5-29-20 - Our Superpower

You can listen to this reflection here. A gospel appointed for Sunday, John 20:19-23, is here.

If you could ask for a superpower, what would it be? Incredible strength? The ability to read minds? To time travel? To know the truth in all settings? It’s hard to imagine asking for the superpower of forgiveness… yet that is what Jesus gave his gathered disciples on Easter night. That is what Jesus has given us.

First, he gave them peace – he showed up as they were literally locked in by fear, and spoke peace to them:  When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

Then he gave them more peace, and a mission: 

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 

And then he told them what that mission entailed and equipped them for it: 

When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

The Holy Spirit brings many gifts to us, and releases many gifts in us. But the first one Jesus mentions is the authority to forgive or to withhold forgiveness. That’s a lot of authority, friends. In a sense, Jesus is saying that God will follow our lead. When we refuse to release someone from the debt they owe us, we keep them bound, and ourselves bound to them. When we do release forgiveness, we bring freedom to people and systems, and to our own hearts.

In our current climate of fear and division, I often wonder what faith communities can offer. The world doesn’t really need our food banks and advocacy, as integral as they are to our mission of justice and peace; other organizations offer those. I don’t think the world needs our lovely worship and lively fellowship – people are not clamoring to join us. Maybe what the world most needs from us is exactly that superpower Jesus gave us – the supernatural ability to offer forgiveness, and to model it. Maybe what we can do best is often what we put at the end of our to-do lists: being the makers of peace Jesus told us to be.

The verb used in “blessed are the peacemakers” means to craft. We are to be crafters of peace where peace has been broken. It’s an active process of building a new thing. Often building begins with dismantling what has been broken. Our mission to give or withhold forgiveness comes into play as we address the broken systems in our world – the economic systems that have created an ever-widening income gap where some 39% of the country’s wealth is held by the top 1 percent of its people, and more and more families are sliding into poverty; the systemic racism perpetuated by laws and networks long ago designed to preserve wealth and security and benefits to “Caucasian” (an invented term) Americans, that has left communities of color particularly vulnerable to the ravages of Covid-19, that have resulted in the untimely and unjust deaths of an increasing number of black men. These men are my brothers. These women are my sisters.

Do we forgive? Do we withhold forgiveness? How do we model forgiveness if we withhold it? How do we craft peace in this world? How do we craft space for grace?

People are given superpowers for a reason. Jesus gave us ours because he wants us on the front lines, not holed up in our worship spaces. (We’re out of them now!) He wants us to cross boundaries of difference and craft peace so that those worship spaces become filled with people who do not look like us. Black churches filled with white and brown faces; white churches filled with black and brown faces. All of us together receiving God’s peace and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. That is Pentecost.

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5-28-20 - Spiritual Capacity

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

“Flesh” is one of those words that mean one thing in churchy settings and another in the wider world. “Out there” it means bodily substance, plant or animal. In Bible World it refers to humanity. This is what Peter means when, trying to interpret the furor at Pentecost, he labels this event as the fulfillment of a prophecy: “This is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.’”

The Holy Spirit is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible: hovering at creation, inspiring artisans, speaking through prophets. References increase in the New Testament, especially in Luke’s accounts: prophetic utterances, Jesus’ conception, baptism and subsequent ministry; and working through the apostles. Jesus is often said to be “full of the Spirit” when miracles are recounted. The Spirit was not limited to Jesus, but Jesus, the enfleshed Son of God, was a human with the capacity to hold and wield the Spirit’s power full-strength. Because faith and Spirit were undiluted in him, he could do things we think of as miracles.

Jesus seemed to be about training his followers to increase their capacity for holding and wielding the Spirit’s power, so that God’s life would be less diluted in them too. Far more than teaching them to “do,” he was equipping them to receive and live the Life of God. If God wants this Life to be abundant in the world, God needs vessels with the breadth and depth to contain such love, such power.

What changes at Pentecost is that the presence of God is poured out on human containers, ready or not. Jesus demonstrated that humankind could carry such divine power. Now it was up to those who were willing to have their capacity increased. And that could be any kind of person:
“…I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.”

What a prophecy of radical equality Joel offers! So Paul can write with confidence some years after this event, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Anyone with the willingness to receive the life of God can be filled with the Spirit. Even people we’re not fond of. Even us.

Who are some people in whom you discern the Spirit of God? 

Anyone on that list surprise you? What sort of people do you think would not be eligible?
Do you feel worthy yourself? Are you interested in being filled with more God-Life?
How might you allow your capacity for faith and filling to be expanded? What’s in the way?

If Jesus was truly more about increasing his followers’ receptivity to the Spirit than about “training them for ministry,” what does that suggest about where the church can best put its energies? How might we better increase our collective capacity for living in the Spirit, as the Spirit lives in us? There is no person created by God whose capacity for the Spirit cannot be expanded. Pentecost was only the beginning. We can live the rest of the story every day.

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5-27-20 - Beaujolais Nouveau?

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

After the wind and the tongues “as of fire” and the speaking in many languages, everyone in Jerusalem knew something was up with these Jesus people: “All were amazed and perplexed, saying, ‘What does this mean?’ But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’”

How right they were. The apostles may not have been high on spirits – as Peter says, “Please! It’s only 9 o’clock in the morning!” – but they were filled with the Spirit of God, whom Jesus once likened to new wine. When asked why his disciples didn’t observe all the formal rituals, he said people don’t pour new wine into old wineskins, “If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” (Matt 9:17)

New wine is an apt metaphor for being filled with the Spirit. It tends to be more potent than wine that has aged and, being earlier in the fermentation process, is more expansive; hence the risk of ruin to older, more brittle wine skins. It is less predictable, less controllable than older wines. I believe many churches’ discomfort with the Holy Spirit has a lot to do with their desire for control. Perhaps the wine of the Church has aged a little too long, become too smooth – good to the taste, and unlikely to trouble anyone.

We could use a dose of Holy Spirit fermentation. We could stand to have the Holy Spirit renewed in us, pushing what has become brittle in us and in our churches to expand and make room for the life of God. Otherwise we crack and break, the new wine goes running out, and we feel empty. (Transitioning our worship life online during this Covid-19 sequestering period has certainly hastened that process.)

Every day we can ask for a deeper filling of the Holy Spirit. It can happen as we say, “Come, Holy Spirit,” or “Come, Lord Jesus,” or as we pray in tongues or sing in praise or move our bodies in a posture of worship. If you crave certain spiritual gifts – like healing, or faith, or more compassion, or boldness, ask for those gifts. The Spirit knows what gifts s/he wants us to have; it never hurts to ask for what we want in order to do the ministries we feel God is calling us to offer. We don’t have to worry about losing control, or beware the language of new birth. Mostly we are filled to the capacity we have, until we are able to receive more.

Some years ago, I read an obituary of actress Ann B. Davis, who played the housekeeper on The Brady Bunch, I was interested to learn that she was a charismatic Episcopalian:
For many years after “The Brady Bunch” wound up, Davis led a quiet religious life, affiliating herself with a group led by [retired Episcopal Bishop William] Frey. “I was born again,” she told the AP in 1993. “It happens to Episcopalians. Sometimes it doesn't hit you till you're 47 years old.”

It can "hit us" at any age or denomination, especially if we’re open to it. It happens more as we invite the Spirit to make that dimension of God’s life real in us. Come, Holy Spirit!

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5-26-20 - What's Your Language?

You can listen to this reflection here.

It always amuses me that the reading from Acts about Pentecost – which details how a bunch of Galilean fisherman were suddenly able to speak languages they had never learned – contains so many unpronounceable words:

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power."

We can almost understand what it must have been like to hear these foreign languages coming out of the mouths of Jesus’ followers. But was the miracle in the speaking or the hearing? Were the apostles speaking those languages, or did the hearers suddenly understand Aramaic as though it was their own tongue? Who knows. The effect was the same. People heard the Good News about “God’s deeds of power” in their own language and could choose for themselves if they wanted to follow the Way of Jesus. Luke tells us that 3,000 were baptized that day. And we’re off!

In what language do the people around you need to hear the Good News? Perhaps we first need to answer this: to whom do you feel called to share the Good News of God’s love? We're not always comfortable sharing our spiritual selves with friends and family. It might be acquaintances or clients or co-workers, or people hanging out in a park. It could be your kids’ friends who populate your kitchen, or that person at the dry cleaners who looks so sad all the time. It might even be someone at church who understands the rituals and not the love they're meant to express.

Each one with whom we might talk about “God’s deeds of power” has a language in which they are most comfortable. “Church talk” and Christian jargon are foreign tongues to many who lack context to comprehend even words like “hymn” and “scripture” and “gospel,” not to mention cultural idioms like “Good Samaritan” or “walking on water.” What universal terms convey love and grace and acceptance and healing from shame, addiction and dis-ease, mental and physical? What languages do you hear around you?

A spiritual exercise for today: Get settled and centered in God’s presence, however you best do that. Ask, “Is there someone you want me to tell about your power and love?” Wait and see what names or faces come up. If one does, ask, “What language must I speak to reach that person?” It’ll come.

Jesus promised that his followers would have the words they need to share the Good News. The words that are given to you will emerge from your own stories of how you have experienced God’s deeds of power and love. If you don’t feel you have… there’s another prayer.

And if you know you have – don’t you know someone who would like to hear that story?

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5-25-20 - When the Spirit Comes

You can listen to this reflection here.

Water Daily normally reflects upon the Gospel reading appointed for the following Sunday. But the principal text for Pentecost is from Acts, so that story will be our focus.

Pentecost is one of the Big Three festivals of the Christian calendar, along with Christmas and Easter. Some call it the birthday of the Church, and some the only day in the year when we focus on the Holy Spirit. I call it the day when the promised power, peace and presence of God came to dwell in God’s people, initiating the whole Christian project in which we continue today, as co-laborers in God’s mission.

Jesus’ followers stayed together during the forty days of his resurrection presence; they watched him ascend into heaven, and then returned to the city, where he told them to wait for the gift promised by the Father, to be "clothed with power from on high." I doubt they knew what that meant, but they continued to wait and to worship, and to stay out of sight of the authorities.

Pentecost was a major Jewish feast fifty days after Passover, and they were together celebrating when things got weird: When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.

Maybe this “big entrance” on the part of the Holy Spirit has led some to expect strange manifestations when the Spirit shows up. There can be phenomena like speaking in tongues, or prophesying, or weeping, laughing hysterically, or feeling intense heat. We read about these in the New Testament and hear about them in churches today. Often, though, the Spirit comes quietly, filling us, rendering us silent in awe and wonder and gratitude. Perhaps how the Spirit comes has a lot to do with what God’s purpose is in a given situation.

It seems God had a big purpose for that festival day in Jerusalem. Did God hold this outpouring of the Spirit until the holiday, when the city would be full of pilgrims from other lands? When their sudden, inexplicable ability to speak to visitors in their own languages would create the maximum stir? That can go on our list of questions for God. A stir there was. Jesus’ followers were released into a boldness and effectiveness they had never shown before. And a reform movement in the Jewish tradition, that might have been suppressed or died out of its own accord, became a phenomenon which forever changed the world.

Has it changed us? The Spirit is God’s promised gift to all who follow Christ. Our liturgies affirm that we receive the Spirit in baptism, in confirmation – indeed, at every celebration of the eucharist. Sometimes we need that gift to be released in us. If you would like to be more centered on Christ, more discerning of God’s leading, more effective in ministry, pray for the Spirit – already in you – to be released in you today. Sometimes that works better when someone else prays it for us. But let’s start where we start, or continue where we continue.

It is the simplest prayer, and the most profound, and the only one we need: “Come, Holy Spirit.”
Then wait and notice. You might have sensations or images, or maybe you’ll feel nothing then and notice later. It’s God’s timing… and our willingness to receive. Come, Holy Spirit.

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5-22-20 - Blessing

You can listen to this reflection here. The gospel for Ascension Day is here.

In 2011, on Ash Wednesday, I first went to the train station with some colleagues at the crack of dawn to offer the imposition of ashes and a prayer to commuters as they rushed past. Well, they did rush past, and then some would do a double take and come back, “I can get ashes here? That's so great!,” they'd say, lowering their foreheads to my reach. I offered a brief prayer with those who had the time.

The “Ashes on the Go” movement has its share of critics who note, rightly, that the imposition of ashes with its reminder of mortality, “Dust you are and to dust you shall return,” makes little sense outside the context of the Ash Wednesday liturgy. It can be considered “cafeteria Christianity” at its worst, giving people access to blessing without any knowledge or commitment. Yet there is also such benefit to inviting people to access the holy in the midst of the everyday, not to mention getting Christians out from behind our pretty church walls into the open. Sometimes the blessing has to precede the understanding. Maybe always.

So I am cheered by this depiction of Jesus blessing his followers even as he is carried up into heaven:
Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.

"While he was blessing them." Even as he ascended into heaven! Luke tells us that this blessing of Jesus’ was so galvanizing, the apostles continued it: “And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.” 

How wonderful if it could be said of us that we were “continually blessing God,” in the temple or in the world. God's blessing is no passive wave of the hands. It is an active transfer of love and commendation. To bless and be blessed is to increase the Life of God in us and around us. Blessing is one way we communicate with God, and pass along to others what God has given us. We might even say it is to be the chief activity of God's family – more central than much of what church people spend our time and energy on.

When did you last feel blessed? If you’re a church-goer, you receive a pastor's blessing at the end of the worship service. But when did you last feel God’s blessing, God’s pleasure and delight in you? Try to recall that, and put yourself in the way of it more often. I believe God’s blessing is always there for us; we experience it in different ways, so know yours.

When have you been aware of blessing someone else, whether they knew it or not? We can bless people in person. We can also call blessing down on people we pass on the street, on animals, on countries, on marriages, on houses and workplaces – you name it. When you say, “God bless you,” know that you are invoking the power that made the universe and inviting it to bring blessing to whomever or whatever you bless. It's a powerful action.

Who or what do you feel called to bless today? Go do it!
You can do it sitting in your house, or you bless as you go. Jesus did. He still is.

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5-21-20 - Witnesses

You can listen to this reflection here. The gospel for Ascension Day is here. 

Jesus said to his disciples, “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.”

I like to joke that many Christ-followers seem to think they're in the Witness Protection Program, staying as low-profile as possible about their faith and spirituality. That can happen when we focus more on church than on Christ. Jesus calls those who bear his name in the world to bear witness to their stories of life in him, and to the power of God he taught and demonstrated. And witnesses testify.

Maybe “testify” is the problematic word. A witness in a courtroom does not necessarily speak voluntarily. So let’s leave that sterile, judicial context and think about the way we talk about things we’ve witnessed in everyday life. An amazing encounter with wildlife. That video of cats stealing dogs' beds. The adorable thing our granddaughter said. The viral choir. The new recipe we tried. The movie we just saw. We bear witness all the time.

So let’s start talking about our encounters with the Holy when we have them. Let’s talk about our outreach work and our worship experiences and the joy of community. And let’s talk about Jesus and his story, and how it interweaves with our stories… or better yet, how it frames our stories. For our faith is not meant to be one strand of our life, woven in with all the other strands – it is meant to be the frame in which the tapestry sits, the frame that holds and contains our work and relationships and play and rest - our life.

Bearing witness is not even something we have to “do.” It is something we allow God to do through us. This Witness Program comes with built-in power supply. Jesus said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) 

And in Luke: “And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."

That power came at Pentecost. We receive it at baptism, confirmation, ordination - and any time we exercise faith in the name of Jesus. If we find ourselves in a conversation that could get “spiritual,” we can say a quick prayer: “Okay, God, you promised power… give me the courage and the words.”

Exercise your faith in prayer if called on. Tell a story that is meaningful to you. Talk about how knowing Y'shua is meaningful to you. We can do that in ways that give people space for their own experiences and views. A witness is not there to persuade, but to tell a story that is true and authentic. We tell our stories of God, inviting others to tell theirs. And so we create community.

“…You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” From the perspective of Jerusalem in 33 CE (give or take...), we are the ends of the earth. Anytime we receive blessing from God, let’s bear witnesses.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are  here.  The readings for Ascension Day are  here.