10-10-23 - No Thanks

You can listen to this reflection here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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10-3-23 - Tenants

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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8-29-23 - Safety Second

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

Teacher’s pet one minute, Satan’s mouthpiece the next? And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Peter may have thought, “What just happened? Look, Master, I left my family and business to follow you. I jumped out of a boat and walked on water for you. I see the truth about who you are. One minute I'm your Rock and the next I’m your stumbling block? How can you call me Satan? I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. Why are you being so harsh?”

How could Jesus be so harsh to such a devoted and beloved disciple and friend? For one thing, that’s how close a relationship he had with Peter – he didn’t have to be polite. And he really wanted his followers to find a new, more God-like way of thinking. “For my ways are not your ways, nor my thoughts your thoughts, says the Lord,” we hear from Isaiah, and from Jesus, “You do not have in mind the things of God but the things of men.”

Maybe Jesus speaks this fiercely because that’s how crucial it is that Peter get this right. If Peter is the “rock” on which Jesus hopes to build his community of Kingdom believers, then Peter of all people has to understand. He has to stop thinking in the world’s terms and start thinking in Kingdom terms. And in Kingdom terms, safety does not come first – faithfulness does.

I am wired toward safety and security. That can get in the way of faithfulness to God’s call, impede discerning God’s invitations. There’s nothing wrong with safety – God does not ask us to take risks for the heck of it. Sometimes, though, God wants to work through us in circumstances that are less than safe – after all, much of our world is less than safe.

When we know it’s God’s call, we might step into some risk; that is a matter of discernment and testing the call with others. Many people who feel called to mission or relief work are drawn inevitably to places of conflict and violence and trauma. But they feel God calling them to go, to be a witness to love; they surround themselves with prayer; and they go. Usually they came back in one piece.

But not always. The mission to which Jesus was called was not compatible with staying out of harm. We can see from the news, with religious persecution on the rise around the world, that such tests still come. Today in prayer we might ask the Spirit if she is inviting us to participate in her transforming work in some way that involves risk. Risk doesn’t have to mean bodily harm – it might mean risking relationships or financial security, or working with difficult people or in areas that aren’t so safe. Where are you being nudged to open yourself to God’s Spirit in ministry? How does that feel? Talk to Jesus about it.

In the end, our criterion need not be, “Will I be safe,” but “Is this God’s work that I’m being invited to participate in?” If it is, and we are, then we walk in faith, trusting in the God we cannot see, trusting in the future on which we have staked our lives. God’s thoughts… how can we go wrong with those?

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.