocked and given excuses, and then molested and killed. The enraged king retaliates, killing the offenders and burning their city, and then sends his servants out to the streets to invite everyone they find, “both good and bad,” to fill his wedding hall. One, who is not appropriately dressed, gets thrown out. Nice story, huh? (It makes a LOT more sense in Luke…)

What is this parable actually about? Like many of Jesus’ tales, it illustrates his claim that the leading religious figures have ignored God’s invitation offered through the prophets, and ultimately through Jesus, to come to the feast prepared for them. Since the “holy people” have not been faithful to the Lord their God, God will send representatives to the “highways and byways,” gathering up the good and the not-so-good – and sort out later who gets to stick around. If the King in Jesus’ story represents God, it’s not a lovely depiction of God – especially the part about killing the would-be guests and burning down their city.

On another level, this is a story about how easy it can be to put aside the claims and gifts of God and lose ourselves in the mundane and the worldly. We’ll explore that aspect more tomorrow.

Today, try reading the story aloud to yourself, and notice where you get snagged. Give it some thought and read it again… what questions arise? What invitations do you hear? What warnings?

It can be hard to find the Good News in this story. It is very bad news for the people who have ignored God’s call to be his people, and so-so news for the ones scooped up on the streets, who may get to stay at the feast, or may be tossed into outer darkness. Where is the Good News for you?

10-6-23 - The Fruits of the Kingdom

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

As we read the Gospels and even the book of Acts, it seems clear that neither Jesus nor his followers had any intention of starting a new religious system. They sought to reform the tradition they’d inherited, a temple- based Judaism that had become leadership-heavy and legalistic.

Yet, as Jesus interprets this parable he's just told, it also seems clear that he expected the reform to involve a total change of leadership and operation: “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”

So, what exactly are the “fruits of the Kingdom,” the markers and outcomes of Life in the realm of God? We can glean what Jesus meant by the way he taught and the way he interacted with people:

Chief among the fruits is repentance – that is often where we start in our relationship with God, by seeing ourselves honestly and clearly and finding out that God loves us as we are – and too much to leave us that way.

Repentance is related to another prime Kingdom fruit – healing, the manifestation in this world of the transforming love and power of God’s realm.

Generosity is another major fruit of the kingdom - an ability to loosen our grip on what is “ours” and share with all as any have need. We can really only do this when we truly love our neighbors as ourselves.

So we’d have to put love of neighbor as self on our list. From that flows all kinds of other fruits.

A desire for justice and peace-making are fruits of the Kingdom, as is a commitment to community in the Body of Christ.

What would you add to this list?
What fruits do you see most often in your life?
What do you wish you saw more of, in yourself and in the church around you?

If the Realm of Good has been entrusted to us, are we helping to bring forth transformed lives and a transformed world? That is the ultimate fruit Jesus looks for.

10-5-23 - Gotcha!

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

These parables Jesus told his “frenemies,” the scribes and Pharisees, have a pattern: story, question, gotcha. Jesus would describe a situation of obvious injustice and then ask how they would resolve it. They would give an answer that, once they realized who in the parable stood for them, indicted them. It’s amazing how often they fell for it.

So it is here. Jesus tells the story of the vineyard and the wicked tenants, and then asks, “’Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’”

“Gotcha,” Jesus says – “Have you never read in the scriptures: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”

God will take the leadership away from you, he says, and give it to others, outsiders, outcasts, outliers, who will produce the fruit at harvest time, the fruit of repentance, the fruit of good works, the fruit of worship. Jesus uses an image from Psalm 118:22, of a stone, once rejected as unsuitable, now become the cornerstone of a new building. This theme is oft-repeated in salvation history, as God chooses unlikely candidates on which to build his community, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David. We see it fulfilled in Jesus.

Jesus takes this familiar verse and turns it against the leaders: "The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”

Now the Pharisees and scribes realize he’s been talking about them, and the gloves are off. They begin to actively seek his arrest, but are afraid to offend the crowds, who see Jesus as a prophet. They might have taken what Jesus said to heart and examined their leadership, or welcomed the “unworthy" as full members of the religious community. But they were too stuck in their own pride and self-righteousness to choose a different course of action.

In prayer today, let’s remember leaders, religious or secular, who seem stuck or blind to the big picture. Let’s pray especially for those leaders whom we don’t trust – they need God’s blessing the most. And let’s pray for those who appear to be outsiders, whom we don’t want to welcome in.

It seems to be a principle that as soon as we start to think we’re insiders, God upsets the apple cart and invites outsiders to our party, challenging our notions of what should be. We may as well try to get there first, and invite those outliers in ourselves. Or better yet, go out and join them, so we can be invited in.

10-4-23 - The Son

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

Many religious traditions revere figures who received a revelation which inspired that expression of spiritual life. Some have prophets, some gurus, some gods or goddesses, some martyrs. The Christian tradition goes further, claiming that, in addition to prophetic and angelic messengers, God sent his own son to reveal his truth and to set people free from the consequences of sin and death.

If an important person sends her daughter or son to represent her, it carries more weight than if an aide or staffer shows up. A daughter or son is more like that person, bearing her very DNA. The claim that Jesus of Nazareth was not only a good and holy man chosen by God as Messiah, but actually the incarnated son of God is a pretty big claim.

Why does it matter that we consider Jesus the fully human, fully divine Son of God? Jesus' incarnation is a gift for many reasons, an indication of how far God was willing to go to bridge the chasm to humankind. But perhaps it is in his sacrifice on the cross that the son-ship of Jesus matters most. As the sacrifice to end the whole bloody system of sacrifice, God offers the ultimate victim. As a friend once said, trying to explain the Cross – “You can’t get a bigger sacrificial victim than the Son of God.”

We can discuss another day whether Jesus had to die and how his sacrifice set us free… traditional Christian understanding says he did and it does; we must each find our way into that mystery. Today, let’s explore a smaller mystery – that in this parable, this very Son of God tells a story about a fictional son who will be beaten and killed by those charged with nurturing the harvest with which they’d been entrusted. Once again, Jesus is predicting his own death – and charging his listeners with murder. If they hadn’t already wanted to kill him, now they surely did.

In Jesus’ story, the wicked tenants seize the son, throw him out of the vineyard and kill him. Jesus was himself cast out by the temple leadership who could not swallow his claims of divinity – or his growing influence. They told themselves they were just getting rid of yet another troublemaker, not the Son of God. And yet Jesus’ son-ship remained a fact they had to deal with – even more after his death.

How does Jesus’ “son-ship” affect your faith? Do you feel closer to God through knowing Jesus, however imperfectly we may know him in this life?

These are questions worth exploring as we live into a relationship with God through the Son whom we meet in Yeshua of Nazareth. They are worth exploring in prayer – we can say simply, “Jesus, I want to know God more fully. Let me see you," and see what unfolds.

How does knowing Jesus help us draw nearer the mystery of God? Jesus told his followers that if they’d seen him, they’d seen the Father. The best way to find out is to invite the Holy Spirit to dwell with us. It is the Spirit who brings us the presence of Christ, every time.

10-3-23 - Tenants

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

Many landlords can tell horror stories about bad tenants – people who never clean bathrooms, who damage walls in riotous parties, allow animals to roam the basement, or cart off appliances when they leave in the middle of the night, six months’ rent unpaid. But the tenants in Jesus’ parable about the leased vineyard? This is like renting your property to a drug cartel.

What does the landlord desire in letting out his vineyard? He wants it to be well tended, to bear good fruit, of which he is due a portion as income. These are the terms which allow the tenants to live on the beautiful land and produce good grapes and fine wine. But these tenants don’t honor their agreement, and they communicate their refusal violently. They want to seize the vineyard and own it outright.

Jesus was suggesting to the religious leaders hearing this that they, as stewards of Israel’s religious life, were like those tenants. They had not heeded the prophets. They perpetuated a highly remunerative system of temple sacrifice, and left ordinary people thinking they could never be right in the sight of God. They had set themselves as arbiters of right and wrong instead of seeing themselves as stewards of God’s power and mercy.

Yesterday I said it was human nature to ignore warnings. It is also human nature to appropriate what has been freely loaned to us. Religious communities in particular can fall prey to this danger, to focus their energy and resources on perpetuating their own life at the expense of fostering a living relationship with the God of surprises.

If we assess ourselves as tenants of God’s vineyard, how do we measure up? Compared to the larcenous, murderous lot in Jesus’ story, we’re golden. But let’s look at ourselves straight on. God has entrusted us with the care of the earth, of our families, our money and income, our gifts, our neighbors… how are we doing? Is there good fruit? Are we returning to God a portion of what we have received?

Take an inventory of all the areas of life in which God has entrusted you with resources or ministry. Name the fruit. For instance, if you think of your family, what good is discernible in and through the people with whom you share a home or a name? If the resource is your body, what good fruit do you see from how well you care for it? If the resource is work, what fruit do you see? Let’s name the fruits, and also the stagnant, unfruitful things connected to those areas. More prayer fodder.

Everything we have is a gift from God – a gift not to be seized but to be invested, nurtured, grown, and returned, at least in part. And always ready to be shared. What kind of tenant on this earth do you want to be? What kind of steward of God's love can you become?

10-2-23 - Kill the Messenger?

You can listen to this reflection here.

Another week, another vineyard. In this week’s parable, Jesus continues the conversation he was having with the priests and Pharisees we looked at last week. After putting them in their place with the tale of the two sons, he says, “Listen to another parable.” This time, he borrows from Isaiah 5:1-7, starting his story almost the same way.

A landowner plants, fences and equips a vineyard, and then leases it to others to run. As rent they owe a portion of the harvest. At picking time, he sends collectors – but the tenants won’t pay: “But the tenants seized his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.” They do the same to the next delegation, so the owner decides to send his son to collect the rent, “…saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

Jesus is laying another trap for the religious leaders. In not-so-thinly-veiled language, he alludes to the reception which Israel’s leaders had traditionally given God’s prophets. Most often, when they didn’t like what the prophets had to say, they tried to silence or even kill them. And what were the prophets usually saying? “God doesn’t want your sacrifices and your legalistic rituals. God doesn’t want your lip-service about holiness while you cheat the orphan and the widow and dishonor God’s Sabbath. God wants your heart, your repentance, your compassion.” Or, as Isaiah says of the vineyard, “When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?”

It is human nature to turn away from messages that challenge us to change. As we observe unprecedented devastation from climate change we are reminded of the failure over the past sixty years to get people to take seriously the risks to human, plant and animal life of a rapidly warming planet. On a smaller scale, think how hard it can be for an addict to take that first step in recovery, or for people to begin a weight-loss program. Often we wait until we see the effects of what we’ve been warned about – and then it can be too late. And sometimes, seeing the danger we’ve feared come to pass drives our heads further into the sands of denial and over-consumption.

Are there messages you have you been trying to ignore? Messages from God, from the Bible, from friends, from your own gut? Take some time in quiet today and ask that question of yourself and the Spirit, and see what emerges. “What am I pretending not to know?”

Are there issues on which you feel called to speak prophetically – i.e., messages that you believe God wants you to deliver? Are you offering them? How are they being received? Is there another way to communicate them?

This parable was a direct condemnation of the religious leaders of Israel in Jesus’ time. But its imagery resonates for us in many ways today, as citizens of the world and citizens of God’s realm. Isaiah tells us,
"For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel,

and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting;
he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!"

God’s call to us to be people of justice and righteousness still sounds. May we not leave those cries unheard.