You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Jesus set a pretty high bar for friendship. On his last night in human life, he told his followers, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” I don’t know many people likely to be asked to lay down their lives for friends, though some under persecution or threat of war are faced with such choices. The highest sacrifice asked of most of us is that we lay aside our prerogatives, preferences, convenience for our friends.
But Jesus knew what was ahead – for him, and for his friends. The persecution unleashed after Jesus' arrest, crucifixion and resurrection would eventually claim the lives of most of those with him at that momentous Last Supper. Before they could offer that kind of sacrifice, though, they would have to be willing to truly love each other. Jesus had said that keeping his commandments would enable them to abide in his love. “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” Now he spells out the heart of that mandatum novum (look it up!). “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
"But we do love each other," they may have thought. They had spent three years in close quarters and sometimes no quarters at all. But the gospels tell us how much squabbling and jockeying went on among these disciples. And no matter what affection they may have felt, Jesus was now upping the stakes: they were to love each other as he loved them. His was a love that laid down everything to draw near them, that bore their misjudgments and inability to grasp the values of God he was trying to inculcate in them. His was a love that would ultimately lead to a sacrificial death, and then an empty grave and new life eternally.
These men and women were to be the agents of sharing that new life with the world. They couldn’t do that if they didn’t love each other as Jesus had loved them. And so he commanded them to love, even unto death.
We are the beneficiaries of their love. The legacy they left, the Church, even with all the strains and dysfunction common to human institutions, became an incubator from which sacrificial love can pour out in God’s mission. That kind of love is asked of us if we are to be part of God’s mission to reclaim, restore, and renew all things to wholeness.
How do we love like that? We begin by allowing Jesus to love us like that, truly taking in the depth and breadth of his love, not only “back then” but now, forever and always. Those moments in which we grasp the extent of God’s love for us, deserved or not, help form us as vessels of that love for others. We can also ask Jesus to show us his love for people we find it a challenge to love. His vision can help us love people when it’s difficult to get past what we see and hear in them.
The church of Jesus Christ is increasingly divided among factions and peoples who find it nearly impossible to "love one another as he has loved us." This saps the power of our proclamation. We have ample opportunity to practice loving those who interpret the Good News in ways that radically diverge from our ways of seeing, who seem to us to miss the whole point of Jesus’ grace and love. That's who we are commanded to love. Yikes! Yet if we can find a way to love one another across the barriers that separate us… I do believe the world might finally know that Love of which we are stewards.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-30-24 - Joy
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Joy is an elusive state of being. We cannot achieve it; we can only receive it. We can't acquire joy by striving, or by talking about it. I’ve tried. Yet joy is something Jesus wants his followers to possess: "I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”
Joy defies easy definition. It is not the same as happiness or contentment, though it shares attributes with those conditions. It goes deeper, a way of being and seeing that comes from our core and gives us a sense of “alrightness” no matter what our circumstances. It takes deep faith, decisive faith to believe that “all things shall be well” in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. The evidence God provides, of resurrection life triumphing over evil and degradation, disease and death, can seem flimsy in the face of what our natural senses tell us. Yet the joyful are able to proclaim life in the face of death, not denying the reality of pain and evil, yet living in the "already" of Christ’s victory over these ills.
Joy cannot be acquired or fabricated, but it can be cultivated. We can expand our capacity to receive Christ's joy. We can take the kernel that is in us, a promised gift of the Spirit, and help it to grow. How do we cultivate and increase our capacity for joy?
We start with the spiritual practice of gratitude. Gratitude waters the seeds of joy in us. Calling to mind God’s gifts to us, unexpected blessings, all the times things do work out against the odds, or in spite of them, creates an climate in us in which joy can grow and flourish. Similarly, compassion for ourselves and others nurtures a climate in which joy can thrive.
We can also flex our “joy muscles.” We must decide to be people of joy, apart from how we feel on a given day or hour. If we accept that joy is a gift of the Spirit, and we accept that Jesus names it as a mark of Christ-followers, we can commit ourselves to letting it grow in us. So often we let anxiety or grief take root in us, sometimes so deeply we can’t imagine life without them. What if we allow God to plant the seed of joy that deep in us, to gradually uproot and replace those life-squashing states of being?
What is your relationship to joy? Is it familiar to you, or rare? Some of us didn’t learn joy growing up, or have had it suppressed by circumstances. We need to make space for it now, as a choice and a decision.
If we accept that God has already planted the seed of joy in us, then we water it and weed around it and make sure it gets plenty of sunlight. We water it with gratitude and compassion and generosity. We weed away the cares and preoccupations that threaten to choke our joy – worry, envy, competitiveness, greed, gluttony – the usual suspects. And we give it plenty of exposure to the light of the Son in prayer and worship and mission.
Jesus told his followers he wanted their joy to be complete. Not just a little – the whole deal. We can feel and show forth joy in times of trial and sadness, stress and adversity. There is so much damage and loss and trauma in our world. We can invite joy to spring up in the midst of our fear and grief. Sometimes, like the light cast by a beacon on a stormy night, joy is most visible in the dark.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Joy is an elusive state of being. We cannot achieve it; we can only receive it. We can't acquire joy by striving, or by talking about it. I’ve tried. Yet joy is something Jesus wants his followers to possess: "I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”
Joy defies easy definition. It is not the same as happiness or contentment, though it shares attributes with those conditions. It goes deeper, a way of being and seeing that comes from our core and gives us a sense of “alrightness” no matter what our circumstances. It takes deep faith, decisive faith to believe that “all things shall be well” in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. The evidence God provides, of resurrection life triumphing over evil and degradation, disease and death, can seem flimsy in the face of what our natural senses tell us. Yet the joyful are able to proclaim life in the face of death, not denying the reality of pain and evil, yet living in the "already" of Christ’s victory over these ills.
Joy cannot be acquired or fabricated, but it can be cultivated. We can expand our capacity to receive Christ's joy. We can take the kernel that is in us, a promised gift of the Spirit, and help it to grow. How do we cultivate and increase our capacity for joy?
We start with the spiritual practice of gratitude. Gratitude waters the seeds of joy in us. Calling to mind God’s gifts to us, unexpected blessings, all the times things do work out against the odds, or in spite of them, creates an climate in us in which joy can grow and flourish. Similarly, compassion for ourselves and others nurtures a climate in which joy can thrive.
We can also flex our “joy muscles.” We must decide to be people of joy, apart from how we feel on a given day or hour. If we accept that joy is a gift of the Spirit, and we accept that Jesus names it as a mark of Christ-followers, we can commit ourselves to letting it grow in us. So often we let anxiety or grief take root in us, sometimes so deeply we can’t imagine life without them. What if we allow God to plant the seed of joy that deep in us, to gradually uproot and replace those life-squashing states of being?
What is your relationship to joy? Is it familiar to you, or rare? Some of us didn’t learn joy growing up, or have had it suppressed by circumstances. We need to make space for it now, as a choice and a decision.
If we accept that God has already planted the seed of joy in us, then we water it and weed around it and make sure it gets plenty of sunlight. We water it with gratitude and compassion and generosity. We weed away the cares and preoccupations that threaten to choke our joy – worry, envy, competitiveness, greed, gluttony – the usual suspects. And we give it plenty of exposure to the light of the Son in prayer and worship and mission.
Jesus told his followers he wanted their joy to be complete. Not just a little – the whole deal. We can feel and show forth joy in times of trial and sadness, stress and adversity. There is so much damage and loss and trauma in our world. We can invite joy to spring up in the midst of our fear and grief. Sometimes, like the light cast by a beacon on a stormy night, joy is most visible in the dark.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-29-24 - Love and Commandments
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Here are two things I don’t like to mix: love and commandments. Since when is keeping commandments a sign of love? What happened to flowers and chocolate? Oh, it starts out okay; Jesus tells his followers, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.”
That I get - the love which we have received is what we give to others; love is something we can abide in, hang out with. That sounds beautiful and comforting and profound and unconditional. But Jesus isn’t finished: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”
I know the psalms talk about how “the law of the Lord" is sweet like honey, but I think of commandments as “should” and love as “want to” and never the twain shall meet. This verse makes it sound as if God’s love is not unconditional at all, but highly contingent upon our ability to obey. Since I prize unconditional love above all theological concepts, and think attempts at obedience usually end in failure, disappointment and self-condemnation, I react negatively to this word.
What if we change the “if” to an “as?” Might Jesus be saying not, “If you keep my commandments, I will keep loving you,” but, “As you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” There is no change to the love in which we are invited to abide, only to our capacity for experiencing that love. Keeping Jesus’ commandments, he is saying, makes us better able to swim in the love of God flowing to, through and around us at all times. It puts us in the “head space” and “heart space” to receive – and give – the love of God.
Jesus made visible God’s love for humanity. He lived it, taught it, demonstrated it, and finally died and rose again to complete it here on earth. He says it was his fidelity to God’s commandments that made him able to manifest God’s love. Similarly, our fidelity to his commandments enables us to show forth his love in this world. We need only recall times when we’ve been in the grip of attitudes or behaviors that were outside of God’s will to know how easily our ability to love can become compromised.
Could it be that God’s commandments are not about our ability to “be good,” but intended rather to enable us to be Love? Perhaps I think of commandments as more guilt-inducing than loving because trying to live into God’s commands without the power of God’s love at work in us is an uphill climb. With God’s love flowing through us, it becomes more like riding a bike with plenty of gears, so we can keep a steady pace no matter what the terrain.
Where are you experiencing a lot of love in your life, from God or other people, or from yourself toward others? Where is it a little choked off? Are there adjustments you can make to the way you are thinking, acting, loving, to become more Christ-like?
It’s a chicken-and-egg thing. We can’t fully live into God’s commands without God’s love in us, and we can’t fully abide in God’s love without living the way God commands us. As we increase in each area, the other increases too – the more we abide in God’s love, the easier it is to live God’s way, until we discover that living God’s way opens us to more love than we could ever imagine. Now that's Good News!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Here are two things I don’t like to mix: love and commandments. Since when is keeping commandments a sign of love? What happened to flowers and chocolate? Oh, it starts out okay; Jesus tells his followers, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.”
That I get - the love which we have received is what we give to others; love is something we can abide in, hang out with. That sounds beautiful and comforting and profound and unconditional. But Jesus isn’t finished: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”
I know the psalms talk about how “the law of the Lord" is sweet like honey, but I think of commandments as “should” and love as “want to” and never the twain shall meet. This verse makes it sound as if God’s love is not unconditional at all, but highly contingent upon our ability to obey. Since I prize unconditional love above all theological concepts, and think attempts at obedience usually end in failure, disappointment and self-condemnation, I react negatively to this word.
What if we change the “if” to an “as?” Might Jesus be saying not, “If you keep my commandments, I will keep loving you,” but, “As you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” There is no change to the love in which we are invited to abide, only to our capacity for experiencing that love. Keeping Jesus’ commandments, he is saying, makes us better able to swim in the love of God flowing to, through and around us at all times. It puts us in the “head space” and “heart space” to receive – and give – the love of God.
Jesus made visible God’s love for humanity. He lived it, taught it, demonstrated it, and finally died and rose again to complete it here on earth. He says it was his fidelity to God’s commandments that made him able to manifest God’s love. Similarly, our fidelity to his commandments enables us to show forth his love in this world. We need only recall times when we’ve been in the grip of attitudes or behaviors that were outside of God’s will to know how easily our ability to love can become compromised.
Could it be that God’s commandments are not about our ability to “be good,” but intended rather to enable us to be Love? Perhaps I think of commandments as more guilt-inducing than loving because trying to live into God’s commands without the power of God’s love at work in us is an uphill climb. With God’s love flowing through us, it becomes more like riding a bike with plenty of gears, so we can keep a steady pace no matter what the terrain.
Where are you experiencing a lot of love in your life, from God or other people, or from yourself toward others? Where is it a little choked off? Are there adjustments you can make to the way you are thinking, acting, loving, to become more Christ-like?
It’s a chicken-and-egg thing. We can’t fully live into God’s commands without God’s love in us, and we can’t fully abide in God’s love without living the way God commands us. As we increase in each area, the other increases too – the more we abide in God’s love, the easier it is to live God’s way, until we discover that living God’s way opens us to more love than we could ever imagine. Now that's Good News!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-26-24 - Connected
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
“Apart from me, you can do nothing.”
Context is everything. In some instances, these words could sound insufferably egomaniacal, pompous, even abusive. Spoken by Jesus, to his closest followers, shortly before he takes leave of them forever? They sound like loving truth about where the power for ministry comes from. “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”
If we’re talking vines and branches, it’s clear: the branch cannot generate fruit if it is cut off from the vine. And a branch cut off from the vine, whether by pruning shears or by withering, is good for nothing. But what about when we’re talking people? Disciples? Can there be no good done in the world without its doers being connected to Jesus?
This passage does not address that question. Jesus is talking here to insiders, believers, disciples. He has been training them in the ways of that realm he called the Kingdom of God, equipping them to participate in God’s mission to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness. THAT fruit, he says, is not possible apart from him. There might be many holy people, makers of peace, bringers of justice who have no discernible connection to God in Jesus Christ. But ministers of the Good News? We need to be connected to the Vine.
What kind of nutrients come through a vine to its branches and ultimately the fruit they bear? There are sugars and enzymes needed for growth, for warding off diseases, for the formation of fruit. As the vine harnesses nutrients from its roots in the soil and the water it receives, and chemicals catalyzed by the sunshine, it passes along to the branches what they need to be as whole and life-giving as possible. And the only way the branch gets what it needs to be fruitful is through staying connected to the vine.
Let’s transfer the metaphor to us. Jesus says he is the Vine, we are the branches. He is rooted in the long tradition of God's activity since before time began. He is himself the source of Living Water. He is glorified in the light of God; indeed, he is the Light of the World. Through our connection to him – united with him in baptism, renewed in him in prayer, eucharist and mission– we receive everything we need to exercise ministries of transformation.
And how do we stay connected? By spending time with him in prayer; by gathering with other branches regularly; through the Word, the sacraments; through the exercise of ministry in his Name – which means letting his Spirit work amazing things through us. We can feel the difference between doing good work on our own strength, and how it feels when we're running on Holy Spirit wind. When we allow ourselves to be filled and "loved through," those nutrients come through to us from the Vine.
Branches are not responsible for the fruit they bear. We just need to be as connected as possible, and if the vine is healthy, the fruit will grow. Our Vine is Jesus – we can trust there will be wonderful fruit as we are faithful. Here endeth the metaphor!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
“Apart from me, you can do nothing.”
Context is everything. In some instances, these words could sound insufferably egomaniacal, pompous, even abusive. Spoken by Jesus, to his closest followers, shortly before he takes leave of them forever? They sound like loving truth about where the power for ministry comes from. “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”
If we’re talking vines and branches, it’s clear: the branch cannot generate fruit if it is cut off from the vine. And a branch cut off from the vine, whether by pruning shears or by withering, is good for nothing. But what about when we’re talking people? Disciples? Can there be no good done in the world without its doers being connected to Jesus?
This passage does not address that question. Jesus is talking here to insiders, believers, disciples. He has been training them in the ways of that realm he called the Kingdom of God, equipping them to participate in God’s mission to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness. THAT fruit, he says, is not possible apart from him. There might be many holy people, makers of peace, bringers of justice who have no discernible connection to God in Jesus Christ. But ministers of the Good News? We need to be connected to the Vine.
What kind of nutrients come through a vine to its branches and ultimately the fruit they bear? There are sugars and enzymes needed for growth, for warding off diseases, for the formation of fruit. As the vine harnesses nutrients from its roots in the soil and the water it receives, and chemicals catalyzed by the sunshine, it passes along to the branches what they need to be as whole and life-giving as possible. And the only way the branch gets what it needs to be fruitful is through staying connected to the vine.
Let’s transfer the metaphor to us. Jesus says he is the Vine, we are the branches. He is rooted in the long tradition of God's activity since before time began. He is himself the source of Living Water. He is glorified in the light of God; indeed, he is the Light of the World. Through our connection to him – united with him in baptism, renewed in him in prayer, eucharist and mission– we receive everything we need to exercise ministries of transformation.
And how do we stay connected? By spending time with him in prayer; by gathering with other branches regularly; through the Word, the sacraments; through the exercise of ministry in his Name – which means letting his Spirit work amazing things through us. We can feel the difference between doing good work on our own strength, and how it feels when we're running on Holy Spirit wind. When we allow ourselves to be filled and "loved through," those nutrients come through to us from the Vine.
Branches are not responsible for the fruit they bear. We just need to be as connected as possible, and if the vine is healthy, the fruit will grow. Our Vine is Jesus – we can trust there will be wonderful fruit as we are faithful. Here endeth the metaphor!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-25-24 - Fruitful
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.A few years ago, inspired by a neighbor’s lovely pineapple plant, I planted the top of a pineapple. It grew, and I managed to keep it alive for several years, and then last fall brought it into my office, which gets abundant sunshine. It thrived… and this winter I happened to look down one day and was amazed to see a teeny-tiny pineapple growing on it! Fruit! Fruit is one of God's greatest gifts. And, according to Jesus, fruitfulness is the one criterion for success as a follower of Christ: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing... My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.” And later in this long teaching, he adds, “You did not choose me. I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. ”(John 15:16).
What does it mean to be fruitful? It goes deeper than simply being productive. Productivity involves generating outcomes and measurable results, things you can tick off a task list. Fruitfulness obviously includes a product – the fruit – but fruit develops in different ways on varying timetables. And we don’t “produce” fruit – we grow it. Or we allow it to grow; we can't make it grow. We can only create the right circumstances for it to grow. And we can't hurry it along. (Somebody tell tomato growers that...).
I love productivity – especially if I have produced things I can see: articles, songs, sermons, newsletters, gardens, a clean floor. On a day with many pastoral appointments and meetings, I sometimes have trouble feeling I’ve “done” anything, because I can’t see or measure the outcomes – but those are deeply fruitful days. Jesus invites me to value fruitfulness even more than productivity.
How can we assess fruitfulness? We look for changed lives. When we see people changing, healing, growing, turning God-ward, we are seeing good fruit. When we bring justice or peace or reconciliation to a community, we are seeing good fruit. When we experience greater joy and more love in our lives, we are seeing good fruit.
Where in your life do you feel the most fruitful? What branches seem barren, producing little? What fruit do you feel is still forming in your life?
Does it have the water, sun and nutrients it needs? How might you foster greater growth?
What fruit do you see, and would like to see in your community of faith? How might you help cultivate greater fruitfulness, more changed lives? Fruit forms well as it is attached to the plant that nourishes it. Our fruitfulness in life, and as followers of Christ, flourishes as we allow God’s Spirit to flow through us, to form and ripen us and our ideas, to bring us to the fullness of who we are intended to be. Then we bring delight to others, just like a luscious peach or a perfect pineapple!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
What does it mean to be fruitful? It goes deeper than simply being productive. Productivity involves generating outcomes and measurable results, things you can tick off a task list. Fruitfulness obviously includes a product – the fruit – but fruit develops in different ways on varying timetables. And we don’t “produce” fruit – we grow it. Or we allow it to grow; we can't make it grow. We can only create the right circumstances for it to grow. And we can't hurry it along. (Somebody tell tomato growers that...).
I love productivity – especially if I have produced things I can see: articles, songs, sermons, newsletters, gardens, a clean floor. On a day with many pastoral appointments and meetings, I sometimes have trouble feeling I’ve “done” anything, because I can’t see or measure the outcomes – but those are deeply fruitful days. Jesus invites me to value fruitfulness even more than productivity.
How can we assess fruitfulness? We look for changed lives. When we see people changing, healing, growing, turning God-ward, we are seeing good fruit. When we bring justice or peace or reconciliation to a community, we are seeing good fruit. When we experience greater joy and more love in our lives, we are seeing good fruit.
Where in your life do you feel the most fruitful? What branches seem barren, producing little? What fruit do you feel is still forming in your life?
Does it have the water, sun and nutrients it needs? How might you foster greater growth?
What fruit do you see, and would like to see in your community of faith? How might you help cultivate greater fruitfulness, more changed lives? Fruit forms well as it is attached to the plant that nourishes it. Our fruitfulness in life, and as followers of Christ, flourishes as we allow God’s Spirit to flow through us, to form and ripen us and our ideas, to bring us to the fullness of who we are intended to be. Then we bring delight to others, just like a luscious peach or a perfect pineapple!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.4-23-24 - Pruning
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
I was given a rose bush six years ago which blooms frequently and has done better than expected, given that I just plunked it in the ground. But I don’t know the first thing about if, how or when to prune it to make it healthier. Pruning is a painful process. No one wants to cut into living things, or beautiful ones, though a gardener or farmer – or surgeon – will do so in order to allow a plant to become as healthy and fruitful as possible.
Jesus said that even God is in the pruning business: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”
Jesus talks both about the cutting away of non-fruitful branches, and the cutting back of fruitful ones. Nothing seems to be exempt from the pruning shears.
We prune to conserve resources so that the fruitful parts receive maximum nutrients. The same is true in our lives – and churches. Too many branches dissipate the focus and energy available to each one. Not every part bears good fruit. Some used to, and are now past the point of producing. We must undertake pruning processes, or allow God to work them within us.
Are there aspects to your life or work or relationships that no longer feel fruitful? Patterns of thinking or behaving or relating that are not life-giving? Make a list today of “branches” you might be willing to cut away, leave behind entirely.
As you read through that list, where do you feel the greatest sense of loss or failure? Where the most relief?
Pray through it with Jesus and/or discuss it with a spiritual adviser or friend. Then act on what you've discerned.
What areas of your life, work or relationships feel fruitful? Are there ways you can prune or refine your involvement in them to allow for even more growth?
There’s an old adage that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” I suggest the same is true of an “unpruned life.” It resembles an overgrown garden – hard to move around in, lacking in differentiation and clarity, with healthy growth often impeded by weeds and undergrowth. Undergrowth! There’s a great term. That which is overgrown becomes undergrowth. If we want to see growth in our lives and our spirits, not to mention our ministries, bring on the pruning.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
I was given a rose bush six years ago which blooms frequently and has done better than expected, given that I just plunked it in the ground. But I don’t know the first thing about if, how or when to prune it to make it healthier. Pruning is a painful process. No one wants to cut into living things, or beautiful ones, though a gardener or farmer – or surgeon – will do so in order to allow a plant to become as healthy and fruitful as possible.
Jesus said that even God is in the pruning business: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”
Jesus talks both about the cutting away of non-fruitful branches, and the cutting back of fruitful ones. Nothing seems to be exempt from the pruning shears.
We prune to conserve resources so that the fruitful parts receive maximum nutrients. The same is true in our lives – and churches. Too many branches dissipate the focus and energy available to each one. Not every part bears good fruit. Some used to, and are now past the point of producing. We must undertake pruning processes, or allow God to work them within us.
Are there aspects to your life or work or relationships that no longer feel fruitful? Patterns of thinking or behaving or relating that are not life-giving? Make a list today of “branches” you might be willing to cut away, leave behind entirely.
As you read through that list, where do you feel the greatest sense of loss or failure? Where the most relief?
Pray through it with Jesus and/or discuss it with a spiritual adviser or friend. Then act on what you've discerned.
What areas of your life, work or relationships feel fruitful? Are there ways you can prune or refine your involvement in them to allow for even more growth?
There’s an old adage that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” I suggest the same is true of an “unpruned life.” It resembles an overgrown garden – hard to move around in, lacking in differentiation and clarity, with healthy growth often impeded by weeds and undergrowth. Undergrowth! There’s a great term. That which is overgrown becomes undergrowth. If we want to see growth in our lives and our spirits, not to mention our ministries, bring on the pruning.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-24-24 - Abiding
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
“Abide” is not a word we use these days the way it is used in the Bible. Which is a pity – it’s a good word, much richer than its nearest contemporary equivalent, “hang out with.”
A Google search reminded me that we do use the word – in the sense of something we comply with, or barely tolerate (“I will abide by the ruling”; “I can’t abide eggplant.”) But the meaning in this week’s gospel passage is nothing like that. It means to dwell with over time. Abiding suggests resting with deeply, not rushing away. Oh! Maybe that’s why we don’t use it these days – we do so much rushing, so little “resting with deeply,” “ staying quietly with.”
Jesus used the term that our forebears translated as “abide” quite a bit, especially in these farewell remarks captured in John’s Gospel. He uses it as a verb and as an imperative: “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches.”
This image conveys an even stronger notion of connectedness. To abide as a grape abides in the vine suggests that it both comes from and is connected with the vine, so connected it would take some force to part one from the other. This is not to undermine distinction and independence. It is a connection intended for greater fruitfulness: “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”
How do we abide with Jesus and let him abide in us? We hang out with him in prayer and conversation and praise and worship. We recover our awareness of how we are connected to him, despite the efforts of the world and its messages and the pressures of our lives to shake us loose. It is easy to feel disconnected from God except in those times when we consciously return. How would it be to carry that felt connection around with us daily?
That can happen as we live into the second part – letting Jesus abide in us. We are promised that Jesus lives in us through baptism, a connection that is renewed at eucharist, through the Word, through prayer and ministry. So one way we abide with him and he in us is to make more space for him. Don’t toss him in a back room, stopping by to visit only when you’re feeling sad or stressed. Give him a seat at the table, when you’re doing dishes, paying bills, going to sleep. Don’t relegate him to a few moments here and there; make some time to nurture your connection.
Some monastics have practiced a form of constant prayer called “hesychasm,” the prayer of the heart, which trains one to pray with each breath, in and out, so that practitioners pray without ceasing. Whether we adopt that practice, or set alerts on our phones, or set aside times and places to rest deeply with Jesus, he promises us a more fruitful life through that connection. And we can be sure HE is abiding with us, even when we’re rushing off somewhere that feels more important.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
“Abide” is not a word we use these days the way it is used in the Bible. Which is a pity – it’s a good word, much richer than its nearest contemporary equivalent, “hang out with.”
A Google search reminded me that we do use the word – in the sense of something we comply with, or barely tolerate (“I will abide by the ruling”; “I can’t abide eggplant.”) But the meaning in this week’s gospel passage is nothing like that. It means to dwell with over time. Abiding suggests resting with deeply, not rushing away. Oh! Maybe that’s why we don’t use it these days – we do so much rushing, so little “resting with deeply,” “ staying quietly with.”
Jesus used the term that our forebears translated as “abide” quite a bit, especially in these farewell remarks captured in John’s Gospel. He uses it as a verb and as an imperative: “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches.”
This image conveys an even stronger notion of connectedness. To abide as a grape abides in the vine suggests that it both comes from and is connected with the vine, so connected it would take some force to part one from the other. This is not to undermine distinction and independence. It is a connection intended for greater fruitfulness: “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”
How do we abide with Jesus and let him abide in us? We hang out with him in prayer and conversation and praise and worship. We recover our awareness of how we are connected to him, despite the efforts of the world and its messages and the pressures of our lives to shake us loose. It is easy to feel disconnected from God except in those times when we consciously return. How would it be to carry that felt connection around with us daily?
That can happen as we live into the second part – letting Jesus abide in us. We are promised that Jesus lives in us through baptism, a connection that is renewed at eucharist, through the Word, through prayer and ministry. So one way we abide with him and he in us is to make more space for him. Don’t toss him in a back room, stopping by to visit only when you’re feeling sad or stressed. Give him a seat at the table, when you’re doing dishes, paying bills, going to sleep. Don’t relegate him to a few moments here and there; make some time to nurture your connection.
Some monastics have practiced a form of constant prayer called “hesychasm,” the prayer of the heart, which trains one to pray with each breath, in and out, so that practitioners pray without ceasing. Whether we adopt that practice, or set alerts on our phones, or set aside times and places to rest deeply with Jesus, he promises us a more fruitful life through that connection. And we can be sure HE is abiding with us, even when we’re rushing off somewhere that feels more important.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-22-24 - The Looong Goodbye
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
If John’s Gospel is a reliable historical record (a question over which scholars have spilled much ink…), the Last Supper would have lasted a Long Time. As John tells it, after the drama and rituals of washing feet, breaking bread and sharing wine, Jesus delivers himself of many Last Words. This discourse, filling chapters 14-18 of the Fourth Gospel, is dense, elliptical, sometimes repetitive - and full of nuggets of teaching that theologians would later mine in developing core church doctrines like the Trinity, Incarnation, the Holy Spirit, Heaven.
These words are not a transcript. At best, they are a compilation of memories and themes, filtered through several witnesses some 40-60 years after the events being described, and in conversation with movements and controversies in the early church. Yet I choose to believe Jesus said much of what is set down here, if not in these exact words, sequence, or necessarily on that occasion. At some point Jesus spoke to his followers about vines and branches and abiding in God. And these words still resonate for us: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”
Jesus is about to take his leave of these beloved and frustrating disciples. He has said he is going to a place they cannot follow, but know the way to. It’s a good time to talk about pruning and fruitfulness, as he is about to become the branch cut away, despite the manifold fruit he had borne in just three years, the fruit of thousands of lives renewed, loves restored, sins forgiven and infirmity healed.
But Jesus is not referring to himself in this moment. He is the true vine, he says, and God will remove every branch in him that bears no fruit. That means the branches to which Jesus has given life. That means his apostles. And that means us.
This week’s Gospel passage is not long, but it is ripe with metaphor and meaning. Using the image of a vine and its branches, Jesus talks about how we are connected, honed, and nurtured, and how to stay fruitful as servants of God, friends of God. Exploring this passage offers opportunity for spiritual inventory. Today let’s start by thinking about ourselves as branches connected to that True Vine.
How connected do we feel? How fruitful do we feel we are? How much in the way of nutrients is making its way to us?
Jesus needed to be sure his closest followers understood some things before the harrowing ordeals ahead, while he was still with them in flesh. Hence the Long Goodbye. But for us, these words are a Big Hello, for our fruitfulness is ever before us. Let's receive them as such and greet the exploration ahead.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
If John’s Gospel is a reliable historical record (a question over which scholars have spilled much ink…), the Last Supper would have lasted a Long Time. As John tells it, after the drama and rituals of washing feet, breaking bread and sharing wine, Jesus delivers himself of many Last Words. This discourse, filling chapters 14-18 of the Fourth Gospel, is dense, elliptical, sometimes repetitive - and full of nuggets of teaching that theologians would later mine in developing core church doctrines like the Trinity, Incarnation, the Holy Spirit, Heaven.
These words are not a transcript. At best, they are a compilation of memories and themes, filtered through several witnesses some 40-60 years after the events being described, and in conversation with movements and controversies in the early church. Yet I choose to believe Jesus said much of what is set down here, if not in these exact words, sequence, or necessarily on that occasion. At some point Jesus spoke to his followers about vines and branches and abiding in God. And these words still resonate for us: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”
Jesus is about to take his leave of these beloved and frustrating disciples. He has said he is going to a place they cannot follow, but know the way to. It’s a good time to talk about pruning and fruitfulness, as he is about to become the branch cut away, despite the manifold fruit he had borne in just three years, the fruit of thousands of lives renewed, loves restored, sins forgiven and infirmity healed.
But Jesus is not referring to himself in this moment. He is the true vine, he says, and God will remove every branch in him that bears no fruit. That means the branches to which Jesus has given life. That means his apostles. And that means us.
This week’s Gospel passage is not long, but it is ripe with metaphor and meaning. Using the image of a vine and its branches, Jesus talks about how we are connected, honed, and nurtured, and how to stay fruitful as servants of God, friends of God. Exploring this passage offers opportunity for spiritual inventory. Today let’s start by thinking about ourselves as branches connected to that True Vine.
How connected do we feel? How fruitful do we feel we are? How much in the way of nutrients is making its way to us?
Jesus needed to be sure his closest followers understood some things before the harrowing ordeals ahead, while he was still with them in flesh. Hence the Long Goodbye. But for us, these words are a Big Hello, for our fruitfulness is ever before us. Let's receive them as such and greet the exploration ahead.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-19-24 - Freely Offered
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
We are doing the “Being With” course at my churches this Lent and Eastertide. Being With is a 10-week exploration of Christian faith and practice, meeting weekly with a talk and discussion. This past week the topic was the Cross, which gets to the heart of what Jesus’ crucifixion meant and means for us. There are many ways of interpreting this event, depending on which of the four canonical gospels you’re reading and where you sit on the theological spectrum.
There are also no answers to so deep and unsettling a mystery. Did humans operating out of sin and evil kill Jesus? Did God have his own son killed? Was Jesus’ death due to politics, paranoia, personal feuds? Could it have been prevented? Was it simply the inevitable consequence of human choice, or a divine plan?
Perhaps a combination of all of these. Jesus predicted his arrest, death and resurrection often enough that it seems to have been a plan he was enacting. Yet that plan required human beings to make choices that could have gone in other ways. And any notion that Jesus was a passive victim of either human or divine operation is contested by these words attributed to Jesus as he talks about being the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep: “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”
Laying things down, things that we call life, is a constant effort in the life of a Christ-follower. Jesus demonstrated a self-giving love that offered everything, including his life, including separation – if even for a moment – from his Father and the Spirit. Where are we called to sacrifice our comfort or convenience or resources so someone else might have more room to live?
Like many Americans, I am more often in conversations these days about racial reckoning and reconciliation. I’ve heard someone say it’s not enough for those of us born into privilege to say we’re sorry for the historic and current injustice that limits access to the wealth and security we enjoy; we may actually need to get up and out of the chair, to make space for someone who hasn’t had our advantages. That’s a way of laying down of our lives at a high level. There are also smaller scale choices we can make – to lay down our insistence on being right, or knowing better, or having more. What comes to mind for you?
It is our privilege to make a choice to yield our privilege. Like Jesus, we have power to lay down our lives and to take them up again. In fact, when we lay them down, we truly find a richer life to take up. As we lay down those things to which we cling so tightly, we make room for God’s life to expand in us. As we give our life away, we find ourselves living that abundant life Jesus promised.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
We are doing the “Being With” course at my churches this Lent and Eastertide. Being With is a 10-week exploration of Christian faith and practice, meeting weekly with a talk and discussion. This past week the topic was the Cross, which gets to the heart of what Jesus’ crucifixion meant and means for us. There are many ways of interpreting this event, depending on which of the four canonical gospels you’re reading and where you sit on the theological spectrum.
There are also no answers to so deep and unsettling a mystery. Did humans operating out of sin and evil kill Jesus? Did God have his own son killed? Was Jesus’ death due to politics, paranoia, personal feuds? Could it have been prevented? Was it simply the inevitable consequence of human choice, or a divine plan?
Perhaps a combination of all of these. Jesus predicted his arrest, death and resurrection often enough that it seems to have been a plan he was enacting. Yet that plan required human beings to make choices that could have gone in other ways. And any notion that Jesus was a passive victim of either human or divine operation is contested by these words attributed to Jesus as he talks about being the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep: “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”
Laying things down, things that we call life, is a constant effort in the life of a Christ-follower. Jesus demonstrated a self-giving love that offered everything, including his life, including separation – if even for a moment – from his Father and the Spirit. Where are we called to sacrifice our comfort or convenience or resources so someone else might have more room to live?
Like many Americans, I am more often in conversations these days about racial reckoning and reconciliation. I’ve heard someone say it’s not enough for those of us born into privilege to say we’re sorry for the historic and current injustice that limits access to the wealth and security we enjoy; we may actually need to get up and out of the chair, to make space for someone who hasn’t had our advantages. That’s a way of laying down of our lives at a high level. There are also smaller scale choices we can make – to lay down our insistence on being right, or knowing better, or having more. What comes to mind for you?
It is our privilege to make a choice to yield our privilege. Like Jesus, we have power to lay down our lives and to take them up again. In fact, when we lay them down, we truly find a richer life to take up. As we lay down those things to which we cling so tightly, we make room for God’s life to expand in us. As we give our life away, we find ourselves living that abundant life Jesus promised.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-18-24 - Other Sheep
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Many sayings of Jesus have inspired Christian evangelism through the ages – the Great Commission, for one, or references in parables to an eternity in hellfire for those who do not accept God's invitation of salvation. One of the sweeter imperatives to sharing the Good News comes in his somewhat cryptic remark about “other sheep”: I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
In its early years, the nascent church struggled with issues of inclusion and identity. For whom was Jesus’ message intended? How far were they to stretch the boundaries of belonging? Jesus’ original followers were Jews, and a few times he names the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” as the focus of his mission. Yet the gospels record several occasions when he ministered to Gentiles – non-Jews, Romans and Greeks, Samaritans and even a Syro-Phoenician family. And after his resurrection and ascension, the apostles found themselves confronted with Gentile converts to the Jesus movement, and clear guidance from the Holy Spirit that Jesus’ message and ministry were for all people, for all time. (Read the book of Acts!)
This line about “other sheep that do not belong to this fold” seems to support that view, though Jesus might also have meant people outside the norms of acceptability, those lepers and harlots and bruised and blemished folk that seemed so drawn to him. Whatever groups he was referring to, at the very least he implies that there are insiders and outsiders – and that those outside need to be invited in.
One of the most dangerous descriptors for church communities is, ironically, “family.” A congregation that refers to itself as “just one happy family” is often less likely to grow. Why? Because the group identity is so strong it presents a barrier to those who might want to join. Visitors may be greeted warmly and offered hospitality, but are treated as just that, visitors, not part of the family.
As followers of Christ we are to be always thinking of the sheep that are not in the fold, whom Jesus might want us to invite in. And where will we be most apt to encounter these sheep? Out in the pastures, not in the sheepfold. The more we get ourselves out of our folds into the pastures, the better positioned we will be to come into relationship with others, relationships in which we can naturally talk about our spiritual selves and invite them to share theirs.
What is a "pasture" you might hang out in, getting to know other sheep? How might you introduce them to our Shepherd, until they can come to know his voice for themselves? Then the next time we come back to the sheepfold – which we need to do, regularly, for rest and refreshment – some of those other sheep just might follow us Home.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Many sayings of Jesus have inspired Christian evangelism through the ages – the Great Commission, for one, or references in parables to an eternity in hellfire for those who do not accept God's invitation of salvation. One of the sweeter imperatives to sharing the Good News comes in his somewhat cryptic remark about “other sheep”: I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
In its early years, the nascent church struggled with issues of inclusion and identity. For whom was Jesus’ message intended? How far were they to stretch the boundaries of belonging? Jesus’ original followers were Jews, and a few times he names the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” as the focus of his mission. Yet the gospels record several occasions when he ministered to Gentiles – non-Jews, Romans and Greeks, Samaritans and even a Syro-Phoenician family. And after his resurrection and ascension, the apostles found themselves confronted with Gentile converts to the Jesus movement, and clear guidance from the Holy Spirit that Jesus’ message and ministry were for all people, for all time. (Read the book of Acts!)
This line about “other sheep that do not belong to this fold” seems to support that view, though Jesus might also have meant people outside the norms of acceptability, those lepers and harlots and bruised and blemished folk that seemed so drawn to him. Whatever groups he was referring to, at the very least he implies that there are insiders and outsiders – and that those outside need to be invited in.
One of the most dangerous descriptors for church communities is, ironically, “family.” A congregation that refers to itself as “just one happy family” is often less likely to grow. Why? Because the group identity is so strong it presents a barrier to those who might want to join. Visitors may be greeted warmly and offered hospitality, but are treated as just that, visitors, not part of the family.
As followers of Christ we are to be always thinking of the sheep that are not in the fold, whom Jesus might want us to invite in. And where will we be most apt to encounter these sheep? Out in the pastures, not in the sheepfold. The more we get ourselves out of our folds into the pastures, the better positioned we will be to come into relationship with others, relationships in which we can naturally talk about our spiritual selves and invite them to share theirs.
What is a "pasture" you might hang out in, getting to know other sheep? How might you introduce them to our Shepherd, until they can come to know his voice for themselves? Then the next time we come back to the sheepfold – which we need to do, regularly, for rest and refreshment – some of those other sheep just might follow us Home.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-17-24 - To Be Known
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
In his conversation about shepherding, Jesus highlights an important quality of a “Good Shepherd” – she knows her sheep. In contrast to a hired hand, who might only know the number of sheep he’s to keep track of, the good shepherd knows the sheep individually, knows what each looks like, its characteristics, which ones follow well, which ones are inclined to wander, which ones are more vulnerable.
Jesus doesn’t discuss this quality in the abstract; he makes it personal: "I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father."
Being known – it is perhaps the richest, most intimate experience a person can have. (Is that why ancient Hebrew texts use the verb “know” to suggest sexual encounters?) To be known means we have been seen, and studied; been deemed worthy of time and attention. The one who knows us has weighed our strengths and shortcomings. Being known does not imply being loved, but one often follows the other (and not always in the same order).
That we are known individually by the God who made us, who doesn’t just lump us all together as “humankind” but treasures the particularity and specificity of each one of us, is a radical reality. Yes, God cares about communities, and yes, an over-emphasis on “just me and my Jesus” can imperil the integrity of our spiritual life. Yet the personal, relational dimension to Christian faith is undeniably present in the bible, and life-changing when we acknowledge it.
As intimately as the Father and the Son and the Spirit know each other – they who are distinct, yet One – that’s how closely Jesus knows us, our dreams and longings, our disappointments and losses, our passions and foibles, those shadow parts of ourselves we loathe, as well as what we treasure. Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves, and loves us without reservation or condition.
The question is: Will we let him in? Will we open ourselves to this one who already knows us? Will we take the time to get to know this Good Shepherd?
“I know my own and my own know me” begs an interesting question: Maybe it’s not whether or not Jesus is the Good Shepherd, but whether we consider ourselves his sheep.
The choice is always ours – his offer of relationship is always extended. Maybe we should come to know him as he already knows us.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
In his conversation about shepherding, Jesus highlights an important quality of a “Good Shepherd” – she knows her sheep. In contrast to a hired hand, who might only know the number of sheep he’s to keep track of, the good shepherd knows the sheep individually, knows what each looks like, its characteristics, which ones follow well, which ones are inclined to wander, which ones are more vulnerable.
Jesus doesn’t discuss this quality in the abstract; he makes it personal: "I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father."
Being known – it is perhaps the richest, most intimate experience a person can have. (Is that why ancient Hebrew texts use the verb “know” to suggest sexual encounters?) To be known means we have been seen, and studied; been deemed worthy of time and attention. The one who knows us has weighed our strengths and shortcomings. Being known does not imply being loved, but one often follows the other (and not always in the same order).
That we are known individually by the God who made us, who doesn’t just lump us all together as “humankind” but treasures the particularity and specificity of each one of us, is a radical reality. Yes, God cares about communities, and yes, an over-emphasis on “just me and my Jesus” can imperil the integrity of our spiritual life. Yet the personal, relational dimension to Christian faith is undeniably present in the bible, and life-changing when we acknowledge it.
As intimately as the Father and the Son and the Spirit know each other – they who are distinct, yet One – that’s how closely Jesus knows us, our dreams and longings, our disappointments and losses, our passions and foibles, those shadow parts of ourselves we loathe, as well as what we treasure. Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves, and loves us without reservation or condition.
The question is: Will we let him in? Will we open ourselves to this one who already knows us? Will we take the time to get to know this Good Shepherd?
“I know my own and my own know me” begs an interesting question: Maybe it’s not whether or not Jesus is the Good Shepherd, but whether we consider ourselves his sheep.
The choice is always ours – his offer of relationship is always extended. Maybe we should come to know him as he already knows us.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-16-24 - Hired Hands
You can listen to this reflection here.
In this week’s gospel reading, Jesus calls himself the good shepherd – and he makes a distinction between a shepherd and a hired hand: The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep.
Given the increasingly hostile encounters recorded in John’s Gospel between Jesus and the temple leadership, perhaps Jesus is likening the religious leaders of the Jewish community of his day to mere “hired hands,” not reliable guardians of the people for whom they are to care. They seem too preoccupied with their rules and their compensation. They fall away at the hint of danger (is he referring to their careful dance of collaboration with the Roman occupiers?), and fail to provide the spiritual nurture and care they should.
Jesus seems to say that only one who owns the sheep can appreciate their value enough to tend them properly. This is unsettling for me as a religious “professional” – after all, I am a “hired hand.” I think it’s important that clergy not feel ownership over their congregants, but rather see themselves as stewards on behalf of the God to whom all things belong, to tend, feed and nurture spiritual growth. Does the fact that I am financially compensated mitigate my shepherding?
Jesus might have gone further in his definitions, to distinguish between good hired hands and bad ones. A hired hand who is deeply committed to the Shepherd, whose values align with the one who owns the sheep, may be as fierce in protecting them from harm, and as dedicated to keeping the flock together and thriving, as the Shepherd himself. Such a hired hand must remain in close touch with the Shepherd on whose behalf she tends the sheep, to receive instructions about where to pasture, where to find the strays, when to lead the flock into the fold.
I strive to be such a hired hand. I hope congregations can hold their pastors to high standards of integrity and spiritual depth. If ever you wonder why we pray for clergy in Sunday services, this is one reason – so they can balance being in tune with the Shepherd with staying attuned to the wellbeing of the sheep. If your pastor is falling short, tell her. If he is nurturing the flock well, tell him.
And pay attention to what flocks you may be called to tend as a hand working for the Good Shepherd himself. He needs a lot of good hired hands, and they don't all have to be ordained.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
In this week’s gospel reading, Jesus calls himself the good shepherd – and he makes a distinction between a shepherd and a hired hand: The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep.
Given the increasingly hostile encounters recorded in John’s Gospel between Jesus and the temple leadership, perhaps Jesus is likening the religious leaders of the Jewish community of his day to mere “hired hands,” not reliable guardians of the people for whom they are to care. They seem too preoccupied with their rules and their compensation. They fall away at the hint of danger (is he referring to their careful dance of collaboration with the Roman occupiers?), and fail to provide the spiritual nurture and care they should.
Jesus seems to say that only one who owns the sheep can appreciate their value enough to tend them properly. This is unsettling for me as a religious “professional” – after all, I am a “hired hand.” I think it’s important that clergy not feel ownership over their congregants, but rather see themselves as stewards on behalf of the God to whom all things belong, to tend, feed and nurture spiritual growth. Does the fact that I am financially compensated mitigate my shepherding?
Jesus might have gone further in his definitions, to distinguish between good hired hands and bad ones. A hired hand who is deeply committed to the Shepherd, whose values align with the one who owns the sheep, may be as fierce in protecting them from harm, and as dedicated to keeping the flock together and thriving, as the Shepherd himself. Such a hired hand must remain in close touch with the Shepherd on whose behalf she tends the sheep, to receive instructions about where to pasture, where to find the strays, when to lead the flock into the fold.
I strive to be such a hired hand. I hope congregations can hold their pastors to high standards of integrity and spiritual depth. If ever you wonder why we pray for clergy in Sunday services, this is one reason – so they can balance being in tune with the Shepherd with staying attuned to the wellbeing of the sheep. If your pastor is falling short, tell her. If he is nurturing the flock well, tell him.
And pay attention to what flocks you may be called to tend as a hand working for the Good Shepherd himself. He needs a lot of good hired hands, and they don't all have to be ordained.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-15-24 - The Good Shepherd
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Every year on the fourth Sunday of Easter our lectionary delivers up a section of Jesus’ “Good Shepherd” discourse from the Gospel of John. This set of teachings is sandwiched between Jesus’ healing of a man blind from birth (John 9), which sharpened the ire of the religious authorities with whom he’d already been tussling, and his raising of Lazarus (John 11), which caused those leaders to seek his execution. So this Good Shepherd passage is far from cuddly or comforting – it crackles with the growing danger in which Jesus finds himself, speaking of death and sacrifice, of negligent shepherds and thieves.
Before we look at all that, though, let’s note how subversive it was for Jesus to compare himself to a shepherd in the first place. The impact of this image may be lost on us, as we tend to think of shepherds as earthy, pan-pipe playing rustics tending the land and their cute little flocks. In Jesus’ time, though, shepherds were considered crude and base ruffians, unkempt, unwashed, often dishonest and generally suspect. That’s why our Christmas story of angels appearing to shepherds in their fields is so astonishing – how could such low-lifes would be the first to hear of Christ’s birth?
Yet, as we know, Jesus made a practice of consorting with people considered by “respectable” folk to be the dregs of society. He was often in trouble for dining with tax collectors and prostitutes, honoring lepers and the ritually impure with his company and healing. Here he claims a demeaned profession as his own. To say “I am the good shepherd” is to assert that there can be such a thing as a good shepherd. In explaining what distinguishes a good shepherd from a bad one, he manages once more to skewer the ruling elite.
There is yet a deeper level of affront to those leaders in this statement: Jesus’ use of “I am” in making this claim. This could not but echo for his hearers the name God gives when Moses demands his name: “I am that I am,” a statement of pure being. Each of the “I am” sayings recorded in John’s Gospel begins in Greek with “Ego eimi…” However, the “I” (“ego”) is implied in the word “eimi,” or “am.” Putting “ego” before it is redundant, rendering it “I I am” – thus amplifying the “I am” so that the comparison to God’s name is inescapable.
In these few words, Jesus manages to offend the powerful on several levels, and to signal to those on the margins of society the Good News of what God is up to. When he says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep,” he redeems the role of shepherd and claims it for himself. And he frames in advance his suffering and death as a redemptive sacrifice, alerting his hearers that this Good Shepherd will be called upon to lay down his life for the sheep he loves.
This Shepherd of ours is a fierce and vigilant warrior – and he is still on watch over us, leading us out, to good pasture, and in, to the safety of the fold; guarding us from forces of evil that would prey on us or try to lead us astray. We still have the freedom to wander, but as we choose to stay near, what joy and power will be ours.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Every year on the fourth Sunday of Easter our lectionary delivers up a section of Jesus’ “Good Shepherd” discourse from the Gospel of John. This set of teachings is sandwiched between Jesus’ healing of a man blind from birth (John 9), which sharpened the ire of the religious authorities with whom he’d already been tussling, and his raising of Lazarus (John 11), which caused those leaders to seek his execution. So this Good Shepherd passage is far from cuddly or comforting – it crackles with the growing danger in which Jesus finds himself, speaking of death and sacrifice, of negligent shepherds and thieves.
Before we look at all that, though, let’s note how subversive it was for Jesus to compare himself to a shepherd in the first place. The impact of this image may be lost on us, as we tend to think of shepherds as earthy, pan-pipe playing rustics tending the land and their cute little flocks. In Jesus’ time, though, shepherds were considered crude and base ruffians, unkempt, unwashed, often dishonest and generally suspect. That’s why our Christmas story of angels appearing to shepherds in their fields is so astonishing – how could such low-lifes would be the first to hear of Christ’s birth?
Yet, as we know, Jesus made a practice of consorting with people considered by “respectable” folk to be the dregs of society. He was often in trouble for dining with tax collectors and prostitutes, honoring lepers and the ritually impure with his company and healing. Here he claims a demeaned profession as his own. To say “I am the good shepherd” is to assert that there can be such a thing as a good shepherd. In explaining what distinguishes a good shepherd from a bad one, he manages once more to skewer the ruling elite.
There is yet a deeper level of affront to those leaders in this statement: Jesus’ use of “I am” in making this claim. This could not but echo for his hearers the name God gives when Moses demands his name: “I am that I am,” a statement of pure being. Each of the “I am” sayings recorded in John’s Gospel begins in Greek with “Ego eimi…” However, the “I” (“ego”) is implied in the word “eimi,” or “am.” Putting “ego” before it is redundant, rendering it “I I am” – thus amplifying the “I am” so that the comparison to God’s name is inescapable.
In these few words, Jesus manages to offend the powerful on several levels, and to signal to those on the margins of society the Good News of what God is up to. When he says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep,” he redeems the role of shepherd and claims it for himself. And he frames in advance his suffering and death as a redemptive sacrifice, alerting his hearers that this Good Shepherd will be called upon to lay down his life for the sheep he loves.
This Shepherd of ours is a fierce and vigilant warrior – and he is still on watch over us, leading us out, to good pasture, and in, to the safety of the fold; guarding us from forces of evil that would prey on us or try to lead us astray. We still have the freedom to wander, but as we choose to stay near, what joy and power will be ours.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-12-24 - Proclaiming Forgiveness
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
If Jesus’ words to his gathered disciples on the evening of the day of resurrection are to be attended, his assurances of peace came with a charge: to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins to all nations.
If Jesus’ words to his gathered disciples on the evening of the day of resurrection are to be attended, his assurances of peace came with a charge: to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins to all nations.
…and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”
A focus on repentance and forgiveness can be off-putting – too much cultural guilt associated with the idea of sin. So maybe that's not where we begin to proclaim the Good News. But it’s not hard to get there once the conversation is started. People in recovery from addiction understand innately the need to repent; others of us need only look at our behavior in relationships to quickly arrive at the same understanding. To comprehend that we are capable of hurting ourselves and others, AND to grasp that a remedy has been provided, is freedom indeed. That is a huge gift we have to share.
The promise of life in Christ goes way beyond forgiveness to healing and wholeness in every sphere. As witnesses to this source of healing, we maintain a balancing act, keeping repentance in the picture while making room for the rest of the story of our of life in Christ.
Can you think of a time when you felt set free by the promise of forgiveness, whether that came from a person or from God? Can you imagine leading another person to that place of relief and freedom? Today, you might reflect on those moments of connection in your life, and then think about who you might be called to bear witness with.
The proclamation Jesus commanded began in Jerusalem on Easter night. A few weeks later, it began to spread around the region and then to the ends of the earth. If we bear witness to freedom in God’s love, it will continue to spread until everyone has been drawn into Christ’s saving embrace. Then there will be no need for repentance.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
A focus on repentance and forgiveness can be off-putting – too much cultural guilt associated with the idea of sin. So maybe that's not where we begin to proclaim the Good News. But it’s not hard to get there once the conversation is started. People in recovery from addiction understand innately the need to repent; others of us need only look at our behavior in relationships to quickly arrive at the same understanding. To comprehend that we are capable of hurting ourselves and others, AND to grasp that a remedy has been provided, is freedom indeed. That is a huge gift we have to share.
The promise of life in Christ goes way beyond forgiveness to healing and wholeness in every sphere. As witnesses to this source of healing, we maintain a balancing act, keeping repentance in the picture while making room for the rest of the story of our of life in Christ.
Can you think of a time when you felt set free by the promise of forgiveness, whether that came from a person or from God? Can you imagine leading another person to that place of relief and freedom? Today, you might reflect on those moments of connection in your life, and then think about who you might be called to bear witness with.
The proclamation Jesus commanded began in Jerusalem on Easter night. A few weeks later, it began to spread around the region and then to the ends of the earth. If we bear witness to freedom in God’s love, it will continue to spread until everyone has been drawn into Christ’s saving embrace. Then there will be no need for repentance.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-11-24 - Interpretation
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Yesterday I talked about how challenging it can be to read and glean meaning from the Bible. That should not surprise us – what we call “the Bible,” as though it were one document, is in fact 66 different pieces of literature of many different types – sagas, histories, novelettes, law codes, poetry, prophetic utterance, apocalyptic vision, drama, correspondence, treatises, authored by hundreds of people over hundreds of years, often encompassing oral traditions dating back thousands of years… How can anyone glean meaning from that?
We cannot read the Bible without interpreting it. Even as we open it, we encounter the interpretations of those who first wrote down the oral stories; those who selected and shaped the writings; those who decided which writings had authority for the religious community; and finally the translators, with their own theological lenses, who must choose words among different options, and where to place the periods and commas when the original languages lack punctuation. And we bring to the reading of scripture our own ideas, biases, viewpoints, histories, traditions, life circumstances and mood on any given day we choose to open that book.
Scripture is never fixed in meaning. It is always being interpreted and re-interpreted – and according to the Gospel writers, Jesus was not shy about telling his followers how they should understand it: Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
The conviction that Jesus was the Messiah, and that the way the prophets anticipated the Messiah foretold the events of Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection, was introduced early into the Christian communities’ self-understanding. While others can read the prophets, especially the “suffering servant” sections of Isaiah, and come away with different interpretations (for Jews, of course, these prophecies were not fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth), Christ-followers read the scriptures through the views expressed in the writings of the New Testament.
This interpretation offered by Jesus has an ongoing life. It does more than look back – it lays out the community’s mission going forward: to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name to all nations. Thus, the belief that in Christ the long arc of God’s plan of salvation was revealed matters to Christ followers today as it did to the original disciples. Proclaiming that Jesus was the Anointed One foretold by the prophets, whose death effected forgiveness for all humanity, is something that offers life. And it is our business to offer life in Jesus’ name.
It is fashionable in some Christian circles to de-emphasize belief and focus more on spiritual practice, to suggest that Christian life is less about truth claims and more about how we access the Holy. While spiritual practice is where we live, we don’t need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Our spiritual practice and our ministry grow out of our conviction that Christ was who he said he was.
For me, his interpretation, albeit conveyed through the fallible conduits of gospel writers, scribes, editors and translators, overrides all others. This risen Christ is the Truth. I want to be about the mission of offering life in his name.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Yesterday I talked about how challenging it can be to read and glean meaning from the Bible. That should not surprise us – what we call “the Bible,” as though it were one document, is in fact 66 different pieces of literature of many different types – sagas, histories, novelettes, law codes, poetry, prophetic utterance, apocalyptic vision, drama, correspondence, treatises, authored by hundreds of people over hundreds of years, often encompassing oral traditions dating back thousands of years… How can anyone glean meaning from that?
We cannot read the Bible without interpreting it. Even as we open it, we encounter the interpretations of those who first wrote down the oral stories; those who selected and shaped the writings; those who decided which writings had authority for the religious community; and finally the translators, with their own theological lenses, who must choose words among different options, and where to place the periods and commas when the original languages lack punctuation. And we bring to the reading of scripture our own ideas, biases, viewpoints, histories, traditions, life circumstances and mood on any given day we choose to open that book.
Scripture is never fixed in meaning. It is always being interpreted and re-interpreted – and according to the Gospel writers, Jesus was not shy about telling his followers how they should understand it: Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
The conviction that Jesus was the Messiah, and that the way the prophets anticipated the Messiah foretold the events of Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection, was introduced early into the Christian communities’ self-understanding. While others can read the prophets, especially the “suffering servant” sections of Isaiah, and come away with different interpretations (for Jews, of course, these prophecies were not fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth), Christ-followers read the scriptures through the views expressed in the writings of the New Testament.
This interpretation offered by Jesus has an ongoing life. It does more than look back – it lays out the community’s mission going forward: to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name to all nations. Thus, the belief that in Christ the long arc of God’s plan of salvation was revealed matters to Christ followers today as it did to the original disciples. Proclaiming that Jesus was the Anointed One foretold by the prophets, whose death effected forgiveness for all humanity, is something that offers life. And it is our business to offer life in Jesus’ name.
It is fashionable in some Christian circles to de-emphasize belief and focus more on spiritual practice, to suggest that Christian life is less about truth claims and more about how we access the Holy. While spiritual practice is where we live, we don’t need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Our spiritual practice and our ministry grow out of our conviction that Christ was who he said he was.
For me, his interpretation, albeit conveyed through the fallible conduits of gospel writers, scribes, editors and translators, overrides all others. This risen Christ is the Truth. I want to be about the mission of offering life in his name.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-10-24 - Minds Opened
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Scripture is hard to understand. We attach great import, meaning, even authority to these words set down thousands of years ago, which were invested with import, meaning and authority by the communities who preserved them. Wildly diverse in literary style, theological understanding, point of view – yet all of it is regarded as the Spirit-inspired Word of God. And so often it baffles, bores, or even offends us.
Not for nothing does the Book of Common Prayer contain a prayer for the reading of Scripture: Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ…
Should grappling with Holy Writ be so much work? Turns out this is yet another aspect of the Christian life we are not to attempt on our own steam. That’s what Jesus’ disciples found out on Easter Day, not once but twice, when he explained how the hopes and songs and prophecies of the Hebrew Bible were fulfilled in his life, death and new life: Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.
“Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.” Ah! That’s how it’s done – Jesus opens our minds! That’s also how the two on the road to Emmaus described their conversation with Jesus: They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”
There is a wealth of love and wisdom and beauty to be mined in the pages of the Bible, and like mines that produce precious gems, it doesn’t always yield its riches easily. We need tools and some sweat, and the help of others, to interpret these ancient words for ourselves – in the way the apostle Philip asked the Ethiopian official reading Isaiah if he understood what he was reading, and he replied, “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?” (Acts 8:26-40)
There are many ways to try to comprehend the words and stories and teachings of the Bible, tools and techniques and forms of analysis – literary, linguistic, textual, symbolic. It definitely helps to read and study it with other people, to share perceptions from different angles and ranges of experience. Perhaps the most important tool, though, and often the most neglected, is to ask Jesus to open our minds to understand what we’re reading. We can pray before we open up the Bible, “Okay, Jesus, you know my mind and its ways. Open it to your truth. Show me your love in these words.” And then open the book!
I believe he wants these words and stories and people and songs to have life for us as they have for all the generations before us. He has opened minds before; he can open ours as we say, “Come, Lord Jesus.”
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Scripture is hard to understand. We attach great import, meaning, even authority to these words set down thousands of years ago, which were invested with import, meaning and authority by the communities who preserved them. Wildly diverse in literary style, theological understanding, point of view – yet all of it is regarded as the Spirit-inspired Word of God. And so often it baffles, bores, or even offends us.
Not for nothing does the Book of Common Prayer contain a prayer for the reading of Scripture: Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ…
Should grappling with Holy Writ be so much work? Turns out this is yet another aspect of the Christian life we are not to attempt on our own steam. That’s what Jesus’ disciples found out on Easter Day, not once but twice, when he explained how the hopes and songs and prophecies of the Hebrew Bible were fulfilled in his life, death and new life: Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.
“Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.” Ah! That’s how it’s done – Jesus opens our minds! That’s also how the two on the road to Emmaus described their conversation with Jesus: They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”
There is a wealth of love and wisdom and beauty to be mined in the pages of the Bible, and like mines that produce precious gems, it doesn’t always yield its riches easily. We need tools and some sweat, and the help of others, to interpret these ancient words for ourselves – in the way the apostle Philip asked the Ethiopian official reading Isaiah if he understood what he was reading, and he replied, “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?” (Acts 8:26-40)
There are many ways to try to comprehend the words and stories and teachings of the Bible, tools and techniques and forms of analysis – literary, linguistic, textual, symbolic. It definitely helps to read and study it with other people, to share perceptions from different angles and ranges of experience. Perhaps the most important tool, though, and often the most neglected, is to ask Jesus to open our minds to understand what we’re reading. We can pray before we open up the Bible, “Okay, Jesus, you know my mind and its ways. Open it to your truth. Show me your love in these words.” And then open the book!
I believe he wants these words and stories and people and songs to have life for us as they have for all the generations before us. He has opened minds before; he can open ours as we say, “Come, Lord Jesus.”
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-9-24 - No Bones About It
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Who could blame those poor disciples for thinking they were witnessing an apparition? Who of us has the context to correctly interpret data like someone who's died suddenly materializing in a room! Maybe, on this side of Star Trek, we can imagine it. Not so Jesus’ disciples: "They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost."
The gospel writers had a lot of misinformation from critics to overcome, much of it centered on issues of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Many found it unthinkable that a spiritual master or holy person would be put to death, especially in so gruesome and humiliating a way as crucifixion. Some argued Jesus must have been merely human. Others claimed that if Jesus was divine, he must only have appeared to die, not actually done so.
And rising from the dead? We can see the rumors and conspiracy theories in the very pages of the New Testament. Jesus wasn’t really dead. The body was stolen and hidden away. Someone who looked like him was making these appearances (someone so committed to this deception they had wounds in their hands, feet and side?) And the least far-fetched theory – that Jesus’ ghost was about on the earth.
As Luke tells it, Jesus is swift to dispel that notion. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Here was unassailable proof for those who would be called to offer testimony to Jesus’ resurrection life. “A ghost does not have flesh and bones.”
A ghost does not eat, either – which Jesus did next: While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.
The gospel writers had a lot of misinformation from critics to overcome, much of it centered on issues of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Many found it unthinkable that a spiritual master or holy person would be put to death, especially in so gruesome and humiliating a way as crucifixion. Some argued Jesus must have been merely human. Others claimed that if Jesus was divine, he must only have appeared to die, not actually done so.
And rising from the dead? We can see the rumors and conspiracy theories in the very pages of the New Testament. Jesus wasn’t really dead. The body was stolen and hidden away. Someone who looked like him was making these appearances (someone so committed to this deception they had wounds in their hands, feet and side?) And the least far-fetched theory – that Jesus’ ghost was about on the earth.
As Luke tells it, Jesus is swift to dispel that notion. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Here was unassailable proof for those who would be called to offer testimony to Jesus’ resurrection life. “A ghost does not have flesh and bones.”
A ghost does not eat, either – which Jesus did next: While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.
Someone who’s been to hell and back, literally, deserves a little better than broiled fish, but that’s not the point. What counts is that Jesus’ resurrection body looked and acted a lot like his pre-resurrection body. And in other ways, not at all.
What difference does this make for us? It matters that we proclaim a Lord who rose from the dead, not a ghost, not a zombie. We proclaim a Lord thoroughly, thrillingly alive.
There are those who traffic in the spirits of people who have died; that realm seems undeniably real. Yet Christians are explicitly told not to put our spiritual energy into that realm, or to open our spirits to it. We worship the Risen Christ whose Holy Spirit moves within us, inspires us, comforts us, and leads us into ministry in which others are transformed. As the angel said to the women at the tomb on Easter morning, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, he is risen!"
Deny the resurrection if you will, but don’t claim the risen Jesus was “just a ghost.” He was and is the Lord of heaven and earth. Let's make no bones about that.
What difference does this make for us? It matters that we proclaim a Lord who rose from the dead, not a ghost, not a zombie. We proclaim a Lord thoroughly, thrillingly alive.
There are those who traffic in the spirits of people who have died; that realm seems undeniably real. Yet Christians are explicitly told not to put our spiritual energy into that realm, or to open our spirits to it. We worship the Risen Christ whose Holy Spirit moves within us, inspires us, comforts us, and leads us into ministry in which others are transformed. As the angel said to the women at the tomb on Easter morning, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, he is risen!"
Deny the resurrection if you will, but don’t claim the risen Jesus was “just a ghost.” He was and is the Lord of heaven and earth. Let's make no bones about that.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-8-24 - Everywhere All At Once
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Imagine saying goodbye to someone in one town, and then finding them back home when you return. And knowing you did not pass them on the road. “How did you get here?” The disciples whom Jesus met on the road to Emmaus (a story Luke tells just before this week’s passage begins) didn’t recognize him when he walked with them. But in Emmaus, they prevailed upon him to dine with them – and the moment they realized who he was, he vanished from sight. Then they hightailed it seven miles back to Jerusalem so they could tell their brethren what had happened:
They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
Easter Sunday may be two weeks back, but in church-land we’re still exploring the events of that day. This week we revisit the scene when Jesus showed up in the upper room Easter night, but now we get Luke’s version, which picks up as the two from Emmaus arrive back in Jerusalem and compare notes with the ones in the Upper Room. Imagine the excitement those early encounters with the Risen Jesus occasioned in his followers. In that one day he’d appeared to Mary, to Peter, to a few other disciples, to Cleopas and the other on the road, like teasers for the big event. And now, Bam – here he is in Jerusalem!
While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
"How did you get here?" The better we get at discerning when Jesus is with us, the more often we’ll ask that question. We might feel his presence at church on a Sunday, and then be surprised to find him waiting at our kitchen table at home. Or we might experience him with us as we visit someone in a hospital, and find out that at the same time he was comforting another friend in prayer.
One gift of resurrection bodies, it seems, Is the ability to bi-locate. No longer bound to human flesh and space and time, Jesus could materialize wherever and whenever he wanted. And guess what? He still can, because now he has the Holy Spirit and us to make him known. Flesh and Spirit – that is how Jesus’ presence is still mediated to the world. As we train our inward eyes to discern the presence of Christ, we can also become ever more conscious about when and where we’re called to make known that presence, to allow Christ to work through us.
I’m always surprised when I realize Jesus has shown up in me for someone else, though he said he would. That’s how he can be everywhere, wherever there are faithful followers willing to bear his Spirit to the people around them. We are Christ’s resurrection body now! And if we don’t know what to say, we can always start with the words Jesus used: “Peace be with you.”
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Imagine saying goodbye to someone in one town, and then finding them back home when you return. And knowing you did not pass them on the road. “How did you get here?” The disciples whom Jesus met on the road to Emmaus (a story Luke tells just before this week’s passage begins) didn’t recognize him when he walked with them. But in Emmaus, they prevailed upon him to dine with them – and the moment they realized who he was, he vanished from sight. Then they hightailed it seven miles back to Jerusalem so they could tell their brethren what had happened:
They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
Easter Sunday may be two weeks back, but in church-land we’re still exploring the events of that day. This week we revisit the scene when Jesus showed up in the upper room Easter night, but now we get Luke’s version, which picks up as the two from Emmaus arrive back in Jerusalem and compare notes with the ones in the Upper Room. Imagine the excitement those early encounters with the Risen Jesus occasioned in his followers. In that one day he’d appeared to Mary, to Peter, to a few other disciples, to Cleopas and the other on the road, like teasers for the big event. And now, Bam – here he is in Jerusalem!
While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
"How did you get here?" The better we get at discerning when Jesus is with us, the more often we’ll ask that question. We might feel his presence at church on a Sunday, and then be surprised to find him waiting at our kitchen table at home. Or we might experience him with us as we visit someone in a hospital, and find out that at the same time he was comforting another friend in prayer.
One gift of resurrection bodies, it seems, Is the ability to bi-locate. No longer bound to human flesh and space and time, Jesus could materialize wherever and whenever he wanted. And guess what? He still can, because now he has the Holy Spirit and us to make him known. Flesh and Spirit – that is how Jesus’ presence is still mediated to the world. As we train our inward eyes to discern the presence of Christ, we can also become ever more conscious about when and where we’re called to make known that presence, to allow Christ to work through us.
I’m always surprised when I realize Jesus has shown up in me for someone else, though he said he would. That’s how he can be everywhere, wherever there are faithful followers willing to bear his Spirit to the people around them. We are Christ’s resurrection body now! And if we don’t know what to say, we can always start with the words Jesus used: “Peace be with you.”
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-5-24 - Life Through Believing
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
There was no rhyme or rhythm to Jesus’ resurrection appearances; it seems he just kept popping up among his followers, like he was living out the song, “I’ll be seeing you, in all the old familiar places…” And maybe there were many that were not recorded in the Gospels. John implies as much, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.”
One that was “written in John’s book” occurred a week after his first appearance to his disciples: A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
Jesus would be referring to us, who have to believe without benefit of Jesus in the flesh. Some people find that a hurdle too far. Why bother believing if we can’t have any proof? But what constitutes proof? In a court of law, the sworn testimony of witnesses counts as proof. That’s in part why the Gospel writers labored to set down what they knew of Jesus’ life and ministry. As John says, “But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
Given the testimony of so many billions of Christ-followers throughout the ages, as well as evidence of transformation readily available to us, we have enough to support our heart-belief that Jesus was indeed the divine Son of God, and that he did indeed rise from the dead. But so often we let other evidence, the sad record of man’s cruelty to his fellow inhabitants of this planet, and our shameless disregard for the just allocation of resources, count for more than the “case for the defense.” And when we do that, we close off avenues of life for ourselves and others.
John suggests that there is a pay-off for believing, even when the evidence seems stacked against us: we receive life through believing in the power in the name of Jesus Christ. The spiritual practice of faith, i.e., believing in what we cannot see, increases our capacity to experience God, and to facilitate that experience for others. We can see Jesus in people, feel him in prayer, encounter him in worship.
Where did you last encounter Jesus? Was it in some ministry or conversation? In something beautiful or deeply moving? In a question or an answer? One way we can exercise our “believing” muscles is to make a note at the end of each day one way we bumped into the Risen Christ. And when we tell each other, we all build up our faith muscles.
As that old song goes, “I'll find you in the morning sun, and when the night is new/I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you.”
As we truly learn to discern Jesus wherever we find him, and believe, we will find ourselves living more fully and deeply the Life he died and rose to make possible for us.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
There was no rhyme or rhythm to Jesus’ resurrection appearances; it seems he just kept popping up among his followers, like he was living out the song, “I’ll be seeing you, in all the old familiar places…” And maybe there were many that were not recorded in the Gospels. John implies as much, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.”
One that was “written in John’s book” occurred a week after his first appearance to his disciples: A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
Jesus would be referring to us, who have to believe without benefit of Jesus in the flesh. Some people find that a hurdle too far. Why bother believing if we can’t have any proof? But what constitutes proof? In a court of law, the sworn testimony of witnesses counts as proof. That’s in part why the Gospel writers labored to set down what they knew of Jesus’ life and ministry. As John says, “But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
Given the testimony of so many billions of Christ-followers throughout the ages, as well as evidence of transformation readily available to us, we have enough to support our heart-belief that Jesus was indeed the divine Son of God, and that he did indeed rise from the dead. But so often we let other evidence, the sad record of man’s cruelty to his fellow inhabitants of this planet, and our shameless disregard for the just allocation of resources, count for more than the “case for the defense.” And when we do that, we close off avenues of life for ourselves and others.
John suggests that there is a pay-off for believing, even when the evidence seems stacked against us: we receive life through believing in the power in the name of Jesus Christ. The spiritual practice of faith, i.e., believing in what we cannot see, increases our capacity to experience God, and to facilitate that experience for others. We can see Jesus in people, feel him in prayer, encounter him in worship.
Where did you last encounter Jesus? Was it in some ministry or conversation? In something beautiful or deeply moving? In a question or an answer? One way we can exercise our “believing” muscles is to make a note at the end of each day one way we bumped into the Risen Christ. And when we tell each other, we all build up our faith muscles.
As that old song goes, “I'll find you in the morning sun, and when the night is new/I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you.”
As we truly learn to discern Jesus wherever we find him, and believe, we will find ourselves living more fully and deeply the Life he died and rose to make possible for us.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-4-24 - Why Are We Still Here?
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
There is a line in this week’s gospel reading that is easy to pass over: "A week later his disciples were again in the house…" This is not hard to understand when we remember the grave danger facing them in the wake of Jesus’ execution and now rumors of resurrection. That place with its locked doors was a somewhat safe space for them. But Jesus had shown up inside those locked doors a week earlier and said to them, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” He had imparted to them the Holy Spirit and sent them. Why were they still there?
Why are we still here, in our same routines, the ones that keep our God-life somewhat contained within the lines we’ve drawn for it? Why do we mostly hang out with the people we know in somewhat safe places when the Gospels show us a Jesus continually sending his followers out to find the lost, last and least? Why is our faith life centered on buildings when the New Testament shows us a Jesus, and later his apostles, continually on the move, bringing the life of God to people where they were?
I am deeply convicted by these questions, as most of my time and energy goes to nurturing the faith of those already in; I’m not so great at leading us out. But I am repeatedly convicted that “out” is where God is inviting us. Some of the greatest movements in church history came about because someone began to take the message out.
John Wesley was an Anglican clergyman with a rather ho-hum ministry safely within the bounds of the somewhat complacent and semi-corrupt church of his day. But after he had an experience of the Holy Spirit in which he felt his “heart strangely warmed,” that safe, comfortable ministry no longer felt right. And when his desire to reform the church in which he had grown up got him into trouble with church leaders, he began to preach the Word in fields and crowds came out to hear him. The movement he started with his brother Charles, which included a “method” for growing in faith, became Methodism. And though the bonds were strained nearly to the breaking point when he began to ordain leaders for his churches, he remained an Anglican priest until his death. It was four years later that the Methodists formally broke away from the Anglican fold.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., assassinated 56 years ago today, could have exercised his ministry within the confines of a church, preaching, proclaiming, pastoring. But he felt the Spirit move him out to preach the Gospel and work for justice in city streets and lunch counters and jails. He followed that call, and touched many more lives than he would have in a more traditional ministry. Crowds came out to hear him. "Out" is where God leads us, and meets us.
Writing this, I wonder, “Why am I still here?” Not why am I still the rector of these two churches – that is a blessing. But why do I let the “business” of church divert my energy away from “out there?” Where is God calling me to lead my congregations to the highways and shopping malls and parks and other places where the Spirit will equip us to bind and to loose?
Where is the Spirit leading us to be present? Where does Jesus intend to meet us? Where do you want to go with me?
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
There is a line in this week’s gospel reading that is easy to pass over: "A week later his disciples were again in the house…" This is not hard to understand when we remember the grave danger facing them in the wake of Jesus’ execution and now rumors of resurrection. That place with its locked doors was a somewhat safe space for them. But Jesus had shown up inside those locked doors a week earlier and said to them, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” He had imparted to them the Holy Spirit and sent them. Why were they still there?
Why are we still here, in our same routines, the ones that keep our God-life somewhat contained within the lines we’ve drawn for it? Why do we mostly hang out with the people we know in somewhat safe places when the Gospels show us a Jesus continually sending his followers out to find the lost, last and least? Why is our faith life centered on buildings when the New Testament shows us a Jesus, and later his apostles, continually on the move, bringing the life of God to people where they were?
I am deeply convicted by these questions, as most of my time and energy goes to nurturing the faith of those already in; I’m not so great at leading us out. But I am repeatedly convicted that “out” is where God is inviting us. Some of the greatest movements in church history came about because someone began to take the message out.
John Wesley was an Anglican clergyman with a rather ho-hum ministry safely within the bounds of the somewhat complacent and semi-corrupt church of his day. But after he had an experience of the Holy Spirit in which he felt his “heart strangely warmed,” that safe, comfortable ministry no longer felt right. And when his desire to reform the church in which he had grown up got him into trouble with church leaders, he began to preach the Word in fields and crowds came out to hear him. The movement he started with his brother Charles, which included a “method” for growing in faith, became Methodism. And though the bonds were strained nearly to the breaking point when he began to ordain leaders for his churches, he remained an Anglican priest until his death. It was four years later that the Methodists formally broke away from the Anglican fold.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., assassinated 56 years ago today, could have exercised his ministry within the confines of a church, preaching, proclaiming, pastoring. But he felt the Spirit move him out to preach the Gospel and work for justice in city streets and lunch counters and jails. He followed that call, and touched many more lives than he would have in a more traditional ministry. Crowds came out to hear him. "Out" is where God leads us, and meets us.
Writing this, I wonder, “Why am I still here?” Not why am I still the rector of these two churches – that is a blessing. But why do I let the “business” of church divert my energy away from “out there?” Where is God calling me to lead my congregations to the highways and shopping malls and parks and other places where the Spirit will equip us to bind and to loose?
Where is the Spirit leading us to be present? Where does Jesus intend to meet us? Where do you want to go with me?
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-3-24 - Unless I See...
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Nobody wants to miss a big event. Like when you’re in line for hot dogs at the stadium and you hear the crowd go wild at a homer with the bases loaded. That you didn’t see. Or you leave a party just before the A-List stars show up (happens to me all the time… not you?)
Perhaps the biggest “miss” in human history was Thomas’, who ducked out for a smoke or some errand, and missed the risen Lord of heaven and earth suddenly present for supper with his bereaved and confused disciples! And despite the fact that they all told him the same story – “Jesus was here! He really was!,” Thomas refused to buy it.
Nobody wants to miss a big event. Like when you’re in line for hot dogs at the stadium and you hear the crowd go wild at a homer with the bases loaded. That you didn’t see. Or you leave a party just before the A-List stars show up (happens to me all the time… not you?)
Perhaps the biggest “miss” in human history was Thomas’, who ducked out for a smoke or some errand, and missed the risen Lord of heaven and earth suddenly present for supper with his bereaved and confused disciples! And despite the fact that they all told him the same story – “Jesus was here! He really was!,” Thomas refused to buy it.
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
Did he think they were prey to a shared hallucination borne of wishful thinking? Were his credulity muscles worn out by the roller-coaster of the past few days? Or is it that Thomas, always a fast decider, quickly evaluated the data available to him and deemed it insufficient?
Is Thomas the patron saint of doubters? Or is he the patron saint of “trust but verify?” There was nothing lacking in Thomas’ faith, nor his courage. He was quick to follow Jesus into situations of danger if called for. But for some reason, despite having witnessed the raising of Lazarus, he found it too far a stretch to believe on faith alone that Jesus was risen from the dead. He wanted to see, he wanted to touch.
He is not alone. Do you know people who are drawn to the Jesus story, drawn to the life of the church, even inclined to believe – if only they could see some proof? Some people are wired that way, others formed that way by past experiences or disappointments. As this story continues, Jesus indulges Thomas’ desire to see with his physical eyes – and commends those who are able to believe on faith-sight alone.
For us, faith-sight is all we have. After the Ascension, nobody got to see Jesus’ resurrection body or touch his wounds in this world. (For a great song about the next, here is Gillian Welch’s “By the Mark.”) Yet God does allow us to “see” the reality of God-Life around us. We might use the same criteria that Jesus did when John’s disciples asked if he really was the Anointed One they’d been expecting. “Go and tell John what you see,” he replied, “The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” (Luke 7:22).
We can see – and experience – amazing healing, transforming love, injustice overcome, chains of addiction and destructive patterns broken. Some Christian communities even witness the (recently) dead raised. One message Easter shouts to us is “Nothing is impossible with God!” The more we believe and live out that truth, the more evidence we perceive.
Christ is visible now through us, his body in the world. His wounds are visible in ours, and as our wounds become healed ones, as his were, healing can flow through them to others. Then everyone can see and touch and believe.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Did he think they were prey to a shared hallucination borne of wishful thinking? Were his credulity muscles worn out by the roller-coaster of the past few days? Or is it that Thomas, always a fast decider, quickly evaluated the data available to him and deemed it insufficient?
Is Thomas the patron saint of doubters? Or is he the patron saint of “trust but verify?” There was nothing lacking in Thomas’ faith, nor his courage. He was quick to follow Jesus into situations of danger if called for. But for some reason, despite having witnessed the raising of Lazarus, he found it too far a stretch to believe on faith alone that Jesus was risen from the dead. He wanted to see, he wanted to touch.
He is not alone. Do you know people who are drawn to the Jesus story, drawn to the life of the church, even inclined to believe – if only they could see some proof? Some people are wired that way, others formed that way by past experiences or disappointments. As this story continues, Jesus indulges Thomas’ desire to see with his physical eyes – and commends those who are able to believe on faith-sight alone.
For us, faith-sight is all we have. After the Ascension, nobody got to see Jesus’ resurrection body or touch his wounds in this world. (For a great song about the next, here is Gillian Welch’s “By the Mark.”) Yet God does allow us to “see” the reality of God-Life around us. We might use the same criteria that Jesus did when John’s disciples asked if he really was the Anointed One they’d been expecting. “Go and tell John what you see,” he replied, “The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” (Luke 7:22).
We can see – and experience – amazing healing, transforming love, injustice overcome, chains of addiction and destructive patterns broken. Some Christian communities even witness the (recently) dead raised. One message Easter shouts to us is “Nothing is impossible with God!” The more we believe and live out that truth, the more evidence we perceive.
Christ is visible now through us, his body in the world. His wounds are visible in ours, and as our wounds become healed ones, as his were, healing can flow through them to others. Then everyone can see and touch and believe.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-2-24 - Sent With Peace
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
When Jesus showed up in a locked room with his disciples on Easter evening, he gave them more than a good fright. He gave them his peace, and he gave them a mission. And then he gave them the only resource they would need on that mission, his Holy Spirit: When it was evening on that day... Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
That peace of Christ has been passed along, person to person, generation to generation, all the way from that room on Easter night to us. It is peace that “defies understanding,” that comes to us in the most unpeaceful circumstances. It is peace that can help us move through the hardest of times, so that others remark on our serenity. It is that peace we share in our Eucharistic worship.
That peace of Christ comes with a mission. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” Jesus said. Jesus’ statement may be general, but the actual sending is always to a specific place and people. Where are we sent? Wherever we feel the Spirit of God beckoning, enlivening us, getting our attention; wherever we sense the Spirit of Christ already at work. We don’t have to start things. We just come along and participate in what God is already doing. What freedom and joy that can be.
When we think of “mission” as something we are supposed to discern, prepare, and go out and “do,” it can feel daunting. I think that’s why many Christians think it’s a big hurdle and stay in their pews. We think we’re supposed to be on top of it, ready, equipped, holy, have all the answers. Wrong! We only need to be willing to let the Holy Spirit work through us. The minute Jesus told his followers they were sent on a mission like his, "...he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
It’s not a light thing to receive the Holy Spirit, but neither need it be heavy. The Spirit is the fuel that powers us when we’re about the mission of God to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness.
Where do you feel sent? To whom? Do you have a nagging desire to address some need or injustice? Are you excited about certain kinds of ministry? That’s how you’ll know the who and the when and the what and the where of it. And do you feel you are carrying the Peace of Christ? Have you claimed the gift of Holy Spirit passed along to you?
I’m glad we have found ways of sharing Christ’s peace in worship other than breathing upon each other; that could get a little gross. However it comes to us, though, we can be sure we have received the Spirit with Christ's peace.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
When Jesus showed up in a locked room with his disciples on Easter evening, he gave them more than a good fright. He gave them his peace, and he gave them a mission. And then he gave them the only resource they would need on that mission, his Holy Spirit: When it was evening on that day... Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
That peace of Christ has been passed along, person to person, generation to generation, all the way from that room on Easter night to us. It is peace that “defies understanding,” that comes to us in the most unpeaceful circumstances. It is peace that can help us move through the hardest of times, so that others remark on our serenity. It is that peace we share in our Eucharistic worship.
That peace of Christ comes with a mission. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” Jesus said. Jesus’ statement may be general, but the actual sending is always to a specific place and people. Where are we sent? Wherever we feel the Spirit of God beckoning, enlivening us, getting our attention; wherever we sense the Spirit of Christ already at work. We don’t have to start things. We just come along and participate in what God is already doing. What freedom and joy that can be.
When we think of “mission” as something we are supposed to discern, prepare, and go out and “do,” it can feel daunting. I think that’s why many Christians think it’s a big hurdle and stay in their pews. We think we’re supposed to be on top of it, ready, equipped, holy, have all the answers. Wrong! We only need to be willing to let the Holy Spirit work through us. The minute Jesus told his followers they were sent on a mission like his, "...he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
It’s not a light thing to receive the Holy Spirit, but neither need it be heavy. The Spirit is the fuel that powers us when we’re about the mission of God to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness.
Where do you feel sent? To whom? Do you have a nagging desire to address some need or injustice? Are you excited about certain kinds of ministry? That’s how you’ll know the who and the when and the what and the where of it. And do you feel you are carrying the Peace of Christ? Have you claimed the gift of Holy Spirit passed along to you?
I’m glad we have found ways of sharing Christ’s peace in worship other than breathing upon each other; that could get a little gross. However it comes to us, though, we can be sure we have received the Spirit with Christ's peace.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
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