Water Daily

7-1-21 - Radical Hospitality

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

Many churches use the term “radical hospitality” to describe their processes for welcoming visitors. In practice, this often means good signage, an alert and well-trained cadre of greeters, easy-to-follow service booklets, and people who are ready to help newcomers navigate the liturgy and escort them personally to coffee hour. On a deeper level, it can mean that a congregation is trained to welcome people who come “as they are,” not to impose its norms upon visitors, to create an atmosphere of warmth and acceptance and openness to the gifts a visitor might bring.

This is the kind of hospitality which Jesus’ disciples were to seek out as they went out in twos on their first mission without Jesus:

He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place.”

Since he’d already told them not to take any money or extra clothing, it was clear they wouldn’t be bearing hostess gifts. They would be bringing the power to heal, authority over unclean spirits, and the Good News of release and wholeness to be found in Jesus Christ. If they found people willing to take them in and care for them under those conditions, they were to remain there, not moving from house to house looking for the best breakfast. The point was to leave their time and energy free for preaching and healing.

And if they couldn’t find that kind of hospitality, or the people in a given town didn’t want to hear their message? Then they should keep moving, and find somewhere more fruitful: "If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.”

This might sound harsh to us, but Jesus wasn’t sending his disciples on a Grand Tour. He was sending them to proclaim the Good News and to exert authority over evil. To do that they would have to become what a New Yorker writer humorously described herself to be: “fiercely dependent" - and discerning about where to spend time.

Hospitality that is truly radical allows a wonderful exchange between visitor and host. It does not treat a visitor as a guest, but welcomes her as family the very first time she comes. It does not put all the focus on what we can offer, setting up an “us and them,” or subtly seek to exert power through generosity. We should seek a mutual sharing of gifts when we bring dinner to the homeless shelter as much as when someone joins us for worship.

Truly radical hospitality recognizes that each person may well be an apostle of Jesus Christ, with gifts and a message for us. I wonder how many more church visitors might come a second time if, instead of asking, “What can we do for you?” we asked, “What are the gifts you bring? We welcome them as we welcome you.”

Sometimes radical hospitality is what we're called to find, and sometimes it's what we're called to offer. Both ways, we are called to give and to receive, all at the same time. And in that giving and receiving, community is formed.

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6-30-21 - Packing Light

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

My luggage volume varies greatly according to mode of transportation, potential range of temperature and likelihood of a social life. If I’m flying to our cottage in Michigan, I pack pretty light, since I’ll have to carry my luggage and need little in the way of dress-up attire. Going somewhere by car, where there’s likely to be parties? I can take as many outfits and pairs of shoes as I like.

I would have flunked Jesus' Packing 101. As he headed out on another teaching tour, he sent his disciples out too: He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.

I guess he didn’t mean sandals in seven colors, did he? They were to carry nothing, no luggage, no change of clothes, no money. As we will see when we look at his instructions about where they were to stay, he insisted they rely completely on the resources they could find in the villages to which they went. They had to live by faith and the Spirit's guidance.

Could do this for even one day? Some do; others have tried it. I know of a bishop who lived homeless in New York City for a month, and there is Barbara Ehrenreich’s experience detailed in her book “Nickel and Dimed,” in which she attempted to live in America on minimum wage jobs, which would be even more challenging today. I don’t think many of us would get very far.

Why would Jesus insist on such stringent conditions for his disciples on their first trip out? To go with nothing, no money, no safety net? Perhaps it’s because he didn’t send them out with nothing. For one thing, he sent them in twos; nobody went alone. And He sent them with the Spirit’s power and authority over unclean spirits. They had ammunition against the strongest danger they faced, spiritual temptation and interference from the minions of the Evil One. Physical challenges they could handle, if they could learn to trust.

Absolute faith would be required for those who were to carry forward the mission of God revealed in Christ. Absolute faith is still required. And all our safety nets and insurance policies and savings accounts hold us back from putting “our whole trust in his grace and love,” as Episcopalians promise in baptism. And no, I’m not ready to part with my retirement account. I am ready to look at and pray about how my resources compromise my faith.

St. Francis of Assisi, when he renounced his family’s wealth and severed his relationship with his father, even took off his clothes so as to carry nothing from that life with him. One requirement of those who would join him, at least in the early days when he was still in charge of his order, was that brothers sell all they had and give the proceeds to the poor, owning no property at all.

What Christians are to do with wealth is one of the most vexing questions that face us. Giving a lot away makes us feel better about having it – and for those who are content to be on the outer edges of Christ’s life, that is just fine. Jesus did commend generosity.

But for those who would be his closest followers? I suspect our baggage is weighing us down more than we’d like to contemplate. What can we part with today?

6-29-21 - The Power of Unbelief

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

Have you ever had a wifi signal so weak you couldn’t get anything done? There is a trickle of connectivity but not enough juice to actually power anything? This comes to mind when I read about the effect his townspeople’s skepticism had on Jesus’ ability to wield the power of God in his usual way:

Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.

All he could do was cure “a few sick people.” It is hard to imagine that anything could impede the power of God to effect what it will, especially when invoked by one whose faith lacks nothing. But Jesus attributed the “connectivity problem” to the unbelief he encountered in that place where they thought they knew him so well. Crowds further away accepted him fully as he was; his homies could not believe that the Y’shua they’d grown up with was the Messiah. Their lack of faith held him back.

This should not surprise us. We think of Jesus as the power behind miracles – yet over and over he commends the faith of the people whom he heals, saying, “Your faith has made you well." Jesus responded to the faith he encountered – and I guess he still does. This puts a lot of pressure on us, doesn’t it, to think that God responds to the faith of those praying.

It can be a quick jump from there to the notion that when someone who is sick or hurting doesn’t experience healing it is because they lack faith – and unfortunately, some in the healing ministry tell people that. Wrong. The faith to which God responds needs to be in the community that is praying for someone to be healed. God does not punish people for lack of faith – it just appears that God’s power is impeded when there is a lot of disbelief in a system. That’s why communities in which healing is regularly invited and expected tend to see a lot more of it than those who think it’s rare and don’t exercise their faith in prayer.

Does that put a lot of responsibility on us as people of faith? You bet it does! It means our faith matters more than maybe we wish it did. It means we do all we can to strengthen the faith of those around us. We make space for questions, sure, but we don’t encourage disbelief. The stronger the faith that resides in the community, the more invitation there is for Jesus to do his works of power.

As St. Augustine famously said, "Without God we cannot; without us, He will not.” Quoting that, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry adds, “Together with God we can and we will.”

Without us, God will not. The Omnipotent can, of course, but has chosen to give us that much power to participate in God’s work. Let’s turn the service on and let the connectivity and power flow!

6-28-21 - Too Close To See Clearly

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

The stories we’ve read the past few weeks show a very busy Jesus, preaching to massive crowds, stilling a storm, healing many, restoring a young girl to life. Maybe he needed a break? A little of Mom’s home cooking? We don’t know why, but Mark tells us that his next move was to go home.

He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joss and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

Whoever said familiarity breeds contempt was on to something. When people have known you for a long time, or before you became successful, they often feel they know the “real you” better than anyone else. They're too close to see you clearly. The people of Nazareth may have been proud to hear of Jesus’ exploits, but when he’s right there, teaching in their synagogue, they don’t seem able to celebrate his wisdom or his power. It makes them profoundly uncomfortable to see him break out of the box they built for him.

Our viewpoint can be similar to that of Jesus’ neighbors – after all, many of us have known him all our lives, or at least known about him. We know his bio – his wondrous birth, horrific death, miraculous resurrection, even if we might be a bit muddy on what happens in between. Whatever our level of engagement with Jesus, it’s easy to put him in a box along with a lot of other preconceived notions we cling to.

But Jesus is ever breaking out of the boxes we build for him. As we begin to know the Jesus of the Gospels (not always the same as the culturally laden Jesus of the church …), to hear for ourselves his often sardonic wisdom, to encounter the uncontainable power he brings even from beyond the grave, to recognize the claims he makes on us as people of faith who are to be seekers of justice… we might react like those townsfolk. “Who is this guy? I thought he was all about being a good person. You mean he’s really about undoing structures that hold back the less privileged? You mean he really asks me to lay down my prerogatives in the cause of peace? He’s really about healing my wounds, not just some lepers back then? Maybe I don’t want him near my wounds. Maybe I don’t want to tear down injustices when they benefit me or my people.”

If we have grown up with Jesus, the gentle shepherd in children’s bibles (as though shepherds don’t have to be fierce!), we might have to let a lot go and start fresh, seeking to know him in our lives now. We can start with our bibles – but that is not the end. To know him, we need to spend time in his presence, in prayer. If you’re not already in that habit, simply sit in a room with some quiet and say, “Come, Lord Jesus. What do you want for me today?” And do that again the next day, maybe write down what comes to you in that time of quiet encounter.

I have a feeling we’ll get an answer, and that can be the beginning, or the continuation, of an acquaintance that always breaks out of the box – and maybe even breaks us out of our own boxes.

6-25-21 - Not Dead, But Sleeping

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

Remember Jairus, the synagogue leader who fell at Jesus’ feet, begging him to come and heal his dying daughter? Imagine what he felt as Jesus stopped on the way, asked who had touched him, and then held a conversation with this woman. He must have been in agony – his little girl was at death’s door. There was no time to waste! Why wasn’t Jesus moving?

And then, as can happen, his worst fears were confirmed: While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.

What Jairus didn’t know, what none of the people keening at his house knew, was that this story was not yet over. Jesus knew that this little girl’s life was not ended, that she was deeply asleep, perhaps in a coma.

When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him.

So how about when someone has really and finally died, which is more often the case? We don’t know what Jesus knows. Are we to pray for healing in the face of what looks like death? Sometimes… maybe more often than we do. Death is a reality of life, yes, and the power of God to heal is very real and very strong when communities exercise faith. The community around Jairus only saw death; Jesus saw life.

Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years old).

His voice, his power, his Spirit were able to reach her spirit, and her spirit responded to his command. And she got up and began to walk about – a mini-prefiguring of Jesus’ later resurrection.

We are called to see life, even in the face of death. At times, that life is in the people around the person dying; sometimes the dying revive. (More rarely, even the recently dead revive…) When someone we know is gravely ill, we can ask the Spirit how to pray. If we feel a sense that physical healing can happen, invite the healing stream of God’s love into that person. I specify “physical healing,” because sometimes the healing a person receives is spiritual, preparing them for life after death.

These are great mysteries – if we knew how to “work it,” we’d all be doing it, right? That’s why it’s called faith; we don’t get a road map or guarantees. But we walk forward anyway. We can agonize about how long Jesus seems to be taking, but in the end he knows. That’s all we can count on – he knows.

At the end of this story of two dramatic healings, Jesus is delightfully practical. Looking at the young girl now well and out of bed, he says simply, “Give her something to eat.” Because Life goes on.

6-24-21 - Into the Light

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

The woman who crept forward in the crowd to touch Jesus’ garment, believing that his spiritual power to heal was so great even his clothes would be charged with it, felt immediately that her bleeding had stopped. Twelve years of hemorrhage from what today might be diagnosed as uterine fibroids, and just like that, she felt the flow stop. She knew she was healed. She began to make her way out of the crowd again, rejoicing, yet unable to tell anyone what she’d done.

But she was not to make a neat escape. For Jesus felt the power go out of him as vividly as she felt the healing take hold – Mark uses the word “immediately” to describe both their experiences. And Jesus wanted to know who had touched his clothes.

He looked all round to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’

This is even braver than her stealth “power grab.” She could have pulled a “Who, me?” and kept moving until she was safely away. But something made her come forward and reveal herself. Which meant revealing the whole truth – of her embarrassing disease, her impurity in the eyes of the religious law, her attempt to remain anonymous. She simply had too much integrity to sneak away. And maybe she also felt too much gratitude. So she came forward into the light, fearful, humble and probably humiliated, falling at his feet just as Jairus had done. And Jesus affirmed her faith and confirmed her healing – a complete healing, in body and spirit. Now she could go in peace, for the first time in a very long time.

Are there burdens or infirmities of mind or body that you have carried for a long time? Illness? Chronic pain? Anxieties, resentments, disappointments, shame, poverty, disease, fear of disease? Can you imagine feeling freed of that burden? That is what happened for that woman. I believe God wants us to experience the same freedom and peace.

One step is to reach out for healing as she did. The next is to come fully into the light of Jesus’ presence, to tell our whole story – either directly in prayer, or mediated to another person of faith – and open ourselves to God’s mercy. It is hard to relinquish control like that. Yet so many have found it to be the beginning of freedom and wholeness. That is where every addict begins recovery, and I suspect it is a universal principle, that we need to surface and bring into the light all that holds us back from experiencing the fullness of love and life God desires for us.

That includes confessing our sin, being willing to forgive others and ourselves. And mostly it means telling our stories, getting them out of the storage bins in our psyche and into the light, shared with others to bring life and hope to their lives. More and more in our day we are recovering the power of story to bring healing – for survivors of abuse or crime, gang members breaking free, people in recovery, even in courtrooms for nations seeking to heal after decades of corruption and violence. The Truth and Reconciliation movement that began in South Africa after apartheid and has been successfully implemented elsewhere is based on telling hard stories and having them heard. Amazing freedom and healing can flow from that simple act.

Our unnamed woman was healed in body before she came forward. In telling her story, she opened herself up to the full healing Jesus had for her, wholeness in mind and spirit. That can be our gift too, as we share our stories and invite healing in.

6-23-21 - Christ the Transformer

You can listen to this reflection here.

I once served a congregation which was the result of a merger between two parishes. They had just stuck the two names together, resulting in one that was long, theologically confusing and hard for many to remember. I suggested that we choose a new name to reflect our new life. The question then became: what? On the way to “Christ the Healer,” which is what we became, we went through quite a few. The name I wished with all my heart we could have chosen, would it not have required so much explaining, was “Christ the Transformer.”

In this week’s gospel story, when the unseen woman who suffered from incessant bleeding touched Jesus' clothes in hopes of being healed, he says he felt power go out from him: Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?"

It is amazing that Jesus could feel something had happened to him in that moment, and knew someone had touched his clothes. His disciples are incredulous, saying to him,

"You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?”'"

Beyond that awareness, though, is the fact that he felt energy transfer from him to another person. This is yet another of the bible passages that suggest to me that God is pure energy, of a frequency we could not withstand were it not mediated for us. And that is what an electric transformer does: it takes energy running on one current and transforms it so it can be used by appliances wired for a different current. Transformers were common in my house when we lived overseas.

Jesus was the Transformer extraordinaire, taking the energy current that birthed the universe and translating, mediating, making it usable for God’s creatures. Even so, we can sometimes find the current too strong; that’s why sometimes people rest in the Spirit during Pentecostal services, or we feel heat or tingling when we pray. Part of what it means to grow in faith is to build up our capacity to hold and channel a higher and higher frequency of spiritual power.

For we too are transformers, as we grow into the likeness and ministry of Christ. We too receive the power of the heavens and transform it into a current that “runs appliances” – lifting up the lowly, healing the infirm, forgiving the unforgivable, feeding the forgotten. Every single time we exercise faith in the name of Christ, we are mediating the power of the heavens to bring transformation and life to the things and creatures and people of this world.

Where have you been a transformer lately?

Where are you called to mediate the power of heaven into someone’s life?

Every time we invoke the Spirit of God in prayer, in worship, in witness, we bring the heavenly into the earthly. We allow God to redeem, renew, revive, restore all things to wholeness. Even this broken world. Even our broken hearts. The power of God has gone out – can you feel it?