Water Daily

9-10-21 - Worded

You can listen to this reflection here.

The apostle James, whoever he may have been (tradition attributes the New Testament treatise to James, Jesus’ brother by blood, acknowledged as the leader of “church HQ” in Jerusalem) was a harsh critic but a superb diagnostician of the human condition. In the section of his epistle we will hear this Sunday, he talks about the amazing power in what is one of our smallest muscles, the tongue.

So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

He is not wrong – our tongues are often our most unruly and ungovernable faculty. Who hasn’t spoken words they wished they could take back? Who hasn’t unleashed unhappy dramas by words uttered in haste or in anger or in self-pity or aggression? Words can incite wars, divorce, addiction.

As Christians, we claim that a Word incited creation. Sure, this language reflects the influence of Greek philosophy on the writer of John’s Gospel, but John’s use of the word “Logos” conveys an important mystery about God: that all creation is God-breathed, the material expression of the thought of God conveyed in the Word of God. We can say that God “worded” creation into being.

And then there is this intriguing word Logizomai, used in the New Testament to speak of our having been justified, made righteous in Christ. This word, which means “reckoned,” “considered,” “regarded as,” also has in its root “logos,” or thought/word. Through Christ we are reckoned as righteous, not by our own merits, but by his. We have been “worded” holy by God, and we accept this reckoning by faith.

God’s Word created us, and God’s Word has saved us. How might the way we use our words reflect our status as saints made in God’s image and redeemed by God’s Word? Learning to tame our tongues, to listen more than we speak, is as difficult as thinking before we speak. There is such a fast connection between thought and speech, “taming” may be too strong a term. But if we can learn to put a breath or two between thought and word we might we frame our words in the positive rather than the negative. We can train ourselves to choose our words to bless. As James writes about the tongue, "With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing."

Even chastisement can be offered with words of blessing, affirming the goodness of God’s creation and inviting a person into behavior that reflects their true selves. Few things build up a person like words of affirmation for who they are, apart from what they do.

Let’s start to notice, after we speak, the tenor of our words. Did we build up or take down? Bless or curse? We can practice on ourselves – as we speak more generously to ourselves, we will find ourselves blessing others more.

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9-9-21 - Thinking Like God

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

When Jesus tells his followers the horrors that are to befall the “Son of Man,” Peter takes him aside and admonishes him. “Don’t be talking like that! How can anything bad happen to you? I’ve just said I believe you’re the Messiah!”

And Jesus in turn rebukes Peter, quite harshly, telling him:

“You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Jesus was asking a lot of Peter. Yet that neatly describes the task of discipleship: learning to think like God. Paul writes that those who would follow Jesus “Have the mind of Christ.” This makes sense – if we are united with Christ in baptism, if he takes up residence in through the presence of the Holy Spirit, then we have his mind as well, not replacing our own, but informing, even transforming ours.

Our minds and capacity for thought are among God’s greatest gifts to us, and also the seat of our strongest resistance to God. Funny how that is… Before we can set our mind on the things of God we have to become aware of the distinction between our own thoughts and God’s thoughts. Whenever we become aware that we are thinking out of our own reality – say, when anxiety or anger are leading the way, or we're convinced faith is irrational, or when we’re set on a course that we know is other than the way God would work in us – we can ask God to show us situations or people as God sees them. Often a broader perspective opens immediately.

This week, try to notice when your thoughts are purely human, and when they seem tinged with the holy. This is a spiritual practice we can cultivate; as we become conscious, gradually we learn to think more like God. As Paul exhorts us in Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

It is a delicate balance to prize the gift of human nature and yet allow God’s life to grow in us and uproot everything that is not of God. Perhaps this is best summed up in the adage, “God loves us just the way we are – and far too much to leave us that way.”

9-8-21- Suffering

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

Does God want us to suffer? There is a strand in the Christian tradition that looks at the suffering Jesus underwent – which he predicted – and suggests that it is in suffering that we draw closest to our Lord. This is not how Peter saw things:

Then Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

Just before this, Peter has identified Jesus as the Messiah, the Anointed One of God long foretold, who would come to redeem the people of Israel – redeem, as in buy back a pawned item so it can be restored to its true purpose. It was assumed that the Messiah would bring to an end the suffering and humiliation of God’s chosen people. What good is a Messiah who’s going to suffer and die?

Jesus is firm:

But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."

Does Jesus, invoking Satan, see in Peter’s words a temptation, a temptation to veer from the mission he is living out, a temptation to doubt his discernment of what is ahead for him? In Jesus’ case, suffering was part of his mission; redeeming humanity would involve a humiliating and horrible death.

That is not necessarily true for us. The ways in which God might invite us to make God-Life known in the world may not include suffering in any obvious way. We may be called to write or feed or proclaim or organize and never be persecuted for our faith. But there will be pain, if we’re open to letting our hearts be broken by God’s love for this world. In that sense, every mission involves suffering.

God does not inflict suffering upon us, though our God of free will does allow it to happen. Our God who is Love will always be with us in it, and our God who is Life can bring transformation through it. Sometimes I wonder how that message falls on the ears of those in the throes of pain and suffering. Am I convincing when I proclaim that God is with us in our suffering, even as God often allows it to unfold in our lives, and that God can work redemption through it? I may doubt myself, but every time I ask a person whom I visit in a pastoral capacity if they feel the presence of God with them, the answer is usually an unequivocal yes.

It is through the presence of Christ with us that we gain the Life that overcomes death, the Life we can share with others, no matter what our condition. God does not visit suffering upon us so we can draw near to Christ. Yet I believe with all my heart that Christ draws near to us as we suffer, and helps break us open so new life can emerge from the dark earth.

The Wednesday Bible Study resumes tonight with the Letter of James: September 8, 7-8 pm EDT on Zoom. Link is here. Feel free to join in any time you can.

9-7-21 - The One and Only

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

A healthy sense of self-worth does not rest on what other people think of us. Jesus did not act or speak like he cared what other people said about him. Yet even a secure public figure will check his polls every now and then. So we find Jesus asking his disciples,

"Who do people say that I am?"

They answer readily; someone as powerful and unusual as Jesus would surely generate debate, even an assumption that he carried the spirit of a luminary from the distant or recent past: And they answered him, "John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets."

This is like entertainment writers who compare up and coming stars to those of old. “She’s the new Meryl Streep,” He’s the new Springsteen,” as though the only way to apprehend someone is to categorize them in relation to someone else. Jesus was frequently asked if he was John the Baptist returned to life. To ask that question was to miss the reality of the man standing right in front of them.

Jesus thought his closer followers might have a different perspective.

He asked, "But who do you say that I am?"

How do you answer that question? It can be as hard for us to see Jesus for who he intrinsically is, apart from what we’ve heard about him through church, history, familial and cultural assumptions, as it was for people in his day to see him apart from the great prophets of old and their own expectations in a time of national powerlessness. The only way we can truly answer that question is to seek to know Jesus as he is revealed in the Gospels, as we see his power at work through his church, and as we experience him personally in prayer.

Which also means that, if we’re active in study, action and prayer, our answer will evolve. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever – but our discernment of who he is not fixed, not until that day when we see no longer “through a glass, dimly,” but face to face. In the meantime, we can read through the gospels for clues about who this Jesus guy is. We can pray to be aware of him in worship and the ministries of those who gather around his Word and Life. And we can invite him to make himself known to us in our listening prayer times and seek actual conversation with him in our imaginations, as the Holy Spirit leads us.

Peter's answer reflected Israel’s history, the promise of future redemption, and the knowledge of Jesus Peter gained in relationship with him:

Peter answered him, "You are the Messiah." In naming him as the promised One of God, Peter also claimed Jesus as one-of-kind, not the “new” anyone, but new creation.

So we too, made in the image of God as unique persons, can get to know Jesus, the Lord who was, and is and is to come - and so discover the new creations we are in Him.

The Wednesday Bible Study resumes this week with the Letter of James: September 8, 7-8 pm EDT on Zoom. Link is here. Feel free to join in any time you can.

9-6-21 - Back To the Real World?

You can listen to this reflection here.

If you’re having some trouble transitioning into the fall schedule from the slower rhythms of summer, Sunday’s gospel reading should hurry the process along. Jesus tells his followers that they have signed on for tough duty:

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?”

I don’t know if summertime is akin to “gaining the whole world,” but I enjoy it as a time of lower responsibility, slower engagement with tasks and intentions, loosening up on self-denial. Maybe you’re one of those marvelous saints who went on an incredible mission trip this summer, but I fear I got so good at living the good life on my creek, I won’t remember where I left my cross to take it up again.

Is that what the “program year” is about, taking up our cross? In some measure, yes. We dial down the lazy, and quicken the pace of our days. We reengage the world more fully. We recommit ourselves to discerning what the Holy Spirit is up to around us, and join in as we are led to participate in the mission of God to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness in Christ.

None of that may involve putting our physical lives at risk, but it does entail putting God’s work and the world's needs ahead of our own comfort - while maintaining some healthy balance. I am recommitting myself to a sabbath day once a week, a full day with no "shoulds" that allows me to recharge and return to productivity with more energy.

Today, one last holiday, we might spend some time in the presence of God and ask where we’re being directed to share our energies and gifts and resources this season. Any ideas percolating in you?

Even as we look ahead, we are still called to live in the moment, only perhaps to indwell it more fully. We let our lives be filled with the Spirit’s energy and live for the sake of the gospel rather than for ourselves. We dwell in the Realm of God – which is the most real world there can possibly be.

9-3-21 - Be Opened!

You can listen to this reflection here.

This week we explore a story of how Jesus healed a man who could neither hear nor speak: They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’ And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

The story has power on its most basic level, but for some time I have been more alive to an allegorical interpretation of this tale. For me, the man who is deaf and mute can also represent the church of our day, which can be deaf to the promptings of the Spirit and impeded in communicating the Good News about Jesus to our surrounding communities.

How does it alter our understanding of this story if we put our churches in the place of the man? Let’s look at the nature of this healing. Where sometimes Jesus heals with a word, not even in the same physical location as the one healed, in this case he is intensely personal and material. He uses his own saliva, placed on the man's tongue, and puts his fingers in his ears. Beyond the "ick" factor, magnified in the age of pandemic, we see here an incredible intimacy. Perhaps our churches, and those who work so hard to sustain them, have forsaken intimacy with Christ for the burden of keeping his church lumbering along. That has ever been a bad trade!

We need to come close to Jesus again, close enough to touch his wounds, and allow him close enough to touch our ears and our tongues. We need to take to heart his command, "Be opened!," lower the barriers our traditions and customs – and jargon – put in the way of truly welcoming newcomers and seekers, and recover the impulse toward faithful faith-sharing that is in our DNA as followers of Christ.

Where do you feel your spiritual hearing might be stopped up? In what ways do you feel impeded in talking about your life in God? Today as a prayer experiment, read this story again and put yourself in the place of the man healed. Let the story unfold in your imagination, rich in sensory detail: what do you hear, smell, see? Does Jesus say or do anything different with you? Anything specific?

If it wasn't impossible to pronounce, "Ephphatha!" would be a great name for a church. I pray we will live into the heart of this command, and truly, in every possible way, "Be opened."

9-2-21 - A Different Healing

You can listen to this reflection here.

This week’s gospel passage contains two great healing stories – the first, about the Syro-Phoenician woman and her daughter, and a second, about Jesus healing a man who is both deaf and mute.

They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’ And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

This healing is unique in several ways. First, Jesus healed the man in private. He doesn’t usually do that; in fact, some quite intimate healings happen in full view of a crowd. Perhaps the reason Jesus takes the man aside is related to the other distinctive feature of this healing – Jesus is unusually hands-on, even invasive. Jesus’ spiritual power is so great he can command a healing from afar. He need only speak healing and people are made whole. Why does he put his fingers in this man’s ears and touch his tongue with his own spittle before speaking a word of healing?

We can’t know the answer to that question, but it invites us to imagine. There is something powerful about Jesus using his physical life to bring healing to another – God does not eschew the material, fleshly world, but uses it for the purpose of redemption. That story is writ large in Jesus’ incarnation, of course, but we find it told in small ways throughout the gospels. The God come in human flesh uses his bodily existence to reveal the spiritual power of God. How amazing is that?!

And this God-Man coming so close to someone who is suffering, willing to put his fingers in another’s ears, and to touch his tongue with his own spit – that shows a God who wants to come close to us, who does not shy away from our infirmities but gives of himself to heal us. What wounds are you trying to hide from God, afraid he doesn’t want to know about them, or can't help? Can we invite Jesus that close?

There is another unique element to this healing – Jesus’ looking up to heaven and sighing, and then speaking the command to the man’s ears and voice: “Be opened.” A similar sequence is reported when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead – maybe the sighing bespeaks an inner effort to transmit this greater reality of God-Life into what we think of as reality. And he speaks the healing; he pronounces it into being, the way God “spoke” the world into being – “in the beginning was the Word.”

We too are invited to speak into being God’s transforming word. That is active prayer, prayer of faith that takes God up on God’s promises of spiritual authority over the material world. Paul writes in Romans 4:17 about, “the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.” Calling into being things that are not is what we are about. We can’t dictate God’s action, but we can direct God’s power and love into people and situations in need of transformation, as Jesus did with that deaf and mute man.

Prayer is bringing spiritual power to bear on physical situations. We can do that, right?