You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Jesus may have thought he could go off for a time of quiet prayer and refreshment after a long day and night of ministry, but already his time was not his own. We read: Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.”
“Everybody is searching for you.” All his earthly life, people were looking for Jesus. When he was twelve, he went missing on a trip to Jerusalem. When his anxious parents found him, they said, “Didn’t you know we would be looking for you?” When Lazarus was ill, and Jesus came days too late, Mary and Martha said, “Where were you?” When chief priests and scribes wanted to arrest him, they went looking for him in Gethsemane, though he’d been “hiding in plain sight” all over Jerusalem for weeks. “Why didn’t you just arrest me at the temple?” he asked.
And on Easter morning, we find Mary Magdalene weeping in another garden, lamenting, “They have taken my Lord and I don’t know where they have put him!” There he is, hiding in plain sight again, risen from the dead, mistaken for a gardener.
Is Jesus still “hiding in plain sight?” I don’t believe he hides from us, and yet, like Waldo, he can be remarkably hard to spot, even when we're looking. Maybe that’s because the faculties with which we perceive spiritual reality are different than our organs for discerning the material. And in many of us, especially in Western cultures, those spiritual senses are under-developed. Jesus told Nicodemus that the Kingdom cannot be perceived with human senses, saying, “No one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again,” which he later clarifies as being “born of water and the Spirit.”
Even those of us who have been born of water and Spirit in baptism may not have developed our spiritual perception if no one told us we needed to. Paul prays for the Ephesians that “the eyes of their heart will be enlightened,” their “inner vision” sharpened as they come to recognize the Life of God around them. That's for us too.
If we want to see and experience Jesus more fully, we need to do some spiritual exercise. Sure, sometimes we get a glimpse or an encounter with Jesus unbidden, unexpected; perhaps God gives us those experiences to draw us closer, to get us on the path, the way falling in love gets us to the place where we're willing to work at a relationship. But we will see and experience more as we cultivate the intimacy Jesus promises us. “Spiritual disciplines” are practices that help us expand our ability to perceive and receive, just as we hone our mental capacities or our physical strength and stamina. We wouldn’t expect to run 10 miles our first time out; we gradually increase our capacity. In the same way, our spiritual muscles must also be exercised.
What spiritual practices are you drawn to? More reading of the Bible? A more consistent life of prayer and meditation? Getting more involved in ministries with the sick, the poor, the marginalized, where Jesus also promised he could be found? Lent is approaching – why not ask the Spirit to lead you to a spiritual practice that will help you grow your inner vision. Ask a pastor or a spiritual director for help (or me).
Long ago, God made a promise through the prophet Jeremiah: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” It can be hard for us to do anything with our whole heart, yet Jesus is not hiding from us. Wherever we start, he will honor our desire to find him as we seek with the eyes of our hearts.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here arethe bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to ithereon Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
1-31-24 - Retreat
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
What do you do after you’ve spent an evening healing everyone in town? If you’re Jesus, you try to get out of Dodge, at least for a little while: In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.
I would probably want to sleep in – but there are better ways to nurture your spirit, as Jesus knew. After a period of intense spiritual output, and sometimes after hearing bad news, he would head off for a time of quiet prayer, by himself or with some or all of the Twelve. These mini-retreats were often interrupted, but that didn’t stop him from going.
I am lousy at the spiritual practice of retreat, at least in its multi-day form, though in my younger days I went regularly on retreat to convents or monasteries. What Jesus models here is the value of taking time apart for prayer, no matter how long it is. He knows he has another busy day of ministry ahead, so he gets up while it’s still dark to grab some alone time with his heavenly Father. That’s what prayer is – a time of conversation with God, and we don’t need five days away to do that.
We might think about retreats in smaller chunks. Even four hours off the treadmill of our lives can be surprisingly refreshing. How about building an hour of retreat into your week? Choose a day when you’re not too busy, and a spot where you can be alone and quiet. Make a date with yourself and with God, and show up. Light a candle. Read some Scripture and chew on it inwardly. Read a spiritual book. Talk to God about what’s on your mind. Try to get centered and silent and hear what God might be saying back. Write in a journal about what happens as you pray, what your hopes and intentions for the next week might be. Our spirits can get some deep nurture in a time apart like that.
We can even go with smaller increments. Medical researchers say just a half-hour of exercise in even 10-minute increments can be beneficial to our bodies. So can stepping into “God-space” for a few minutes once a day or more strengthen our spirits. Some people set alerts on their computers or phones to cue them to go into quiet for a period of time.
Still, such shorter times are no replacement for intentional, multi-day retreats. Retreat is one the most rewarding spiritual practices in our Christian tradition; there are things that we can only hear and receive when we’ve stepped out of our regular lives for several days. It takes time for our spirits to settle, get in touch with what’s going on, and become receptive to a deeper connection with the Holy Spirit.
When we just give and give without taking the time to recharge our spiritual batteries, to reconnect with the One whose life we are sharing with the world, we soon find ourselves with little to offer, tiring more quickly, becoming easily irritated. When we follow Jesus into the places apart, we can be pretty sure he’ll meet us there with his peace. We will be renewed.
(I hope to offer a Lenten “Spa for the Spirit” morning retreat online on March 2… stay tuned!)
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
What do you do after you’ve spent an evening healing everyone in town? If you’re Jesus, you try to get out of Dodge, at least for a little while: In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.
I would probably want to sleep in – but there are better ways to nurture your spirit, as Jesus knew. After a period of intense spiritual output, and sometimes after hearing bad news, he would head off for a time of quiet prayer, by himself or with some or all of the Twelve. These mini-retreats were often interrupted, but that didn’t stop him from going.
I am lousy at the spiritual practice of retreat, at least in its multi-day form, though in my younger days I went regularly on retreat to convents or monasteries. What Jesus models here is the value of taking time apart for prayer, no matter how long it is. He knows he has another busy day of ministry ahead, so he gets up while it’s still dark to grab some alone time with his heavenly Father. That’s what prayer is – a time of conversation with God, and we don’t need five days away to do that.
We might think about retreats in smaller chunks. Even four hours off the treadmill of our lives can be surprisingly refreshing. How about building an hour of retreat into your week? Choose a day when you’re not too busy, and a spot where you can be alone and quiet. Make a date with yourself and with God, and show up. Light a candle. Read some Scripture and chew on it inwardly. Read a spiritual book. Talk to God about what’s on your mind. Try to get centered and silent and hear what God might be saying back. Write in a journal about what happens as you pray, what your hopes and intentions for the next week might be. Our spirits can get some deep nurture in a time apart like that.
We can even go with smaller increments. Medical researchers say just a half-hour of exercise in even 10-minute increments can be beneficial to our bodies. So can stepping into “God-space” for a few minutes once a day or more strengthen our spirits. Some people set alerts on their computers or phones to cue them to go into quiet for a period of time.
Still, such shorter times are no replacement for intentional, multi-day retreats. Retreat is one the most rewarding spiritual practices in our Christian tradition; there are things that we can only hear and receive when we’ve stepped out of our regular lives for several days. It takes time for our spirits to settle, get in touch with what’s going on, and become receptive to a deeper connection with the Holy Spirit.
When we just give and give without taking the time to recharge our spiritual batteries, to reconnect with the One whose life we are sharing with the world, we soon find ourselves with little to offer, tiring more quickly, becoming easily irritated. When we follow Jesus into the places apart, we can be pretty sure he’ll meet us there with his peace. We will be renewed.
(I hope to offer a Lenten “Spa for the Spirit” morning retreat online on March 2… stay tuned!)
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
1-30-24 - Many Were Cured
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Capernaum, where Jesus made his home, could be a tough place for him. Too many people knew about him, too many wanted a piece of him. The story about his healing the possessed man in the synagogue must have spread quickly – and maybe the tale of Peter’s mother-in-law’s instant recovery from fever also quickly made the rounds. People knew where to find Jesus, and they weren’t shy about it:
Capernaum, where Jesus made his home, could be a tough place for him. Too many people knew about him, too many wanted a piece of him. The story about his healing the possessed man in the synagogue must have spread quickly – and maybe the tale of Peter’s mother-in-law’s instant recovery from fever also quickly made the rounds. People knew where to find Jesus, and they weren’t shy about it:
That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
What I find interesting is not that the “whole city” was gathered around the door. It’s that only "many" were cured. By the time Matthew and Luke rework this material, it's upgraded to “all” and “everyone he met.” Mark’s word “many” suggests that not everyone Jesus touched was cured.
The single biggest obstacle to people investing in the ministry of Christian healing, in my experience, is the fact that our prayers are not always answered in the way we desire. One big step of faith not met with “success” can be enough to stop some people from taking a second. And thus the church is deprived of one of its most powerful ways to make the transforming love of God known in the world.
People active in the healing ministry find there can be obstacles to healing, things that must be addressed before a person can take in the healing love flowing toward them. As Agnes Sanford wrote so simply and memorably in her classic, The Healing Light, if we flick a light switch and the light doesn’t come on, we don’t conclude that electricity is impossible and doesn’t work – we look for a break in the flow – in the bulb, in the wire, in the outlet, in the house itself.
Obstacles to healing can include a root cause that needs to be brought to the light, an inability to give or receive forgiveness, or an investment in infirmity. Sometimes infirmity is a system’s response to trauma that has not been dealt with in a conscious way. When praying about long-term illness, it’s worth asking when it came on and what happened 6-9 months before it did – or even earlier. Traumatic events or transitions not addressed and worked through can manifest as disease or disability some time afterward.
Illness or injury can also be the result of chronic shame or resentment, an inability to forgive someone else or receive forgiveness ourselves. Such a block can be brought to the light and dealt with. Sometimes healing follows forgiveness. There are also people who have become so accustomed to being infirm, with the attendant diminished expectations and increased support and attention, that we can pray all we want; the person can't receive it until they're ready.
This is not to suggest that it’s the sick person's "fault” when healing isn’t discernible – only that there are factors to look for and deal with. A lack of faith within a community, or among those offering prayer, can also be a barrier, as can conflict. Healing prayer is rarely a one-shot thing – it needs to be undertaken over time, with questions and adjustment.
If even Jesus did not cure everyone, we should not feel deficient if our “healing rate” is less than 100%. I pray we will take this word “many” as encouragement to move forward in our faith, inviting God to release the healing stream in every situation where healing is needed. And give thanks in advance - God's last word to us is "yes."
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
What I find interesting is not that the “whole city” was gathered around the door. It’s that only "many" were cured. By the time Matthew and Luke rework this material, it's upgraded to “all” and “everyone he met.” Mark’s word “many” suggests that not everyone Jesus touched was cured.
The single biggest obstacle to people investing in the ministry of Christian healing, in my experience, is the fact that our prayers are not always answered in the way we desire. One big step of faith not met with “success” can be enough to stop some people from taking a second. And thus the church is deprived of one of its most powerful ways to make the transforming love of God known in the world.
People active in the healing ministry find there can be obstacles to healing, things that must be addressed before a person can take in the healing love flowing toward them. As Agnes Sanford wrote so simply and memorably in her classic, The Healing Light, if we flick a light switch and the light doesn’t come on, we don’t conclude that electricity is impossible and doesn’t work – we look for a break in the flow – in the bulb, in the wire, in the outlet, in the house itself.
Obstacles to healing can include a root cause that needs to be brought to the light, an inability to give or receive forgiveness, or an investment in infirmity. Sometimes infirmity is a system’s response to trauma that has not been dealt with in a conscious way. When praying about long-term illness, it’s worth asking when it came on and what happened 6-9 months before it did – or even earlier. Traumatic events or transitions not addressed and worked through can manifest as disease or disability some time afterward.
Illness or injury can also be the result of chronic shame or resentment, an inability to forgive someone else or receive forgiveness ourselves. Such a block can be brought to the light and dealt with. Sometimes healing follows forgiveness. There are also people who have become so accustomed to being infirm, with the attendant diminished expectations and increased support and attention, that we can pray all we want; the person can't receive it until they're ready.
This is not to suggest that it’s the sick person's "fault” when healing isn’t discernible – only that there are factors to look for and deal with. A lack of faith within a community, or among those offering prayer, can also be a barrier, as can conflict. Healing prayer is rarely a one-shot thing – it needs to be undertaken over time, with questions and adjustment.
If even Jesus did not cure everyone, we should not feel deficient if our “healing rate” is less than 100%. I pray we will take this word “many” as encouragement to move forward in our faith, inviting God to release the healing stream in every situation where healing is needed. And give thanks in advance - God's last word to us is "yes."
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
1-29-24 - They Also Serve...
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
We've had a lot of “call stories” of late, encounters in which Jesus invited his disciples to leave their nets and accounts and follow him. They likely left not only their livelihoods, but whole networks of family and community who relied upon them. We get a glimpse into the extended family of four of Jesus’ closest disciples in this week’s passage:
As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
Andrew, Simon (Peter), James and John are the four fishermen whom Jesus called from their nets to follow him. These two sets of brothers lived and worked together, and Simon and Andrew lived with their extended family in the same household. And clearly Simon Peter was married. It's likely the others had wives and children as well.
So the call to follow Jesus implied sacrifice from others, not only the disciples who traveled with him. I saw a poignant reminder of this in an excellent but short-lived TV series, Nothing Sacred, about a Roman Catholic priest. In one episode, the camera keeps coming back to a statue of a woman waving, and we don’t know what it means until the end, when we learn it is a representation of Peter’s wife, waving goodbye. (I can't recall which episode, but someone has put the series up online, if you can’t get it another way…)
We don’t know if Peter’s extended family shared his faith in Jesus Christ – but there they were, hosting and serving his entourage. The moment Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law of her fever, she gets up and makes dinner. They were drawn in by virtue of their relationships, and thus were part of the community of faith, no matter what they believed.
I know many who have been active in a church community in which their spouse does not participate. They exist in a special tension between living out their faith with the fullness they’d like, and not taking too much away from their families and partners. This can also have an emotional and spiritual dimension; I’ve watched people hold back on going deeper spiritually because they don’t want to get too far “out in front” of a less believing partner. If you know someone who is on his own in his faith journey, in terms of his family system, remember to pray for him, or her, and find ways to “be family” for them at times.
And if you are in that situation, you might pray that the grace and strength you feel in your connection with God would come through you into your household, whether or not the others in your family name it. God’s peace is God’s peace, and it works its wondrous way even when we don't recognize it as such it. Then it doesn’t have to be a tug-of-war, but a way to blend without imposing. And maybe in that space, the partner can find room to move toward God. There are passages in the New Testament in which Jesus or one of the apostles clearly states where the priority between faith and family should be. And there are others, like this one, where we see the healing power of Jesus move into a whole household and bring transformation to a whole family.
Or maybe he was just hungry and wanted Peter’s mother-in-law to make her special meatloaf! What do you think?
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
We've had a lot of “call stories” of late, encounters in which Jesus invited his disciples to leave their nets and accounts and follow him. They likely left not only their livelihoods, but whole networks of family and community who relied upon them. We get a glimpse into the extended family of four of Jesus’ closest disciples in this week’s passage:
As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
Andrew, Simon (Peter), James and John are the four fishermen whom Jesus called from their nets to follow him. These two sets of brothers lived and worked together, and Simon and Andrew lived with their extended family in the same household. And clearly Simon Peter was married. It's likely the others had wives and children as well.
So the call to follow Jesus implied sacrifice from others, not only the disciples who traveled with him. I saw a poignant reminder of this in an excellent but short-lived TV series, Nothing Sacred, about a Roman Catholic priest. In one episode, the camera keeps coming back to a statue of a woman waving, and we don’t know what it means until the end, when we learn it is a representation of Peter’s wife, waving goodbye. (I can't recall which episode, but someone has put the series up online, if you can’t get it another way…)
We don’t know if Peter’s extended family shared his faith in Jesus Christ – but there they were, hosting and serving his entourage. The moment Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law of her fever, she gets up and makes dinner. They were drawn in by virtue of their relationships, and thus were part of the community of faith, no matter what they believed.
I know many who have been active in a church community in which their spouse does not participate. They exist in a special tension between living out their faith with the fullness they’d like, and not taking too much away from their families and partners. This can also have an emotional and spiritual dimension; I’ve watched people hold back on going deeper spiritually because they don’t want to get too far “out in front” of a less believing partner. If you know someone who is on his own in his faith journey, in terms of his family system, remember to pray for him, or her, and find ways to “be family” for them at times.
And if you are in that situation, you might pray that the grace and strength you feel in your connection with God would come through you into your household, whether or not the others in your family name it. God’s peace is God’s peace, and it works its wondrous way even when we don't recognize it as such it. Then it doesn’t have to be a tug-of-war, but a way to blend without imposing. And maybe in that space, the partner can find room to move toward God. There are passages in the New Testament in which Jesus or one of the apostles clearly states where the priority between faith and family should be. And there are others, like this one, where we see the healing power of Jesus move into a whole household and bring transformation to a whole family.
Or maybe he was just hungry and wanted Peter’s mother-in-law to make her special meatloaf! What do you think?
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
1-26-24 - Fame
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Fame has a powerful effect on people, both those who become famous and those who pay them an inordinate amount of attention. Fame can undermine our priorities and cause us to be less than our best selves. If given the chance to hang out with a celebrity we admire, who wouldn’t clear the schedule and get to wherever the meeting was to take place? I’d run to meet a celebrity I thought was cool – and I’d be pretty sure I let everyone knew about it. Being around famous people can make us feel more important.
People who are famous say it is odd to receive such attention from total strangers simply because you have a talent or skill or position that gives you exposure. It can be hard to be the object of projection from a public that doesn’t actually know you, but thinks they do. Celebrity can constrict movement, home life, spontaneity, and even affect family and friends.
So I wonder how Jesus handled it: At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.
Without a doubt, Jesus’ fame helped him spread the Good News more widely. It attracted followers, who helped spread the Good News more widely still. Yet we also know from the gospels that more than once the crowds kept him from something he was trying to do, and he spent long hours teaching and healing all who came to him.
And, of course, fame has an underbelly. As we often see, the famous can suddenly be deemed – or become – infamous, notorious, the criticism directed toward them all the more fierce because it is the flip side of adulation. It was the fame generated by Jesus’ raising of Lazarus that sealed his condemnation by the temple authorities, and we know how the crowds shouting “Hosanna” as he rode into Jerusalem became mobs crying, “Crucify him” within the space of a few days. We love our heroes – and we love to watch them fall.
Should Christians seek fame? Some star athletes and artists use their celebrity to proclaim their faith, with mixed results. And some pastors who have gotten very famous on the Gospel lose their way morally and legally. Perhaps fame is not something to be sought, but if it comes to you unbidden, it should be managed with all the humility you can muster.
We might also pray for people in the public eye, that they would wear their fame lightly, not taking themselves too seriously. We can monitor how much we seek or covet attention and affirmation from a wide range of people. Maybe the regard of a small group is more meaningful – and a safer bet.
Jesus became famous out of all proportion to his humble beginnings – his humble human beginnings, that is. From the perspective of his divine origins, his long reign at the “top of the charts” is understandable. But he never acted like a famous person, never exercised any prerogatives or favors, never let fame draw him off-mission. He went to the cross like the lowest of criminals – and emerged from the grave the Lord of heaven and earth, whose fame will never diminish, until we all come together in that Land where no one is more valued than anyone else.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Fame has a powerful effect on people, both those who become famous and those who pay them an inordinate amount of attention. Fame can undermine our priorities and cause us to be less than our best selves. If given the chance to hang out with a celebrity we admire, who wouldn’t clear the schedule and get to wherever the meeting was to take place? I’d run to meet a celebrity I thought was cool – and I’d be pretty sure I let everyone knew about it. Being around famous people can make us feel more important.
People who are famous say it is odd to receive such attention from total strangers simply because you have a talent or skill or position that gives you exposure. It can be hard to be the object of projection from a public that doesn’t actually know you, but thinks they do. Celebrity can constrict movement, home life, spontaneity, and even affect family and friends.
So I wonder how Jesus handled it: At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.
Without a doubt, Jesus’ fame helped him spread the Good News more widely. It attracted followers, who helped spread the Good News more widely still. Yet we also know from the gospels that more than once the crowds kept him from something he was trying to do, and he spent long hours teaching and healing all who came to him.
And, of course, fame has an underbelly. As we often see, the famous can suddenly be deemed – or become – infamous, notorious, the criticism directed toward them all the more fierce because it is the flip side of adulation. It was the fame generated by Jesus’ raising of Lazarus that sealed his condemnation by the temple authorities, and we know how the crowds shouting “Hosanna” as he rode into Jerusalem became mobs crying, “Crucify him” within the space of a few days. We love our heroes – and we love to watch them fall.
Should Christians seek fame? Some star athletes and artists use their celebrity to proclaim their faith, with mixed results. And some pastors who have gotten very famous on the Gospel lose their way morally and legally. Perhaps fame is not something to be sought, but if it comes to you unbidden, it should be managed with all the humility you can muster.
We might also pray for people in the public eye, that they would wear their fame lightly, not taking themselves too seriously. We can monitor how much we seek or covet attention and affirmation from a wide range of people. Maybe the regard of a small group is more meaningful – and a safer bet.
Jesus became famous out of all proportion to his humble beginnings – his humble human beginnings, that is. From the perspective of his divine origins, his long reign at the “top of the charts” is understandable. But he never acted like a famous person, never exercised any prerogatives or favors, never let fame draw him off-mission. He went to the cross like the lowest of criminals – and emerged from the grave the Lord of heaven and earth, whose fame will never diminish, until we all come together in that Land where no one is more valued than anyone else.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
1-25-24 - Amazed
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Amazement seemed to follow Jesus wherever he went. The healing of the possessed man in the synagogue, combined with his style of teaching, won him rave reviews:
They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”
It’s hard to avoid the subject of evangelism with this week’s passage. We see us how powerfully people reacted to Jesus when he first came on the scene. Yet, looking back on those events through a 2,000-year-old telescope, we’re bound to lose some definition and immediacy. Our well-established church routines can dull our passion. When did we last say, “Wow! What is this teaching? Who is this guy?”
A domesticated Christianity is like lukewarm dish water. We can go through the motions but don’t really get the dishes clean. How might we reinvigorate our faith, our excitement at what God did in Jesus Christ, and what God is doing now through the Holy Spirit working in us? To my mind, the remedy is less talking about Jesus and more talking to Jesus; less observing from the sidelines and more personal experience. We need to do everything we can to put ourselves in the way of experiencing God directly, and then do everything we can to help others experience God.
This Jesus may not be new news to us, but in our culture now many people have only dimly heard of him – and their associations with those who bear his name might well be negative. We have a huge opportunity to introduce this guy to people who don’t know much of anything about him.
And what should we tell them? How we experience Jesus. Why we call ourselves Christ followers. What were the moments when he became real for us. Those are incredible stories! Our telling them will plant seeds in the people who hear them. A story about someone being rescued from despair, or empowered to work for justice, or healed, makes me want to know more about who made that happen.
All we need to do is initiate a curiosity – and be there when questions are asked. The only answers we need to give are our own stories of our own experience. We don’t need to explain why God allows suffering; we can say, “I don’t know why – and here’s a time when I felt suffering was answered by God with love,” or “Here’s a time when God worked through me to alleviate someone else's suffering.”
Sometime in the next few days, I encourage you to make an inventory of your “God-stories” and dust them off. I’m not good at this – my sermons are too often declarations of belief instead of stories of transformation. So I intend to hold myself to this discipline too. Our experiences with God are our richest resource in God’s mission.
When were you last amazed by Jesus? Remember – and tell someone that story. You're just making an introduction - the next move is up to God.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Amazement seemed to follow Jesus wherever he went. The healing of the possessed man in the synagogue, combined with his style of teaching, won him rave reviews:
They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”
It’s hard to avoid the subject of evangelism with this week’s passage. We see us how powerfully people reacted to Jesus when he first came on the scene. Yet, looking back on those events through a 2,000-year-old telescope, we’re bound to lose some definition and immediacy. Our well-established church routines can dull our passion. When did we last say, “Wow! What is this teaching? Who is this guy?”
A domesticated Christianity is like lukewarm dish water. We can go through the motions but don’t really get the dishes clean. How might we reinvigorate our faith, our excitement at what God did in Jesus Christ, and what God is doing now through the Holy Spirit working in us? To my mind, the remedy is less talking about Jesus and more talking to Jesus; less observing from the sidelines and more personal experience. We need to do everything we can to put ourselves in the way of experiencing God directly, and then do everything we can to help others experience God.
This Jesus may not be new news to us, but in our culture now many people have only dimly heard of him – and their associations with those who bear his name might well be negative. We have a huge opportunity to introduce this guy to people who don’t know much of anything about him.
And what should we tell them? How we experience Jesus. Why we call ourselves Christ followers. What were the moments when he became real for us. Those are incredible stories! Our telling them will plant seeds in the people who hear them. A story about someone being rescued from despair, or empowered to work for justice, or healed, makes me want to know more about who made that happen.
All we need to do is initiate a curiosity – and be there when questions are asked. The only answers we need to give are our own stories of our own experience. We don’t need to explain why God allows suffering; we can say, “I don’t know why – and here’s a time when I felt suffering was answered by God with love,” or “Here’s a time when God worked through me to alleviate someone else's suffering.”
Sometime in the next few days, I encourage you to make an inventory of your “God-stories” and dust them off. I’m not good at this – my sermons are too often declarations of belief instead of stories of transformation. So I intend to hold myself to this discipline too. Our experiences with God are our richest resource in God’s mission.
When were you last amazed by Jesus? Remember – and tell someone that story. You're just making an introduction - the next move is up to God.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
1-24-24 - Deliverance
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
We’ve experienced them, haven't we, people who show up in church and don’t know how to behave. Clearly on some medication, or in desperate need of it, they mumble and shamble and can’t sit still; maybe they talk or shout during the sermon or the prayers. We know we need to welcome them as we do the “well-put-together,” but they can be disruptive, manipulative, even nasty when challenged.
Not that different in the synagogue in Jesus’ day: Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, throwing him into convulsions and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.
What did the people around Jesus think? “No, no, don’t talk to him! Don’t engage….” Did they think Jesus was harsh with his rebuke, “Be silent?" But Jesus knew the man was not the problem. As well as the demons could recognize his presence, he could recognize theirs. He knew this was not a case of mental illness or substance abuse or social disorder – he knew this man was held captive by a spirit not his own, a spirit of evil which sought to bind him in disease and undermine every effort toward freedom.
This is only the first of many times in the gospels when we see Jesus communicate directly with evil spirits, commanding them to loose their hold on an afflicted person. Such things do happen in our times too – there is a category of evil beyond the categorizable pathologies we’ve become so adept at naming and mapping. Jesus never confused people oppressed by the demonic with the forces oppressing them. He spoke right to the demons, casting them out in the language of command. Jesus knew he had power greater than they did, and they feared him.
I believe this can and does occur – people can be vulnerable to an influx of dark spirits, especially if they have been victims of sexual violence or abuse that thoroughly undermined their sense of self. Those who have been involved in or subject to occult activities can also be at risk. Yet even if you don’t believe that this reality exists, you can affirm the movement toward freedom which Jesus consistently fosters. He was – and is – in the business of setting people free, from all kinds of bondage. He did not neglect the spiritual as he attended to medical, emotional, political, economic, judicial, and social brokenness.
Paul reminds us in Galatians, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” We are invited to constantly seek our own freedom from anything that hinders our growth into the fullness of who God made us to be. And we are called to invest in the freedom of others, across every kind of category of person, condition and “-ism,” seeking to free the person beneath the oppression and offering our strength for their spiritual growth. Who do you know who needs to be set free? How is God calling you to help? And what freedoms are you seeking? Who might be your agent of deliverance?
Something wonderful can happen when we acknowledge the person hiding behind that “difficult” behavior. Often those “less presentable” people, when they are invited to speak, articulate most clearly their experience of the love of God. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Indeed!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
We’ve experienced them, haven't we, people who show up in church and don’t know how to behave. Clearly on some medication, or in desperate need of it, they mumble and shamble and can’t sit still; maybe they talk or shout during the sermon or the prayers. We know we need to welcome them as we do the “well-put-together,” but they can be disruptive, manipulative, even nasty when challenged.
Not that different in the synagogue in Jesus’ day: Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, throwing him into convulsions and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.
What did the people around Jesus think? “No, no, don’t talk to him! Don’t engage….” Did they think Jesus was harsh with his rebuke, “Be silent?" But Jesus knew the man was not the problem. As well as the demons could recognize his presence, he could recognize theirs. He knew this was not a case of mental illness or substance abuse or social disorder – he knew this man was held captive by a spirit not his own, a spirit of evil which sought to bind him in disease and undermine every effort toward freedom.
This is only the first of many times in the gospels when we see Jesus communicate directly with evil spirits, commanding them to loose their hold on an afflicted person. Such things do happen in our times too – there is a category of evil beyond the categorizable pathologies we’ve become so adept at naming and mapping. Jesus never confused people oppressed by the demonic with the forces oppressing them. He spoke right to the demons, casting them out in the language of command. Jesus knew he had power greater than they did, and they feared him.
I believe this can and does occur – people can be vulnerable to an influx of dark spirits, especially if they have been victims of sexual violence or abuse that thoroughly undermined their sense of self. Those who have been involved in or subject to occult activities can also be at risk. Yet even if you don’t believe that this reality exists, you can affirm the movement toward freedom which Jesus consistently fosters. He was – and is – in the business of setting people free, from all kinds of bondage. He did not neglect the spiritual as he attended to medical, emotional, political, economic, judicial, and social brokenness.
Paul reminds us in Galatians, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” We are invited to constantly seek our own freedom from anything that hinders our growth into the fullness of who God made us to be. And we are called to invest in the freedom of others, across every kind of category of person, condition and “-ism,” seeking to free the person beneath the oppression and offering our strength for their spiritual growth. Who do you know who needs to be set free? How is God calling you to help? And what freedoms are you seeking? Who might be your agent of deliverance?
Something wonderful can happen when we acknowledge the person hiding behind that “difficult” behavior. Often those “less presentable” people, when they are invited to speak, articulate most clearly their experience of the love of God. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Indeed!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
1-23-24 - "I Know Who You Are"
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
I watch a lot of British crime shows, so when I encounter the words, “I know who you are,” I automatically impute a menacing tone. The phrase can convey a happy recognition – of a movie star, say, or an old friend – yet also evokes hidden knowledge about someone’s past or true identity, something not everyone knows.
An ongoing theme in the gospels is that only demons seem consistently to understand Jesus’ true identity as Messiah. As spiritual beings, they recognize the spiritual authority of the Son of God. They are always afraid of him, as we see in this week’s gospel story: Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”
These dark forces recognize that their destruction is part of Jesus’ mission. After all, there is no point in announcing that God’s life has come among us with power to heal and transform the universe if you don't also deal with the other side of the equation, what our baptismal rite refers to as “the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.” Jesus came that we might have life, and have it in abundance, and that means he also came to break the power of evil over humankind, whether that manifests as demonic oppression, economic and political injustice, disease and disability, or personal sin. Our great claim is that Christ did break the power of evil and gave us the means to combat it, through the power of his name.
So, a deeper question: Do we know who Jesus is? The divine Son of the Living God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world, the One before whom the forces of evil cower? When we reduce Jesus to a nice guy, a good teacher, a moral model, an important world leader who only wants us to love one another, we leave out the power he possessed and demonstrated, power even his followers could wield in his name, power to heal and forgive and bring peace and justice that his followers can still wield in his name.
He has given us authority over the forces of evil, however we may encounter them. We make his power and presence known simply by invoking his name: Jesus, the Christ, the name which Peter said “awakens faith.” (Acts 3).
This week, whenever you encounter darkness, whether in the depression of a friend or in the headlines, stop and invoke the name of Jesus, inviting his power to transform that situation. That can be a scary prayer, because it’s only one factor among many in any given situation – but if we believe it is the most significant factor, we dare to take that step of faith and make that prayer. Whenever we do that, we are saying to Jesus, “I know who you are. Do your thing.”
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
I watch a lot of British crime shows, so when I encounter the words, “I know who you are,” I automatically impute a menacing tone. The phrase can convey a happy recognition – of a movie star, say, or an old friend – yet also evokes hidden knowledge about someone’s past or true identity, something not everyone knows.
An ongoing theme in the gospels is that only demons seem consistently to understand Jesus’ true identity as Messiah. As spiritual beings, they recognize the spiritual authority of the Son of God. They are always afraid of him, as we see in this week’s gospel story: Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”
These dark forces recognize that their destruction is part of Jesus’ mission. After all, there is no point in announcing that God’s life has come among us with power to heal and transform the universe if you don't also deal with the other side of the equation, what our baptismal rite refers to as “the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.” Jesus came that we might have life, and have it in abundance, and that means he also came to break the power of evil over humankind, whether that manifests as demonic oppression, economic and political injustice, disease and disability, or personal sin. Our great claim is that Christ did break the power of evil and gave us the means to combat it, through the power of his name.
So, a deeper question: Do we know who Jesus is? The divine Son of the Living God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world, the One before whom the forces of evil cower? When we reduce Jesus to a nice guy, a good teacher, a moral model, an important world leader who only wants us to love one another, we leave out the power he possessed and demonstrated, power even his followers could wield in his name, power to heal and forgive and bring peace and justice that his followers can still wield in his name.
He has given us authority over the forces of evil, however we may encounter them. We make his power and presence known simply by invoking his name: Jesus, the Christ, the name which Peter said “awakens faith.” (Acts 3).
This week, whenever you encounter darkness, whether in the depression of a friend or in the headlines, stop and invoke the name of Jesus, inviting his power to transform that situation. That can be a scary prayer, because it’s only one factor among many in any given situation – but if we believe it is the most significant factor, we dare to take that step of faith and make that prayer. Whenever we do that, we are saying to Jesus, “I know who you are. Do your thing.”
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
1-22-24 - New Teaching
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Whenever I go to a talk or a conference, I long to hear something I haven’t heard before, something that resonates in my mind and spirit and causes me to see in a new way. It is so rare to find a fresh approach to familiar ideas. So often we spin endless variations on the same old themes; perhaps a new understanding emerges with each iteration, but we stay within the same paradigm. Well, Jesus broke the paradigm.
When the phrase “paradigm shift” first came into currency, I thought, “If someone can tell me what a paradigm is, I’m happy to learn how to shift it.” I always had to look the darn word up. For any who share my ignorance, a paradigm is a prevailing system, model, way of understanding in a given field. A new paradigm offers an alternative way of seeing or doing the same old thing, a vision that reveals to us new possibilities, new connections, new vistas.
Jesus proclaimed a new paradigm – and people could tell. “They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority!”
In Jesus’ community, thinking and talking about God were done by question and argument, not declaration. Rabbis didn’t teach, “this is how it is.” Rather, they asked questions about a scriptural text, suggested interpretations, argued against other interpretations, suggested new variations on interpretations, and looked for truth in the searching. No one interpretation was necessarily more authoritative than another, though some views drew more adherents.
But Jesus did not open the text and say, “What if….?” He opened a scroll in the synagogue and said, “Today this has been fulfilled in your hearing.” He made declarative statements: “The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God has come near. Believe in the good news!” To modern ears it might sound like, “Listen! God is on the move. God is doing a new thing. The Life of God has come near you, among you, even within you. Come and be a part of what God is up to!”
We have a challenge. For us this “new teaching” is over 2,000 years old, and has accrued the dust of millions of books in thousands of libraries and churches. It seems irrelevant among people who derive authority from their own experience or favorite media outlet. For many of us, the Good News has become old, stale, two-dimensional – unless we hear it again with authority.
We need to hear it again from Jesus, the Jesus we meet in the Gospels, the Jesus we encounter in our prayers and our ministries. We don’t need to read it in a book. We need to read it on the face of someone who wonders if anyone will ever love him, or feel it in the smoothness of a chalice as we share wine at communion, or hear it from each other as we tell our stories of spiritual encounter.
And we need to hear ourselves tell it. There are many around us who aren’t burdened by the age of this “Good News,” because they have never heard it, and may not if we don’t tell it in our own ways. Jesus’ teaching is still new. I pray we will continue to renew our ways of hearing, and telling, that “old, old story.”
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Whenever I go to a talk or a conference, I long to hear something I haven’t heard before, something that resonates in my mind and spirit and causes me to see in a new way. It is so rare to find a fresh approach to familiar ideas. So often we spin endless variations on the same old themes; perhaps a new understanding emerges with each iteration, but we stay within the same paradigm. Well, Jesus broke the paradigm.
When the phrase “paradigm shift” first came into currency, I thought, “If someone can tell me what a paradigm is, I’m happy to learn how to shift it.” I always had to look the darn word up. For any who share my ignorance, a paradigm is a prevailing system, model, way of understanding in a given field. A new paradigm offers an alternative way of seeing or doing the same old thing, a vision that reveals to us new possibilities, new connections, new vistas.
Jesus proclaimed a new paradigm – and people could tell. “They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority!”
In Jesus’ community, thinking and talking about God were done by question and argument, not declaration. Rabbis didn’t teach, “this is how it is.” Rather, they asked questions about a scriptural text, suggested interpretations, argued against other interpretations, suggested new variations on interpretations, and looked for truth in the searching. No one interpretation was necessarily more authoritative than another, though some views drew more adherents.
But Jesus did not open the text and say, “What if….?” He opened a scroll in the synagogue and said, “Today this has been fulfilled in your hearing.” He made declarative statements: “The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God has come near. Believe in the good news!” To modern ears it might sound like, “Listen! God is on the move. God is doing a new thing. The Life of God has come near you, among you, even within you. Come and be a part of what God is up to!”
We have a challenge. For us this “new teaching” is over 2,000 years old, and has accrued the dust of millions of books in thousands of libraries and churches. It seems irrelevant among people who derive authority from their own experience or favorite media outlet. For many of us, the Good News has become old, stale, two-dimensional – unless we hear it again with authority.
We need to hear it again from Jesus, the Jesus we meet in the Gospels, the Jesus we encounter in our prayers and our ministries. We don’t need to read it in a book. We need to read it on the face of someone who wonders if anyone will ever love him, or feel it in the smoothness of a chalice as we share wine at communion, or hear it from each other as we tell our stories of spiritual encounter.
And we need to hear ourselves tell it. There are many around us who aren’t burdened by the age of this “Good News,” because they have never heard it, and may not if we don’t tell it in our own ways. Jesus’ teaching is still new. I pray we will continue to renew our ways of hearing, and telling, that “old, old story.”
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
1-19-24 - Learning To Fish
You can listen to this reflection here.
I’m not much of a fisherman. I lack the skill, the patience and the stillness to do it well. That, and I feel too sorry for the fish. But I do believe it’s a skill Jesus would like me to learn, at least so far as the “fishing for people” part goes.
We've looked at this story from the perspective of those being recruited along that seashore. Yet a great gift of gospel stories is that we can put ourselves into any character and find deeper meaning. What if we try on the Jesus rolel? Sooner or later, if a movement is to grow, the recruited become the recruiters. The time came when Peter and Andrew, James and John found themselves inviting other people to come and follow Jesus.
What can we learn from Jesus’ technique as we seek to invite people into the life of faith? First of all, he showed up in their environments, at their place of work no less. He didn’t send a message from afar – he drew near, close enough to smell the fish, touch the nets, see real lives. He knew what he was asking them to walk away from, which was a way of honoring their lives. So we need to know people before we invite them to meet Jesus as Lord.
Secondly, he gave them a clear invitation: “Follow me.” We can be muddy in our invitations. “Try my church sometime” is not as specific as, “I’d love you to join me at church this Sunday – we have a visiting preacher/are doing a great series on…..” Or invite someone to join you in an outreach ministry you’re involved in. And might we consider going beyond invitations to church and get closer to the heart of the matter, introducing spiritual life into our conversations with the people we meet, where there is an opening? Who knows where the conversation might go as we talk about our own spirituality and leave room to hear about theirs.
Third, Jesus made them a promise with his invitation: “I will show you how to fish for people.” That offered continuity between their old lives and the unknown he was asking them to walk into with him. People are often excited about learning new things, and feel affirmed that you think they are worthy of being taught. That’s how leaders are made.
And what did Jesus not do? He did not wheedle, cajole, arm-twist, or try to manipulate them. He invited. They answered. They moved on. Presumably he would have moved on if they’d said no too.
Jesus wasn’t always thrilled with the way these recruits followed orders or comprehended his teachings. But having chosen them, he was committed to them, and never gave up on them. It took a long time before they really demonstrated the leadership with which Jesus entrusted them. Look at Peter – he had to succeed and fail, step out in faith and sink in doubt, get who Jesus truly was and then miss the next cue, even deny knowing Jesus three times and then repent. But in the end, he became that fisher of people still honored by the church over 2000 years later. With a record like that, we shouldn’t feel too inadequate. Jesus is still inviting us, “Come, follow me. We have a world to make whole.” You coming?
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
I’m not much of a fisherman. I lack the skill, the patience and the stillness to do it well. That, and I feel too sorry for the fish. But I do believe it’s a skill Jesus would like me to learn, at least so far as the “fishing for people” part goes.
We've looked at this story from the perspective of those being recruited along that seashore. Yet a great gift of gospel stories is that we can put ourselves into any character and find deeper meaning. What if we try on the Jesus rolel? Sooner or later, if a movement is to grow, the recruited become the recruiters. The time came when Peter and Andrew, James and John found themselves inviting other people to come and follow Jesus.
What can we learn from Jesus’ technique as we seek to invite people into the life of faith? First of all, he showed up in their environments, at their place of work no less. He didn’t send a message from afar – he drew near, close enough to smell the fish, touch the nets, see real lives. He knew what he was asking them to walk away from, which was a way of honoring their lives. So we need to know people before we invite them to meet Jesus as Lord.
Secondly, he gave them a clear invitation: “Follow me.” We can be muddy in our invitations. “Try my church sometime” is not as specific as, “I’d love you to join me at church this Sunday – we have a visiting preacher/are doing a great series on…..” Or invite someone to join you in an outreach ministry you’re involved in. And might we consider going beyond invitations to church and get closer to the heart of the matter, introducing spiritual life into our conversations with the people we meet, where there is an opening? Who knows where the conversation might go as we talk about our own spirituality and leave room to hear about theirs.
Third, Jesus made them a promise with his invitation: “I will show you how to fish for people.” That offered continuity between their old lives and the unknown he was asking them to walk into with him. People are often excited about learning new things, and feel affirmed that you think they are worthy of being taught. That’s how leaders are made.
And what did Jesus not do? He did not wheedle, cajole, arm-twist, or try to manipulate them. He invited. They answered. They moved on. Presumably he would have moved on if they’d said no too.
Jesus wasn’t always thrilled with the way these recruits followed orders or comprehended his teachings. But having chosen them, he was committed to them, and never gave up on them. It took a long time before they really demonstrated the leadership with which Jesus entrusted them. Look at Peter – he had to succeed and fail, step out in faith and sink in doubt, get who Jesus truly was and then miss the next cue, even deny knowing Jesus three times and then repent. But in the end, he became that fisher of people still honored by the church over 2000 years later. With a record like that, we shouldn’t feel too inadequate. Jesus is still inviting us, “Come, follow me. We have a world to make whole.” You coming?
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
1-18-24 - Unwilling Recruits?
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Why won’t people just come to Jesus like we want them to? Unless I’m forgetting someone, only one person in all the gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry turned down his invitation to follow him: the rich ruler who asked what he had to do to win eternal life. When Jesus said, “Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor and then come, follow me,” we’re told he turned away, saddened, “for he had many possessions.” John’s gospel tells of quite a few followers quitting the movement when Jesus started going on about being “the bread of life,” but most of the stories in which he calls people to follow him as disciples end with a “yes.”
It’s enough to discourage church folks like us, who often have trouble getting people to participate in church life, let alone take Jesus seriously. (Of course, if we emphasized the latter, we’d likely get more of the former …) Jesus makes it look so easy.
It’s a good thing the Hebrew Bible includes the story of Jonah, a tidbit of which is in Sunday's lectionary. Jonah is a hilariously tall tale about a man who would do just about anything to avoid the one thing God asked him to do: Go and carry a message of repentance to the famously wicked and licentious populace of Nineveh.
Jonah is so unwilling and so disobedient, he hightails it in the other direction, catches a ship to throw God off the scent, gets thrown overboard and fetches up in the belly of a big fish, only to be thrown up on a beach three days later. And who’s there to greet him? God – with the same request. This time Jonah does it, sort of, doing his best to sabotage his own mission. He succeeds despite his best efforts to fail, and ends in a bitter heap of abject rage, railing against God’s mercy. It’s a brilliant send-up of self-righteousness, and a sweetly subversive hymn to forgiveness and grace.
One message we might take from this story is that God can find a way to work through even the most unwilling heart. If we know anyone who’s taken their sweet time getting around to RSVPing Jesus' invitation to closer relationship (maybe us?); if we find ourselves putting off that nudging sense that God would like us to reach out in love to certain people, or engage in certain work for justice – we might take some comfort from this story: God can outwait us.
But oh, how much nicer and more fulfilling it is when we stop delaying and resisting, and turn and say, “Okay. I’m listening. What is it you want from me?”
More often than not, the response we receive will be something God wants for us, not from us. All God really wants from us is our whole hearts. That’s all!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Why won’t people just come to Jesus like we want them to? Unless I’m forgetting someone, only one person in all the gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry turned down his invitation to follow him: the rich ruler who asked what he had to do to win eternal life. When Jesus said, “Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor and then come, follow me,” we’re told he turned away, saddened, “for he had many possessions.” John’s gospel tells of quite a few followers quitting the movement when Jesus started going on about being “the bread of life,” but most of the stories in which he calls people to follow him as disciples end with a “yes.”
It’s enough to discourage church folks like us, who often have trouble getting people to participate in church life, let alone take Jesus seriously. (Of course, if we emphasized the latter, we’d likely get more of the former …) Jesus makes it look so easy.
It’s a good thing the Hebrew Bible includes the story of Jonah, a tidbit of which is in Sunday's lectionary. Jonah is a hilariously tall tale about a man who would do just about anything to avoid the one thing God asked him to do: Go and carry a message of repentance to the famously wicked and licentious populace of Nineveh.
Jonah is so unwilling and so disobedient, he hightails it in the other direction, catches a ship to throw God off the scent, gets thrown overboard and fetches up in the belly of a big fish, only to be thrown up on a beach three days later. And who’s there to greet him? God – with the same request. This time Jonah does it, sort of, doing his best to sabotage his own mission. He succeeds despite his best efforts to fail, and ends in a bitter heap of abject rage, railing against God’s mercy. It’s a brilliant send-up of self-righteousness, and a sweetly subversive hymn to forgiveness and grace.
One message we might take from this story is that God can find a way to work through even the most unwilling heart. If we know anyone who’s taken their sweet time getting around to RSVPing Jesus' invitation to closer relationship (maybe us?); if we find ourselves putting off that nudging sense that God would like us to reach out in love to certain people, or engage in certain work for justice – we might take some comfort from this story: God can outwait us.
But oh, how much nicer and more fulfilling it is when we stop delaying and resisting, and turn and say, “Okay. I’m listening. What is it you want from me?”
More often than not, the response we receive will be something God wants for us, not from us. All God really wants from us is our whole hearts. That’s all!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
1-17-24 - What You Do Best
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Jesus walked by a bunch of fishermen one day and recruited them away from their nets, their boats, their fathers and co-workers. He said only two things: “Follow me” and “I will make you fish for people.” However strange that phrase might sound to our ears, to them it must have conveyed at least this much: That he saw what they did, honored it, and promised to harness that gift for a wider purpose.
The gospels don’t revisit that expression, but we can look at the kind of training the disciples received from Jesus and see how he might have put their fishing instincts to good use:
What in yourself do you most want to offer today for God to take and transform? Why not offer Jesus that in prayer?
I once complained to my spiritual director that my strong will got in the way of moving with God. He said, “Kate, God made your strong will. God will use your strong will as you align it with his.” This passage reminds us that when Jesus invites us to follow him, he expects we’ll bring along all of who we are and who we have been. Some of that will fall away as we get closer to him; more of it will be tuned and honed and polished, maybe even fired and made beautiful and strong for God’s purposes, as coal becomes diamond.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Jesus walked by a bunch of fishermen one day and recruited them away from their nets, their boats, their fathers and co-workers. He said only two things: “Follow me” and “I will make you fish for people.” However strange that phrase might sound to our ears, to them it must have conveyed at least this much: That he saw what they did, honored it, and promised to harness that gift for a wider purpose.
The gospels don’t revisit that expression, but we can look at the kind of training the disciples received from Jesus and see how he might have put their fishing instincts to good use:
- They learned to proclaim the Good News of the realm of God in all kinds of “weather,” to accepting crowds and skeptics alike;
- They learned to bait the hook with miracles that demonstrated the power they were proclaiming;
- They learned that they might have the biggest catches in the least likely places – among the poor and marginalized, downtrodden and downright sinful;
- They learned that they couldn’t keep everyone they hauled in – some went back;
- They learned that Jesus kept some they would have tossed back;
- And they learned that their instincts and techniques could help – but ultimately God controlled the catch.
What in yourself do you most want to offer today for God to take and transform? Why not offer Jesus that in prayer?
I once complained to my spiritual director that my strong will got in the way of moving with God. He said, “Kate, God made your strong will. God will use your strong will as you align it with his.” This passage reminds us that when Jesus invites us to follow him, he expects we’ll bring along all of who we are and who we have been. Some of that will fall away as we get closer to him; more of it will be tuned and honed and polished, maybe even fired and made beautiful and strong for God’s purposes, as coal becomes diamond.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
1-16-24 - Just Passing By
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Last week we looked at the way the Jesus recruited disciples in John's Gospel. This week we’re back to Mark, which is much shorter on details. In fact, on its face this encounter appears absurd:
As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him.
A guy comes by, promises to make you good at... what? Fishing for people? Sounds vaguely like human trafficking. You leave your job and family and follow him? We must be missing something.
Well, if we factor in the stories in John’s gospel, what we’re missing is that Jesus had already met Peter and Andrew. Andrew had already proclaimed him the “Real Thing,” and Jesus had already given Andrew’s brother Simon the nickname Petros, or Peter. All that had taken place by the Jordan River, where John was baptizing. Then Jesus went to Bethsaida, in Galilee, and started his mission proclaiming and demonstrating the power of God’s in-breaking realm. Now he comes to invite Peter and Andrew to take the next step – to actually become part of his inner circle. And they do.
If this is the way it unfolded, there was more than one meeting, more than one invitation. This might encourage those of us for whom committing ourselves to following Jesus with our heart, mind, body and time is not an instant decision but a gradual process.
When in your life have you been asked or challenged to commit yourself to following Jesus in a deeper way? How have you responded? Have you responded differently at one time than another?
What do you think “following Jesus” means for you? What is he asking of you? What is exciting about going deeper? What is scary or inconvenient or otherwise causes you to hesitate?
That day Jesus was passing by the Sea of Galilee. Another day he was passing by a tax collector’s booth. Today he might pass by the halls of your office building or on your way to the store, or sit down with you in your kitchen. So here's a prayer for today: “Open my spirit to see you, Jesus, to hear your invitation. Open my heart to say ‘yes.’”
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Last week we looked at the way the Jesus recruited disciples in John's Gospel. This week we’re back to Mark, which is much shorter on details. In fact, on its face this encounter appears absurd:
As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him.
A guy comes by, promises to make you good at... what? Fishing for people? Sounds vaguely like human trafficking. You leave your job and family and follow him? We must be missing something.
Well, if we factor in the stories in John’s gospel, what we’re missing is that Jesus had already met Peter and Andrew. Andrew had already proclaimed him the “Real Thing,” and Jesus had already given Andrew’s brother Simon the nickname Petros, or Peter. All that had taken place by the Jordan River, where John was baptizing. Then Jesus went to Bethsaida, in Galilee, and started his mission proclaiming and demonstrating the power of God’s in-breaking realm. Now he comes to invite Peter and Andrew to take the next step – to actually become part of his inner circle. And they do.
If this is the way it unfolded, there was more than one meeting, more than one invitation. This might encourage those of us for whom committing ourselves to following Jesus with our heart, mind, body and time is not an instant decision but a gradual process.
When in your life have you been asked or challenged to commit yourself to following Jesus in a deeper way? How have you responded? Have you responded differently at one time than another?
What do you think “following Jesus” means for you? What is he asking of you? What is exciting about going deeper? What is scary or inconvenient or otherwise causes you to hesitate?
That day Jesus was passing by the Sea of Galilee. Another day he was passing by a tax collector’s booth. Today he might pass by the halls of your office building or on your way to the store, or sit down with you in your kitchen. So here's a prayer for today: “Open my spirit to see you, Jesus, to hear your invitation. Open my heart to say ‘yes.’”
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
1-15-24 - Act On the Good News
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’
That was core of Jesus’ the message: The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God has come near. Believe the good news.
It can be hard to believe in the Good News, when so much bad news surrounds us. It takes a special kind of courage, a special kind of faith to continue to believe in the good news of Jesus Christ in the thick of evil.
Today we honor such a man, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who continued to proclaim justice and honor in the face of fire hoses and death threats, beatings and betrayals. But he didn’t just believe in “good news” in the abstract – he lived in relationship with the Good News himself, our Lord Jesus. He followed Jesus into those streets of battle and halls of power. He allowed Jesus to transform his life as he allied himself with God’s mission of justice. He gave voice to God’s dream, and allowed God’s dream to claim him, to take priority over other dreams he may have had for his own life and safety.
Each news cycle reminds us more starkly that the dream of racial equality continues to elude us. Today let’s do more than honor the man who helped bring us this far; let’s align ourselves with his Lord and let him lead us to our part in God’s dream of justice. Until every child knows her intrinsic worth, and can grow into his fullest potential unthwarted by racism or economic, political, or social injustice, we have a distance yet to go. "We've come this far by faith," says one civil rights hymn. It will require faith to get to the promised land Martin saw and worked toward.
How might we today proclaim the proximity of God’s realm?
How might we bring God’s justice into our own situations?
What will we say or do or pray?
How will we act on the Good News Jesus proclaimed?
How will you follow Jesus today?
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’
That was core of Jesus’ the message: The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God has come near. Believe the good news.
It can be hard to believe in the Good News, when so much bad news surrounds us. It takes a special kind of courage, a special kind of faith to continue to believe in the good news of Jesus Christ in the thick of evil.
Today we honor such a man, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who continued to proclaim justice and honor in the face of fire hoses and death threats, beatings and betrayals. But he didn’t just believe in “good news” in the abstract – he lived in relationship with the Good News himself, our Lord Jesus. He followed Jesus into those streets of battle and halls of power. He allowed Jesus to transform his life as he allied himself with God’s mission of justice. He gave voice to God’s dream, and allowed God’s dream to claim him, to take priority over other dreams he may have had for his own life and safety.
Each news cycle reminds us more starkly that the dream of racial equality continues to elude us. Today let’s do more than honor the man who helped bring us this far; let’s align ourselves with his Lord and let him lead us to our part in God’s dream of justice. Until every child knows her intrinsic worth, and can grow into his fullest potential unthwarted by racism or economic, political, or social injustice, we have a distance yet to go. "We've come this far by faith," says one civil rights hymn. It will require faith to get to the promised land Martin saw and worked toward.
How might we today proclaim the proximity of God’s realm?
How might we bring God’s justice into our own situations?
What will we say or do or pray?
How will we act on the Good News Jesus proclaimed?
How will you follow Jesus today?
1-12-24 - Following In Relationship
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
In the early chapters of all four gospels, we see Jesus putting together his team, his community of trainees. These are the men (and probably some women) through whom his message would be proclaimed and demonstrated. I’m struck by how little Jesus had to say to get them to come along: “Follow me,” “Come and see.” That’s pretty much it.
Why did they go, without plans or itineraries, curricula or policy papers, with no instructions about what they were to do, where, and with whom? Perhaps it was because Jesus was not inviting them into a project. He was inviting them into relationship, one that required them to commit and release their other commitments. They didn’t need to know what they would be doing – more than a few would likely have turned back had they known. They only needed to know they were going to become friends and followers of a profoundly holy man, whom some suspected was the long-awaited Messiah.
Maybe in our productivity-driven culture fewer people choose to follow Jesus because there is no to-do list. I can live in my to-do list 24/7. And though many of the things on that list are things I think I’m doing “for” Jesus, I don't know that he's all that interested. I suspect he'd much prefer me to spend time with him in conversation and contemplation, knowing and being known. And I believe he is very interested in being close to you.
Can we enter into relationship with someone we can’t see and can only connect with spiritually in prayer, someone whose words we “hear” as they appear in our mind and don’t seem like our own? Sometimes we begin just by learning to be still and centered and open to feeling God’s presence.
Of course, there is a “doing” dimension – Jesus had his disciples heal and proclaim and feed and all kinds of things. But these were things they did with him, not just for him. As we allow our spirits to open to relationship with the Living Christ, we find his power and his priorities take hold in us. So we might engage less in projects and more in showings, demonstrations of God’s love.
Do you feel you are a follower of Christ? That means more than following his example. It means traveling with him, discerning where his Spirit is taking you for the next adventure. And it means sitting down to dinner with him after a long day, and letting his agenda be your agenda.
Every day, Jesus comes by somewhere we are and says, “Come on. Follow me.” We don’t have to know where we’re going, only who we’re going with.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
In the early chapters of all four gospels, we see Jesus putting together his team, his community of trainees. These are the men (and probably some women) through whom his message would be proclaimed and demonstrated. I’m struck by how little Jesus had to say to get them to come along: “Follow me,” “Come and see.” That’s pretty much it.
Why did they go, without plans or itineraries, curricula or policy papers, with no instructions about what they were to do, where, and with whom? Perhaps it was because Jesus was not inviting them into a project. He was inviting them into relationship, one that required them to commit and release their other commitments. They didn’t need to know what they would be doing – more than a few would likely have turned back had they known. They only needed to know they were going to become friends and followers of a profoundly holy man, whom some suspected was the long-awaited Messiah.
Maybe in our productivity-driven culture fewer people choose to follow Jesus because there is no to-do list. I can live in my to-do list 24/7. And though many of the things on that list are things I think I’m doing “for” Jesus, I don't know that he's all that interested. I suspect he'd much prefer me to spend time with him in conversation and contemplation, knowing and being known. And I believe he is very interested in being close to you.
Can we enter into relationship with someone we can’t see and can only connect with spiritually in prayer, someone whose words we “hear” as they appear in our mind and don’t seem like our own? Sometimes we begin just by learning to be still and centered and open to feeling God’s presence.
Of course, there is a “doing” dimension – Jesus had his disciples heal and proclaim and feed and all kinds of things. But these were things they did with him, not just for him. As we allow our spirits to open to relationship with the Living Christ, we find his power and his priorities take hold in us. So we might engage less in projects and more in showings, demonstrations of God’s love.
Do you feel you are a follower of Christ? That means more than following his example. It means traveling with him, discerning where his Spirit is taking you for the next adventure. And it means sitting down to dinner with him after a long day, and letting his agenda be your agenda.
Every day, Jesus comes by somewhere we are and says, “Come on. Follow me.” We don’t have to know where we’re going, only who we’re going with.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
1-11-24 - Greater Things
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
One measure of maturity is learning to adjust expectations – usually downward. We learn through trial that the world does not owe us anything, and neither do the people to whom we look for attention, affection and affirmation – the Triple A team that can run my life if I let it. Spiritual masters teach us to let go of wanting, of having an agenda; to accept what comes, not always try to make it happen.
And yet, here is Jesus, maybe the greatest spiritual master of them all, saying, “Expect more! You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” In the face of Nathanael’s new faith, ignited by Jesus’ knowing something about him he could not have known in the natural sense, Jesus replies, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these." And he said to him, "Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
In response to his followers’ astonishment at his works of power, what we call miracles, Jesus always invited them to think bigger, to increase their estimation of what God can do as we invite the power of the Spirit into this earthly realm. The healing and transformation that Jesus brought about were not miracles at all, but simply normal operations in the Realm of God. And when the disciples did step out in faith and exercised authority in Jesus’ name, they found that demons and diseases and even death yielded to their commands. So it has been throughout history, and into our own day among churches alive to the work of the Spirit.
Yet many Christians have become people of tepid faith. Why? We don’t see such miraculous power exercised in our midst, so we adjust our expectations downward, and then we expect less and hesitate to wield the authority we’ve been given as followers of Christ, and thus we see fewer things we would call miracles. It’s a sad little cycle of reduced investment leading to diminished returns.
When did you last ask God to reveal something big, bold, scary? Did you see an answer to that prayer? Sometimes we’re afraid to pray big because we’re afraid of what it will do to our faith if we are disappointed. Well, guess what? Your faith is more robust than you think – and like the muscles in your body, can only get stronger when it's exercised. What do you want to exercise faith for today?
Try this: "Okay, God - release your power and love and healing in me, in so-and-so, in this situation or that country." If you want, you can add, like a father whose son Jesus healed, "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief." You do not have to add, "If it be your will." It is God's will that the power and life of the Kingdom be revealed.
The “greater things” Jesus talked about aren’t only answers to prayer. He was also telling Nathanael – and, by extension, us – that he could come into the very presence of God through closeness to Jesus. If we spend more time opening our hearts to the power and love of Christ, we will find ourselves encouraged to believe in those greater things. Lord, open the eyes of our hearts to see.
One measure of maturity is learning to adjust expectations – usually downward. We learn through trial that the world does not owe us anything, and neither do the people to whom we look for attention, affection and affirmation – the Triple A team that can run my life if I let it. Spiritual masters teach us to let go of wanting, of having an agenda; to accept what comes, not always try to make it happen.
And yet, here is Jesus, maybe the greatest spiritual master of them all, saying, “Expect more! You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” In the face of Nathanael’s new faith, ignited by Jesus’ knowing something about him he could not have known in the natural sense, Jesus replies, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these." And he said to him, "Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
In response to his followers’ astonishment at his works of power, what we call miracles, Jesus always invited them to think bigger, to increase their estimation of what God can do as we invite the power of the Spirit into this earthly realm. The healing and transformation that Jesus brought about were not miracles at all, but simply normal operations in the Realm of God. And when the disciples did step out in faith and exercised authority in Jesus’ name, they found that demons and diseases and even death yielded to their commands. So it has been throughout history, and into our own day among churches alive to the work of the Spirit.
Yet many Christians have become people of tepid faith. Why? We don’t see such miraculous power exercised in our midst, so we adjust our expectations downward, and then we expect less and hesitate to wield the authority we’ve been given as followers of Christ, and thus we see fewer things we would call miracles. It’s a sad little cycle of reduced investment leading to diminished returns.
When did you last ask God to reveal something big, bold, scary? Did you see an answer to that prayer? Sometimes we’re afraid to pray big because we’re afraid of what it will do to our faith if we are disappointed. Well, guess what? Your faith is more robust than you think – and like the muscles in your body, can only get stronger when it's exercised. What do you want to exercise faith for today?
Try this: "Okay, God - release your power and love and healing in me, in so-and-so, in this situation or that country." If you want, you can add, like a father whose son Jesus healed, "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief." You do not have to add, "If it be your will." It is God's will that the power and life of the Kingdom be revealed.
The “greater things” Jesus talked about aren’t only answers to prayer. He was also telling Nathanael – and, by extension, us – that he could come into the very presence of God through closeness to Jesus. If we spend more time opening our hearts to the power and love of Christ, we will find ourselves encouraged to believe in those greater things. Lord, open the eyes of our hearts to see.
1-10-24 - Known
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
To be fully known and fully accepted: is there any richer human experience? That is a gift God offers to us. Sometimes it is the way God gets our attention. That’s certainly how it happened when Nathanael met Jesus.
When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” Nathanael asked him, "Where did you come to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
Nathanael’s friend Philip had just told him about Jesus, and he had responded with a big dollop of skepticism, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” But here is Jesus, speaking as though he already knows him, affirming his integrity. Might Jesus also be getting in a gentle dig, knowing what Nathanael had said about his home town, backhandedly commending him for holding nothing back, even sarcasm?
He surely gets Nathanael’s attention: “How do you know me?” Jesus replies, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Now, Nathanael had been alone and Jesus nowhere close by. Jesus could not have known this by natural means. As miracles go, it’s small – but it snags Nathanael and opens his heart to seeing who Jesus is. And boy, does he see – he sees the whole truth! “‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’”
It takes months and years for most of Jesus’ followers to comprehend his messianic identity, and here, Nathanael gets it in the first five minutes. Jesus opened Nathanael’s heart by showing that he knew him, and then he made himself known to that open heart.
Who knows you best in the world? And how fully does that person know you? Do they accept you for all of who you are, the good, the bad and the ugly? Have you been able to receive that gift? And have you given it to another?
Have you experienced being known by God? I will sometimes receive a word in prayer that reveals a deep truth about myself, something I may dimly know but haven’t fully recognized. And often I sense from God a loving acceptance of who I am, much more profound than I am able to offer myself. Allowing ourselves to be known by God helps us with the endless journey of coming to know ourselves.
In Jesus, God made the unknowable knowable, so that we might know God, at least to the extent our limited perceptions allow. In coming into human life, human time, human experience, Jesus also made a way for us to feel what it’s like to be known by God. My prayer today, for you and for me, is that we will let that knowing love take root deep inside. Then we too will be without guile, without shadow, transparent as glass.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
To be fully known and fully accepted: is there any richer human experience? That is a gift God offers to us. Sometimes it is the way God gets our attention. That’s certainly how it happened when Nathanael met Jesus.
When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” Nathanael asked him, "Where did you come to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
Nathanael’s friend Philip had just told him about Jesus, and he had responded with a big dollop of skepticism, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” But here is Jesus, speaking as though he already knows him, affirming his integrity. Might Jesus also be getting in a gentle dig, knowing what Nathanael had said about his home town, backhandedly commending him for holding nothing back, even sarcasm?
He surely gets Nathanael’s attention: “How do you know me?” Jesus replies, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Now, Nathanael had been alone and Jesus nowhere close by. Jesus could not have known this by natural means. As miracles go, it’s small – but it snags Nathanael and opens his heart to seeing who Jesus is. And boy, does he see – he sees the whole truth! “‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’”
It takes months and years for most of Jesus’ followers to comprehend his messianic identity, and here, Nathanael gets it in the first five minutes. Jesus opened Nathanael’s heart by showing that he knew him, and then he made himself known to that open heart.
Who knows you best in the world? And how fully does that person know you? Do they accept you for all of who you are, the good, the bad and the ugly? Have you been able to receive that gift? And have you given it to another?
Have you experienced being known by God? I will sometimes receive a word in prayer that reveals a deep truth about myself, something I may dimly know but haven’t fully recognized. And often I sense from God a loving acceptance of who I am, much more profound than I am able to offer myself. Allowing ourselves to be known by God helps us with the endless journey of coming to know ourselves.
In Jesus, God made the unknowable knowable, so that we might know God, at least to the extent our limited perceptions allow. In coming into human life, human time, human experience, Jesus also made a way for us to feel what it’s like to be known by God. My prayer today, for you and for me, is that we will let that knowing love take root deep inside. Then we too will be without guile, without shadow, transparent as glass.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
1-9-24 - Look Before You Label
You can listen to this reflection here.
In our story this week, Nathanael has a snarky reaction when Philip tells him the big news about meeting Jesus: Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Nazareth was evidently considered a low-rent town in a backwater county – think, say, Secaucus, New Jersey. Whether or not its reputation was deserved, it was there. Nathanael was so sure he could discern who a man was by where he came from, he dismissed his friend’s claim out of hand. Later, some religious leaders question whether Jesus could possibly be a holy man, using similar reasoning, “Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.” (John 7:52)
It is impossible to be human and be free of prejudice. Sorting and categorizing the input we receive is essential to functioning in life. And if we’ve been taught that a certain kind of person is one way, or if most of our experiences have been that a certain kind of person is that way, or if most of what we see in the media depicts a certain kind of person that way – our default position will be to assume that that’s how “those people” are.
Sometimes we sort by race and ethnicity and nationality; sometimes by class and education and profession; sometimes by temperament. I have a prejudice against people whom I perceive to be angry. I shut down, and I judge. I have prejudices about weight, loud chewing, hunters, extremists… If I ever really stopped to think about it, I’d be astonished at how many biases I hold, many of them unconscious.
Prejudice may be part of the human condition, but acting on it does not have to be. With awareness, we can surface our gut reactions and examine whether they are based on something intrinsic to an actual person, or to a category they represent. Either way, if we’re conscious, we can take steps to remedy our bias.
For instance, take my negative reaction to people who appear angry or combative. What I want to do is walk away from people like that, not engage. And what does that do? It further isolates them. What might I choose to do instead? (Oh Lord, this is work!)
In our story this week, Nathanael has a snarky reaction when Philip tells him the big news about meeting Jesus: Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Nazareth was evidently considered a low-rent town in a backwater county – think, say, Secaucus, New Jersey. Whether or not its reputation was deserved, it was there. Nathanael was so sure he could discern who a man was by where he came from, he dismissed his friend’s claim out of hand. Later, some religious leaders question whether Jesus could possibly be a holy man, using similar reasoning, “Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.” (John 7:52)
It is impossible to be human and be free of prejudice. Sorting and categorizing the input we receive is essential to functioning in life. And if we’ve been taught that a certain kind of person is one way, or if most of our experiences have been that a certain kind of person is that way, or if most of what we see in the media depicts a certain kind of person that way – our default position will be to assume that that’s how “those people” are.
Sometimes we sort by race and ethnicity and nationality; sometimes by class and education and profession; sometimes by temperament. I have a prejudice against people whom I perceive to be angry. I shut down, and I judge. I have prejudices about weight, loud chewing, hunters, extremists… If I ever really stopped to think about it, I’d be astonished at how many biases I hold, many of them unconscious.
Prejudice may be part of the human condition, but acting on it does not have to be. With awareness, we can surface our gut reactions and examine whether they are based on something intrinsic to an actual person, or to a category they represent. Either way, if we’re conscious, we can take steps to remedy our bias.
For instance, take my negative reaction to people who appear angry or combative. What I want to do is walk away from people like that, not engage. And what does that do? It further isolates them. What might I choose to do instead? (Oh Lord, this is work!)
- Remember that person is created and beloved by God;
- Pray for them to be blessed, and ask God to show me how God sees them;
- Remember there’s a reason they got to be the way they are, and let my compassion kick in;
- Actually engage them in conversation, with kindness and respect, even if I don’t feel it.
- Open my heart and spirit to seeing something new in them.
All reconciliation begins with actually seeing another human being. In our world right now we are in the midst of a newly intensified engagement about "otherness"; now is a very good time to look within and learn to look out, beyond our assumptions, to the real people in front of us.
Philip says to Nathanael simply, “Come and see.” If we all did that with every person of whom we are suspicious or think negatively, I imagine world peace would be in our grasp within seconds. Imagine.
Philip says to Nathanael simply, “Come and see.” If we all did that with every person of whom we are suspicious or think negatively, I imagine world peace would be in our grasp within seconds. Imagine.
1-8-24 - Going Viral
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
The Second Sunday in Epiphany – it never fails; whatever the reading, Jesus is telling somebody, “Follow me!” That’s how you start a movement – invite people to follow you, start a social network. There was indeed something “viral” about the way Jesus’ network of followers grew. It wasn’t a linear process, Jesus asking one after another. It was radial, people telling their friends and family, who came to check out what they’d heard, and stuck around to become followers themselves.Three paragraphs in a row in the first chapter of John start with “The next day…” So this would be the third day since John the Baptist first saw Jesus approaching and identified him as the Son of God. On the second day, Andrew follows Jesus, spends the day with him and by nightfall has gone to fetch his brother Simon Peter, saying “We’ve found the Messiah!” And by this third day, Andrew and Peter have introduced their friend and neighbor Philip to Jesus, for we see Jesus inviting Philip to follow him too.
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me." Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.
Philip, in turn, goes and finds his friend Nathanael, telling him “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote!” And even though Nathanael is sarcastic at first, Jesus finds a way to get through to him.
It’s not up to us to make the people in our lives fall in love with Jesus, only to make the introduction. And in our day and age we can do “radial” faster and more effectively than ever before. If you’ve ever had a post on social media garner attention from people well beyond your own network, you know how quickly that can happen. Even your own circles include friends of friends, and people who hear about you. Every once in a while, Instagram informs me that someone I never heard of is now following me. How did that happen? I have not a clue. It’s a wide open world out there – with a lot of people hungry for connection to the holy.
Of course, the call to introduce others to Jesus presupposes that we’ve “caught” the connection ourselves, that we’ve experienced undeserved love and transformation through coming to know Jesus better. The language of “falling in love” can be a bit much for some – but truly, that is our invitation. I know in some ways I resist intimacy with God, but I do know it’s where my life’s deepest meaning and purpose will be found. And when I allow myself to get close to that fire, I’m much more apt to tell somebody about it.
Who has been an “Andrew” or a “Philip” for you? Who has drawn you closer to a relationship with God in Jesus Christ by the way they speak or live their lives, or the stories they’ve told you? What was it about the way their faith sparkled or their love ran deep that got your attention?
And who are the “Nathanaels” around you, whom you might invite to explore faith? We can spread the Word by posting something about church or asking for prayer - that'll let people know that your spiritual life is important and vital, and maybe they'll ask about it. (Need I add, you can always forward Water Daily or invite friends to subscribe!)
“The next day” is today – and the ones featured in the story are you and me. To whom will we introduce Jesus?
1-5-24 - Epiphanies of Grace
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Here we are at Twelfth Night; tomorrow we celebrate the Feast of Epiphany. And surely, like clockwork, the light will dawn, insight flood us and we’ll see it all clearly, right?
This week we have explored the sacrament of Holy Baptism, one of two main sacraments accepted by most Christian traditions (two points to name the other…). Today let's talk about sacraments in general. They are Signs which reveal the hidden realm of God and make it discernible in our day-to-day world. They allow for multiple epiphanies.
The Prayer Book catechism defines a sacrament as “an outward and visible sign of an inward, invisible grace.” Something is enacted on the outside – what liturgical scholars call a “sign event” – and we affirm by faith that the Holy Spirit accomplishes transforming work as we move through that rite. The material “signs” in baptism are water and oil, as well as the baptismal candidate and the gathered Body of Christ. The “signs” in Holy Communion are bread and wine and the gathered Body. In all sacraments, it is the Holy Spirit who does the work. We just show up with our faith.
The major sacraments of the Church are those rites which we believe Jesus himself instituted – the Eucharistic meal at the Last Supper (“Do this in remembrance of me…”), and Baptism in the Great Commission recorded in Matthew 28 (“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”). I’m pretty sure he also commanded his followers to wash each other’s feet regularly as a mark of servanthood and union with himself ("So if I... have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet." John 13), but only the Moravians do that more than once a year, more’s the pity.
The ancients referred to sacraments as “the Holy Mysteries,” because in them the unseen reality of God is made known in human flesh, as it was in Jesus’ incarnate life. Sacraments are ways we can touch and taste and feel God, to draw as near as possible to the presence of the divine. We believe they are effective for us whether or not we’re conscious – but how much more powerful for us when we open ourselves to experiencing God in them!
How do you experience sacraments? In addition to the two major ones, some churches include confirmation, marriage, anointing the sick, reconciliation (confession) and rites at the time of death. Can you recall a time when you had a transcendent experience during baptism or communion or another rite? What were the circumstances?
If your experience is not earth-shaking (mine rarely is), what is the dominant feeling you associate with these holy rituals? We might pray before we participate, “Jesus – make yourself known to me.” Or “Holy Spirit, fill me.” Or “God of heaven and earth, draw near to me.” And trust that God showed up, whether or not we felt it.
Martin Luther had a slightly different definition of a sacrament: “Rites which have the command of God and to which the promise of grace has been added.” Grace is God's unconditional promise to us. Sacraments are an invitation into an encounter with the grace of God. Our epiphanies dawn as we become aware of just how powerfully that grace has made us whole.
This week we have explored the sacrament of Holy Baptism, one of two main sacraments accepted by most Christian traditions (two points to name the other…). Today let's talk about sacraments in general. They are Signs which reveal the hidden realm of God and make it discernible in our day-to-day world. They allow for multiple epiphanies.
The Prayer Book catechism defines a sacrament as “an outward and visible sign of an inward, invisible grace.” Something is enacted on the outside – what liturgical scholars call a “sign event” – and we affirm by faith that the Holy Spirit accomplishes transforming work as we move through that rite. The material “signs” in baptism are water and oil, as well as the baptismal candidate and the gathered Body of Christ. The “signs” in Holy Communion are bread and wine and the gathered Body. In all sacraments, it is the Holy Spirit who does the work. We just show up with our faith.
The major sacraments of the Church are those rites which we believe Jesus himself instituted – the Eucharistic meal at the Last Supper (“Do this in remembrance of me…”), and Baptism in the Great Commission recorded in Matthew 28 (“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”). I’m pretty sure he also commanded his followers to wash each other’s feet regularly as a mark of servanthood and union with himself ("So if I... have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet." John 13), but only the Moravians do that more than once a year, more’s the pity.
The ancients referred to sacraments as “the Holy Mysteries,” because in them the unseen reality of God is made known in human flesh, as it was in Jesus’ incarnate life. Sacraments are ways we can touch and taste and feel God, to draw as near as possible to the presence of the divine. We believe they are effective for us whether or not we’re conscious – but how much more powerful for us when we open ourselves to experiencing God in them!
How do you experience sacraments? In addition to the two major ones, some churches include confirmation, marriage, anointing the sick, reconciliation (confession) and rites at the time of death. Can you recall a time when you had a transcendent experience during baptism or communion or another rite? What were the circumstances?
If your experience is not earth-shaking (mine rarely is), what is the dominant feeling you associate with these holy rituals? We might pray before we participate, “Jesus – make yourself known to me.” Or “Holy Spirit, fill me.” Or “God of heaven and earth, draw near to me.” And trust that God showed up, whether or not we felt it.
Martin Luther had a slightly different definition of a sacrament: “Rites which have the command of God and to which the promise of grace has been added.” Grace is God's unconditional promise to us. Sacraments are an invitation into an encounter with the grace of God. Our epiphanies dawn as we become aware of just how powerfully that grace has made us whole.
1-4-24 - Voice of Love
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
We’ve been looking this week at the story of Jesus’ baptism, and how each element has become incorporated into our own baptismal services. We pour the water, we invoke the Holy Spirit’s anointing by applying oil to the baptized person. Where, though, does this aural affirmation come in?
We might say, “It goes without saying.” The whole act of baptism is a response to the Love of God. We see it as incorporation into the family of God. Do we need to hear God’s “I love you?” when we’re bathed in it?
Well… yes. We’re human, and limited, and we need to hear it. Jesus heard it, and it’s not like HE needed to be reminded of his Father’s love. Or did he? Was the mission he was just starting going to be so hard and lonely and dangerous, that he very much needed to be reminded how beloved he was?
Maybe God is always telling us how pleased God is with us, reminding us how beloved we are, but we aren’t tuned to that frequency. This world and its messages throws out a lot of static. (Casting Crowns has a good song about that, Voice of Truth.) Our own inner sense of inadequacy or insecurity, however we come by that, so often overrides that message of love. How can we hear it for ourselves?
One way is to tune in every day – whether it’s a quiet time of prayer in the morning, or a step off the treadmill sometime mid-day, or in reflection in the evening. If we can cultivate the daily reminder of our baptismal life and the promises God has made to us, we might find ourselves more often dwelling in our belovedness.
But we also need to remind each other. No one is called into Christian life in a vacuum. The “noise” around us will always overwhelm us if we don’t encourage and support each other. Who has been good at reminding you that you are beloved of God, delightful and pleasing to God? Who in your life might need a reminder this week?
At one point during the Episcopal baptismal service, the congregation is asked, “Will you support this person in her life in Christ?” And the answer is to be a resounding “We will!” That’s one of the times in the liturgy when we hear the voice of the beloved, God, speaking through us.
God has not stopped speaking through us. Who will hear through you today how beloved he is, she is? That's the only way the world will hear it.
And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
We’ve been looking this week at the story of Jesus’ baptism, and how each element has become incorporated into our own baptismal services. We pour the water, we invoke the Holy Spirit’s anointing by applying oil to the baptized person. Where, though, does this aural affirmation come in?
We might say, “It goes without saying.” The whole act of baptism is a response to the Love of God. We see it as incorporation into the family of God. Do we need to hear God’s “I love you?” when we’re bathed in it?
Well… yes. We’re human, and limited, and we need to hear it. Jesus heard it, and it’s not like HE needed to be reminded of his Father’s love. Or did he? Was the mission he was just starting going to be so hard and lonely and dangerous, that he very much needed to be reminded how beloved he was?
Maybe God is always telling us how pleased God is with us, reminding us how beloved we are, but we aren’t tuned to that frequency. This world and its messages throws out a lot of static. (Casting Crowns has a good song about that, Voice of Truth.) Our own inner sense of inadequacy or insecurity, however we come by that, so often overrides that message of love. How can we hear it for ourselves?
One way is to tune in every day – whether it’s a quiet time of prayer in the morning, or a step off the treadmill sometime mid-day, or in reflection in the evening. If we can cultivate the daily reminder of our baptismal life and the promises God has made to us, we might find ourselves more often dwelling in our belovedness.
But we also need to remind each other. No one is called into Christian life in a vacuum. The “noise” around us will always overwhelm us if we don’t encourage and support each other. Who has been good at reminding you that you are beloved of God, delightful and pleasing to God? Who in your life might need a reminder this week?
At one point during the Episcopal baptismal service, the congregation is asked, “Will you support this person in her life in Christ?” And the answer is to be a resounding “We will!” That’s one of the times in the liturgy when we hear the voice of the beloved, God, speaking through us.
God has not stopped speaking through us. Who will hear through you today how beloved he is, she is? That's the only way the world will hear it.
1-3-24 - Oil
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
We use two materials when we baptize someone, at least in the “sacramental” Christian traditions, Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and Anglican. The most obvious is water. No less important is oil.
We don’t use oil in the same quantities as we do water, but in some early church communities a candidate’s whole body might be anointed with it, and in others oil was poured into the font along with water. In some early baptismal rites, a baptizand’s hands, feet, face and head were anointed.
This may well have been a baptismal ritual as St. Paul knew it in the earliest days of the Church. In Ephesians, he writes, “When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit…” That’s just what we say when we make the sign of the cross in oil on the forehead of someone being baptized: “You are sealed with the Holy Spirit in baptism, and marked as Christ’s own forever.” Paul likened that anointing to a down-payment of sorts: “…the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession.”
It is the oil, chrism, that gives us the word “christening.” That’s how fundamental is the chrismation part of the baptismal ritual. For oil is the Sign or symbol for the Holy Spirit. At Jesus’ baptism, it was the anointing with the Spirit that revealed him as the Anointed One, or the “Christ” (same root word as chrism).
We might even deem the oil more important than the water. The water symbolizes the cleansing, forgiving, dying and rebirth realities of baptism. But it is the gift of the Holy Spirit uniting us with Christ that makes us Christians. That’s where our new identity comes from, the birth of a new person, you + Jesus. Without the Holy Spirit we are just strivers; with the Spirit of Christ in us we are carried along on the Mission of God – and that cannot fail.
One of the readings appointed for next Sunday is from the book of Acts, about a time when Paul came upon a group of church leaders from Ephesus who had been baptized by disciples of John the Baptist. “He said to them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?’ They replied, ‘No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’" Paul baptizes them into the name of Jesus and lays hands upon them in prayer – and they are filled with the Spirit.
Do you feel you’ve received the Holy Spirit? If you’ve been baptized in the Episcopal Church, you have. But our churches can be awfully quiet about the Spirit, so that we become almost like those Ephesians, barely aware of this Life Force by which we are renewed to be most fully who we are and empowered to do more than we can “ask or imagine.” If you don’t feel well acquainted with the Holy Spirit, there’s some spiritual work to do. We can begin with the simplest of prayers: “Come, Spirit of Christ, fill me. Come, Spirit of the Father, renew me. Come, Holy Spirit, empower me.” And then see what happens.
We have been sealed. The deposit has been made. It’s time to start spending our inheritance; it will never run out.
We use two materials when we baptize someone, at least in the “sacramental” Christian traditions, Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and Anglican. The most obvious is water. No less important is oil.
We don’t use oil in the same quantities as we do water, but in some early church communities a candidate’s whole body might be anointed with it, and in others oil was poured into the font along with water. In some early baptismal rites, a baptizand’s hands, feet, face and head were anointed.
This may well have been a baptismal ritual as St. Paul knew it in the earliest days of the Church. In Ephesians, he writes, “When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit…” That’s just what we say when we make the sign of the cross in oil on the forehead of someone being baptized: “You are sealed with the Holy Spirit in baptism, and marked as Christ’s own forever.” Paul likened that anointing to a down-payment of sorts: “…the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession.”
It is the oil, chrism, that gives us the word “christening.” That’s how fundamental is the chrismation part of the baptismal ritual. For oil is the Sign or symbol for the Holy Spirit. At Jesus’ baptism, it was the anointing with the Spirit that revealed him as the Anointed One, or the “Christ” (same root word as chrism).
We might even deem the oil more important than the water. The water symbolizes the cleansing, forgiving, dying and rebirth realities of baptism. But it is the gift of the Holy Spirit uniting us with Christ that makes us Christians. That’s where our new identity comes from, the birth of a new person, you + Jesus. Without the Holy Spirit we are just strivers; with the Spirit of Christ in us we are carried along on the Mission of God – and that cannot fail.
One of the readings appointed for next Sunday is from the book of Acts, about a time when Paul came upon a group of church leaders from Ephesus who had been baptized by disciples of John the Baptist. “He said to them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?’ They replied, ‘No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’" Paul baptizes them into the name of Jesus and lays hands upon them in prayer – and they are filled with the Spirit.
Do you feel you’ve received the Holy Spirit? If you’ve been baptized in the Episcopal Church, you have. But our churches can be awfully quiet about the Spirit, so that we become almost like those Ephesians, barely aware of this Life Force by which we are renewed to be most fully who we are and empowered to do more than we can “ask or imagine.” If you don’t feel well acquainted with the Holy Spirit, there’s some spiritual work to do. We can begin with the simplest of prayers: “Come, Spirit of Christ, fill me. Come, Spirit of the Father, renew me. Come, Holy Spirit, empower me.” And then see what happens.
We have been sealed. The deposit has been made. It’s time to start spending our inheritance; it will never run out.
1-2-24 - Water Life
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Exploring Jesus’ baptism this week gives us an opportunity to examine the sacrament of baptism. There’s a fancy name for teaching about sacraments: mystagogy, the study of the sacred mysteries. Mystagogy flourished in the fourth century, when the emperor Constantine’s declaring Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire brought a flood of would-be converts to seek baptism. A few bishops – notably Ambrose of Milan, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem and Theodore of Mopsuestia (say that three times fast!) offered instruction about the sacraments to catechumens before they were baptized.
Our mystagogy this week will be simple – we’ll just focus on the elements involved in baptism. We begin with water, the most fundamental of fluids for life, and for God-Life.
Sometimes I think we belong in the water – our life starts in a sealed, watery place, nine months floating in a sack of amniotic fluid, with embryonic arms like flippers. And then we’re born – which is freedom, but also makes us fish out of water. Some people spend their whole life trying to get back to that warm enclosed place – to live in the water.
Do you like a nice, hot bath after a hard day? Easing yourself in because it’s just a little too hot, letting the water close over your tired feet, aching muscles, letting your back settle in, enclosed in warm water.... Or are you a shower person, standing in the flow, letting it wash over your face, your shoulders and neck…. Or let’s go bigger: walking into a cool lake on a hot day, the smooth, gentle water enveloping you… Swimming in the ocean can feel the most freeing of all. It’s bracing, it’s huge, you can dive down and float on the waves, it’s vast and refreshing. Sometimes I think we belong in the water.
The Bible is full of significant water, from Creation to the Ark to the Red Sea to the Jordan River. And there, symbolically, is where we all begin our life in Christ, going with him down into the water, letting the merely human person in us die and be reborn as the new creation that emerges with Christ from the depths. That’s why water, lots of it, is so important in the sacrament of baptism – it is symbolically enough water to drown in, and also enough to birth us into new life.
The baptismal water is where our eternal life truly begins. Once with water and the three-fold name of God, it’s accomplished. It’s done. And whether you were sprinkled, toe-dipped, dunked or half-drowned, you got the whole thing. You went down and were laid in the watery tomb with Christ. You got up and were raised to life eternal with Christ. You were baptized in the waters of life for ever and ever!
One way to feel more alive as Christ followers is to practice remembering our baptism every day. We are surrounded with reminders – the water we drink, bathe in, wash dishes with. What if we cultivate the habit of remembering our baptism every time we feel water on our skin? Remind ourselves that we were washed and cleansed and reclaimed and reborn in water? Maybe we’d remember how beloved we are, which might make us more loving.
One of my favorite bands, The Lone Bellow, has a song says it. Let's all go Deeper in the Water.
Exploring Jesus’ baptism this week gives us an opportunity to examine the sacrament of baptism. There’s a fancy name for teaching about sacraments: mystagogy, the study of the sacred mysteries. Mystagogy flourished in the fourth century, when the emperor Constantine’s declaring Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire brought a flood of would-be converts to seek baptism. A few bishops – notably Ambrose of Milan, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem and Theodore of Mopsuestia (say that three times fast!) offered instruction about the sacraments to catechumens before they were baptized.
Our mystagogy this week will be simple – we’ll just focus on the elements involved in baptism. We begin with water, the most fundamental of fluids for life, and for God-Life.
Sometimes I think we belong in the water – our life starts in a sealed, watery place, nine months floating in a sack of amniotic fluid, with embryonic arms like flippers. And then we’re born – which is freedom, but also makes us fish out of water. Some people spend their whole life trying to get back to that warm enclosed place – to live in the water.
Do you like a nice, hot bath after a hard day? Easing yourself in because it’s just a little too hot, letting the water close over your tired feet, aching muscles, letting your back settle in, enclosed in warm water.... Or are you a shower person, standing in the flow, letting it wash over your face, your shoulders and neck…. Or let’s go bigger: walking into a cool lake on a hot day, the smooth, gentle water enveloping you… Swimming in the ocean can feel the most freeing of all. It’s bracing, it’s huge, you can dive down and float on the waves, it’s vast and refreshing. Sometimes I think we belong in the water.
The Bible is full of significant water, from Creation to the Ark to the Red Sea to the Jordan River. And there, symbolically, is where we all begin our life in Christ, going with him down into the water, letting the merely human person in us die and be reborn as the new creation that emerges with Christ from the depths. That’s why water, lots of it, is so important in the sacrament of baptism – it is symbolically enough water to drown in, and also enough to birth us into new life.
The baptismal water is where our eternal life truly begins. Once with water and the three-fold name of God, it’s accomplished. It’s done. And whether you were sprinkled, toe-dipped, dunked or half-drowned, you got the whole thing. You went down and were laid in the watery tomb with Christ. You got up and were raised to life eternal with Christ. You were baptized in the waters of life for ever and ever!
One way to feel more alive as Christ followers is to practice remembering our baptism every day. We are surrounded with reminders – the water we drink, bathe in, wash dishes with. What if we cultivate the habit of remembering our baptism every time we feel water on our skin? Remind ourselves that we were washed and cleansed and reclaimed and reborn in water? Maybe we’d remember how beloved we are, which might make us more loving.
One of my favorite bands, The Lone Bellow, has a song says it. Let's all go Deeper in the Water.
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