You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Was ever a saying of Jesus' more often misconstrued, with such devastating consequences? When Judas protests that the cost of the ointment Mary “wasted” on Jesus could have fed the poor, Jesus defends Mary: “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
That one reference to the persistence of poverty has led some to a “so, why bother?” stance about remedying economic inequality. Others have gone so far as to see in those seven words a mandate for poverty, despite the full record of Jesus’ pronouncements about justice and giving. I actually heard someone quote these words and say Jesus does not want us to help the poor.
Such an interpretation makes a mockery of the Good News, which Jesus said he came to proclaim to the poor, as well as to other marginalized groups. The imperative to share our resources so that no one is in need, an ideal oft proclaimed by the prophets of Israel (and briefly achieved in the early church, according to Acts 4…) should be a driving force for Christians engaged in God’s mission to reclaim, restore, and renew all people to wholeness in Christ. In God’s realm no one is defined by how much or how little she has, but by his belovedness.
An even deeper distortion of the first seven words of that sentence can result when the second seven get ignored. That was the main point Jesus was trying to make – that his presence in human, embodied form was finite and soon to end. Those who emphasize the “social gospel” and Jesus’ love for the poor, as though he did not equally value the humanity in those with resources and privilege, can be in as great a danger of misinterpretation. It is Jesus who matters, more than his teaching and example and ministry and power. When we reduce him to “teacher” or “moral example,” "social worker” or even “healer,” we miss the most important part of his identity: Son of God, Redeemer, right here in your living room.
Mary, better than anyone else there, seemed to grasp what was happening: that Jesus, in the way they had known and come to love him, would soon be dead and gone. She alone understood that it was about him, all about Jesus, and she expressed that insight in a profoundly sacramental action.
Can we value him that much? Can we make Jesus our priority? Spend time with him, seek his counsel, ask to be filled with his Spirit, make him known among the people in need whom we encounter? I’m pretty sure that if more Christians put Jesus first, our hearts would be so transformed we could not tolerate poverty or injustice, violence or warfare. As Gandhi famously observed, if Christians were more like Christ, there would be a lot more of them. (That’s a paraphrase; the actual quote and its context can be found here.) If more Christians put Jesus first, I suspect there would be a lot more of us too.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
4-3-25 - Anointing
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
When Mary of Bethany poured a full jar of expensive oil of nard all over Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair, she wasn’t just trying to relax him with a little aromatherapy. She was anointing him, while she still could, guessing that his time on earth was short. Nard, an essential oil derived from spikenard, a flowering plant in the Valerian family (thanks, Wikipedia…) had many uses, although, except for a reference in the Iliad to its use in perfuming a body, it does not appear to have had funerary use. The spices brought after Jesus’ crucifixion were a mixture of myrrh and aloes. Yet Jesus answers Mary’s critics with this cryptic observation: “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.”
The Bible relates many kinds of anointing – of priests and prophets, of kings and kings-to-be; anointing for healing; the hint of anointing in baptism; and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. This act of Mary’s doesn’t fit any of those categories. And if she bought the oil for Jesus’ burial, why does she use it all now?
Knowing the danger he was in, perhaps she wanted him to feel in a tactile way the love of those who surrounded him. Perhaps she had a sense of the horrors ahead, and wanted him to have one moment of pampering. Perhaps she wanted to show the others how to give it all. Perhaps she thought the day of his burial would be too late to do him any good. And six days later, Jesus will be washing the feet of his disciples, perhaps inspired by this incident? He will let them know in a tactile way what love feels like, the love of one who lays aside his power and prerogatives for the beloved. They don’t really understand then, any more than they likely understood Mary’s gesture. But later they would.
Who in our lives needs to feel our love in that way?
Who needs us to relinquish power or privilege and give of our time, our gifts, our pride?
Maybe someone to whom we are close; maybe someone we don’t know at all.
Feet are intimate, way too much so for many people; some churches wash hands instead of feet on Maundy Thursday. That breaks my heart a little: intimacy is the point. Being met at the place of our least attractive feature is the point. Being pampered and loved – and yes, anointed – is how God makes effective saints out of ordinary people.
All it requires is submitting to love. Even Jesus did that.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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 Mary of Bethany poured a full jar of expensive oil of nard all over Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair, she wasn’t just trying to relax him with a little aromatherapy. She was anointing him, while she still could, guessing that his time on earth was short. Nard, an essential oil derived from spikenard, a flowering plant in the Valerian family (thanks, Wikipedia…) had many uses, although, except for a reference in the Iliad to its use in perfuming a body, it does not appear to have had funerary use. The spices brought after Jesus’ crucifixion were a mixture of myrrh and aloes. Yet Jesus answers Mary’s critics with this cryptic observation: “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.”
The Bible relates many kinds of anointing – of priests and prophets, of kings and kings-to-be; anointing for healing; the hint of anointing in baptism; and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. This act of Mary’s doesn’t fit any of those categories. And if she bought the oil for Jesus’ burial, why does she use it all now?
Knowing the danger he was in, perhaps she wanted him to feel in a tactile way the love of those who surrounded him. Perhaps she had a sense of the horrors ahead, and wanted him to have one moment of pampering. Perhaps she wanted to show the others how to give it all. Perhaps she thought the day of his burial would be too late to do him any good. And six days later, Jesus will be washing the feet of his disciples, perhaps inspired by this incident? He will let them know in a tactile way what love feels like, the love of one who lays aside his power and prerogatives for the beloved. They don’t really understand then, any more than they likely understood Mary’s gesture. But later they would.
Who in our lives needs to feel our love in that way?
Who needs us to relinquish power or privilege and give of our time, our gifts, our pride?
Maybe someone to whom we are close; maybe someone we don’t know at all.
Feet are intimate, way too much so for many people; some churches wash hands instead of feet on Maundy Thursday. That breaks my heart a little: intimacy is the point. Being met at the place of our least attractive feature is the point. Being pampered and loved – and yes, anointed – is how God makes effective saints out of ordinary people.
All it requires is submitting to love. Even Jesus did that.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
4-2-25 - What a Waste
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
I am uncomfortable with hugely generous gestures, when someone sacrifices everything to help someone else, or to serve God. I probably would have told St. Francis of Assisi, “Why don’t you leave some of it behind? Why all of it? Don’t you want a little insurance?” Everything in moderation, right? Even sacrificial giving. So I’m not in particularly nice company this week – for the person in our story who articulates this more pragmatic way of thinking about resources is none other than Judas: But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”
In an aside John tells us that Judas didn’t actually care about the poor, but wanted to steal the offering for himself. How about we give him the benefit of the doubt? Maybe he actually did care about the poor, actually did care about the radical equality that Jesus was preaching, actually did want to see the Romans sent home and the revolution come to pass. To someone with economic justice on his mind, Mary’s extravagant gesture could seem an unconscionable waste of resources. Three hundred denarii’s worth of high-priced perfumed oil on one person’s feet? Stinking up the whole house?
It is outrageous, when you think about it as stewardship. It makes no sense. About as much sense as it made for God to offer up that One who was most precious to him, his only begotten Son. About as much sense as it made for that Son to take upon himself the catastrophic estrangement which was our due as those who rebelled against God; to give up his position, his dignity, his life.
One grey and rainy Good Friday I found myself in New York City’s Union Square after the three-hour Preaching of the Cross at Grace Church. Everything was dingy and dirty; everybody looked harried and downcast, me included. And I thought, “For this? You gave it all for this miserable lot? What a waste.”
Yes, what a waste; what ridiculous extravagance, to kill the Son of God so that we might be free to dwell in love with God for all eternity. As that beautiful hymn, My Song is Love Unknown, says, “Love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be. / Oh, who am I, that for my sake, my Lord should take frail flesh and die?”
Becoming a person who can offer it all starts with our willingness to accept that Christ has given it all for us; to accept that we are that precious to God, that God finds us worthy because God said so, not because of anything we think or do or say. Perhaps today we might meditate on that extravagant, profligate, wasteful, over-the-top love lavished upon us, try to let it soak into our bones, into our spirits, into all the dents the world’s “no’s” have left in us. You are loved, beyond measure, beyond sense. Deal with it!
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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 am uncomfortable with hugely generous gestures, when someone sacrifices everything to help someone else, or to serve God. I probably would have told St. Francis of Assisi, “Why don’t you leave some of it behind? Why all of it? Don’t you want a little insurance?” Everything in moderation, right? Even sacrificial giving. So I’m not in particularly nice company this week – for the person in our story who articulates this more pragmatic way of thinking about resources is none other than Judas: But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”
In an aside John tells us that Judas didn’t actually care about the poor, but wanted to steal the offering for himself. How about we give him the benefit of the doubt? Maybe he actually did care about the poor, actually did care about the radical equality that Jesus was preaching, actually did want to see the Romans sent home and the revolution come to pass. To someone with economic justice on his mind, Mary’s extravagant gesture could seem an unconscionable waste of resources. Three hundred denarii’s worth of high-priced perfumed oil on one person’s feet? Stinking up the whole house?
It is outrageous, when you think about it as stewardship. It makes no sense. About as much sense as it made for God to offer up that One who was most precious to him, his only begotten Son. About as much sense as it made for that Son to take upon himself the catastrophic estrangement which was our due as those who rebelled against God; to give up his position, his dignity, his life.
One grey and rainy Good Friday I found myself in New York City’s Union Square after the three-hour Preaching of the Cross at Grace Church. Everything was dingy and dirty; everybody looked harried and downcast, me included. And I thought, “For this? You gave it all for this miserable lot? What a waste.”
Yes, what a waste; what ridiculous extravagance, to kill the Son of God so that we might be free to dwell in love with God for all eternity. As that beautiful hymn, My Song is Love Unknown, says, “Love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be. / Oh, who am I, that for my sake, my Lord should take frail flesh and die?”
Becoming a person who can offer it all starts with our willingness to accept that Christ has given it all for us; to accept that we are that precious to God, that God finds us worthy because God said so, not because of anything we think or do or say. Perhaps today we might meditate on that extravagant, profligate, wasteful, over-the-top love lavished upon us, try to let it soak into our bones, into our spirits, into all the dents the world’s “no’s” have left in us. You are loved, beyond measure, beyond sense. Deal with it!
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
4-1-25 - Extravagant Love
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
There are some who suggest that Jesus of Nazareth was not the celibate religious leader depicted in the Gospels, that he was intimately involved with, perhaps even married to Mary Magdalene. Certainly, a married religious leader would have been more normal in that place and time than a celibate, but the Gospels convey not the slightest suggestion that Jesus was romantically linked to anyone.
And had he been, my candidate for the identity of the lucky girl would be not Mary of Magdala, but Mary of Bethany. She’s the one who neglected her household duties to sit at his feet, taking in his teaching while her sister prepared a meal alone (Luke 10:38-42). When Jesus finally arrives days after their brother Lazarus has died, he asks for Mary. And when she comes to him and gently rebukes him for having arrived too late, it is her tears, and those of onlookers, which appear to move him to action (John 11). There is no reason to imagine their connection went beyond friendship, but it seems to have been a deep one.
This is evident in the enormous intimacy and generosity of Mary’s gesture at the dinner in her home in this week's story: Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
This act is shocking on several levels. First, there is the intimacy of anointing Jesus’ feet, well beyond the expected hospitality of washing the feet of one’s guests. Mary's using her hair to wipe the oil suggests such physical closeness it must have made onlookers uncomfortable. To kneel at someone’s feet and tend to them with your own hands and hair is a posture of profound worship and devotion.
Then there is the shocking extravagance, wastefulness even, of using the entire jar of ointment. Nard was extremely precious and very potent; no one would need a whole jar for one use. Learning that the house was filled with the fragrance tells us how excessive this gesture was.
But its very excess is what commends Mary’s action to us. She holds nothing back, not for economy or propriety. Spiritually connected to Jesus in a way few others are, she acts upon her instinctive knowledge that Jesus’ time among them is coming to an end and seizes the opportunity to demonstrate her great love for him while he is yet with her.
We are in a different situation – Jesus is not going anywhere; in fact, we’re waiting for him to return in fullness. But our time in this world is limited. Don’t we want to fully embrace God’s love in the here and now?
Where in our lives do we hold back on expressing our love for Jesus, for God? Do we content ourselves with the hour or so a week we spend in church; the amounts we give that stretch our budgets but little; short prayers at the beginning and end of the day and anytime a crisis arises in between? In what ways do we lavish our time and resources on God and God’s people? Can we think of times when we have left nothing in reserve? Those are occasions for rejoicing.
Mary demonstrated her extravagant worship in both quality and quantity. She held nothing back, lavishing love and care on her Lord. How might we love Jesus the way she did?
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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 are some who suggest that Jesus of Nazareth was not the celibate religious leader depicted in the Gospels, that he was intimately involved with, perhaps even married to Mary Magdalene. Certainly, a married religious leader would have been more normal in that place and time than a celibate, but the Gospels convey not the slightest suggestion that Jesus was romantically linked to anyone.
And had he been, my candidate for the identity of the lucky girl would be not Mary of Magdala, but Mary of Bethany. She’s the one who neglected her household duties to sit at his feet, taking in his teaching while her sister prepared a meal alone (Luke 10:38-42). When Jesus finally arrives days after their brother Lazarus has died, he asks for Mary. And when she comes to him and gently rebukes him for having arrived too late, it is her tears, and those of onlookers, which appear to move him to action (John 11). There is no reason to imagine their connection went beyond friendship, but it seems to have been a deep one.
This is evident in the enormous intimacy and generosity of Mary’s gesture at the dinner in her home in this week's story: Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
This act is shocking on several levels. First, there is the intimacy of anointing Jesus’ feet, well beyond the expected hospitality of washing the feet of one’s guests. Mary's using her hair to wipe the oil suggests such physical closeness it must have made onlookers uncomfortable. To kneel at someone’s feet and tend to them with your own hands and hair is a posture of profound worship and devotion.
Then there is the shocking extravagance, wastefulness even, of using the entire jar of ointment. Nard was extremely precious and very potent; no one would need a whole jar for one use. Learning that the house was filled with the fragrance tells us how excessive this gesture was.
But its very excess is what commends Mary’s action to us. She holds nothing back, not for economy or propriety. Spiritually connected to Jesus in a way few others are, she acts upon her instinctive knowledge that Jesus’ time among them is coming to an end and seizes the opportunity to demonstrate her great love for him while he is yet with her.
We are in a different situation – Jesus is not going anywhere; in fact, we’re waiting for him to return in fullness. But our time in this world is limited. Don’t we want to fully embrace God’s love in the here and now?
Where in our lives do we hold back on expressing our love for Jesus, for God? Do we content ourselves with the hour or so a week we spend in church; the amounts we give that stretch our budgets but little; short prayers at the beginning and end of the day and anytime a crisis arises in between? In what ways do we lavish our time and resources on God and God’s people? Can we think of times when we have left nothing in reserve? Those are occasions for rejoicing.
Mary demonstrated her extravagant worship in both quality and quantity. She held nothing back, lavishing love and care on her Lord. How might we love Jesus the way she did?
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
3-31-25 - Friends In Bethany
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
The gospels say little about Jesus’ friendships. We see some of his interactions with disciples, but other than a few exchanges with Peter, those tend to be group encounters. Yet the gospels of Luke and John suggest there is one family with whom Jesus had a particularly close relationship: the two sisters and one brother from Bethany who appear in at least three stories.
Our passage this week begins with an almost comically understated reference to Jesus' connection with this family: Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.
This casual aside about Lazarus – “Oh, you know who I mean, the guy Jesus raised from the dead” is followed by the prosaic, “They gave a dinner for him.” Let's hope they did a lot more than that! We are told that Martha served, which might seem an inconsequential detail were it not for that brief but penetrating vignette in Luke about another time Martha cooked and served dinner for Jesus and got a lesson in priorities. We learn so much about her in that story, and here she is, serving dinner again.
The other sister, Mary, is the main character in this week’s reading, and we’ll introduce her tomorrow. What intrigues me as we begin to explore this short tale is the glimpse it gives us into Jesus’ social life. He had thousands of followers, and some close associates, but his peripatetic life and the increasing danger in which he found himself – John tells us this is six days before the Passover, the final Passover Jesus will celebrate in his worldly life – no doubt made it difficult to form and maintain friendships. This family seems to have been a place of refuge and friendship for him, and his humanity is more vivid seeing him rooted in this web of sibling relationships with distinct personalities.
If we think of Jesus often at the dinner table in that home in Bethany, we might more easily imagine him as a guest at our tables. And I believe that is where he wants to be - invited into our homes and lives, welcome at the table as we eat, on the couch as we relax, accompanying us as we work and exercise and play and recharge and interact with the people in our lives. This story reminds us that Jesus’ love is universal, and also always particular as we receive him.
He came for you, and for me. And as the poet and priest George Herbert so memorably articulated, he expects us to eat with him.
Love (III) - George Herbert (1593-1633)
Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back, guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack from my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, if I lacked any thing.
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here: Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear, I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame? My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat: So I did sit and eat.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
The gospels say little about Jesus’ friendships. We see some of his interactions with disciples, but other than a few exchanges with Peter, those tend to be group encounters. Yet the gospels of Luke and John suggest there is one family with whom Jesus had a particularly close relationship: the two sisters and one brother from Bethany who appear in at least three stories.
Our passage this week begins with an almost comically understated reference to Jesus' connection with this family: Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.
This casual aside about Lazarus – “Oh, you know who I mean, the guy Jesus raised from the dead” is followed by the prosaic, “They gave a dinner for him.” Let's hope they did a lot more than that! We are told that Martha served, which might seem an inconsequential detail were it not for that brief but penetrating vignette in Luke about another time Martha cooked and served dinner for Jesus and got a lesson in priorities. We learn so much about her in that story, and here she is, serving dinner again.
The other sister, Mary, is the main character in this week’s reading, and we’ll introduce her tomorrow. What intrigues me as we begin to explore this short tale is the glimpse it gives us into Jesus’ social life. He had thousands of followers, and some close associates, but his peripatetic life and the increasing danger in which he found himself – John tells us this is six days before the Passover, the final Passover Jesus will celebrate in his worldly life – no doubt made it difficult to form and maintain friendships. This family seems to have been a place of refuge and friendship for him, and his humanity is more vivid seeing him rooted in this web of sibling relationships with distinct personalities.
If we think of Jesus often at the dinner table in that home in Bethany, we might more easily imagine him as a guest at our tables. And I believe that is where he wants to be - invited into our homes and lives, welcome at the table as we eat, on the couch as we relax, accompanying us as we work and exercise and play and recharge and interact with the people in our lives. This story reminds us that Jesus’ love is universal, and also always particular as we receive him.
He came for you, and for me. And as the poet and priest George Herbert so memorably articulated, he expects us to eat with him.
Love (III) - George Herbert (1593-1633)
Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back, guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack from my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, if I lacked any thing.
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here: Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear, I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame? My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat: So I did sit and eat.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
3-28-25 - Found and Lost
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
It has been hard to pack all we might say about this powerful parable into five days. (To go deeper, I recommend Henri Nouwen’s classic, The Return of the Prodigal Son, which explores this story and especially its three main characters through the lens of Rembrandt’s painting of the same name.)
We haven’t spent nearly enough time on this “prodigal father,” whose extravagant forgiveness and restoration of his wastral son strikes some as no less wasteful than that son’s squandering of his inheritance. First among those who feel that way is the father’s elder son, who gets wind of the reunion and is horrified: “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’”
For the second time that day, the father goes out to meet a son where he is, not waiting for him to come in. He loves his sons equally – and that in itself is an affront to this elder boy who has faithfully served and done everything right. In his view, his father should love him more, for he has earned it.
And in this view he has a lot of company. When I ask people to whom they relate in this parable, most say the older brother. We like fairness. We like earning our way. Yet Jesus made it clear in parable after parable that the Realm of God is a place not of fairness but of grace. Grace extended to others, undeserving others – and grace by its definition comes to the undeserving – can make us feel cheated.
But God’s economy is one of abundance. Had the elder brother asked for a party, he could have had one every week. But how can he expect the father to love his other son less? The father’s love is a full measure, pressed down, overflowing. As I once sensed God say to me in prayer, “I already love you the most. There is nothing you have to do, or can do, to make me love you more – I love you the most.”
“Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”
Jesus leaves the story unresolved. Does the elder son relent, allow grace to flow into him? Or does he define himself “lost” by his hardness of heart, like the religious leaders to whom Jesus was likely referring? And what about us? Are we willing to count ourselves “found” if the company includes people we would have trouble forgiving? What if we let God do it for us?
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
It has been hard to pack all we might say about this powerful parable into five days. (To go deeper, I recommend Henri Nouwen’s classic, The Return of the Prodigal Son, which explores this story and especially its three main characters through the lens of Rembrandt’s painting of the same name.)
We haven’t spent nearly enough time on this “prodigal father,” whose extravagant forgiveness and restoration of his wastral son strikes some as no less wasteful than that son’s squandering of his inheritance. First among those who feel that way is the father’s elder son, who gets wind of the reunion and is horrified: “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’”
For the second time that day, the father goes out to meet a son where he is, not waiting for him to come in. He loves his sons equally – and that in itself is an affront to this elder boy who has faithfully served and done everything right. In his view, his father should love him more, for he has earned it.
And in this view he has a lot of company. When I ask people to whom they relate in this parable, most say the older brother. We like fairness. We like earning our way. Yet Jesus made it clear in parable after parable that the Realm of God is a place not of fairness but of grace. Grace extended to others, undeserving others – and grace by its definition comes to the undeserving – can make us feel cheated.
But God’s economy is one of abundance. Had the elder brother asked for a party, he could have had one every week. But how can he expect the father to love his other son less? The father’s love is a full measure, pressed down, overflowing. As I once sensed God say to me in prayer, “I already love you the most. There is nothing you have to do, or can do, to make me love you more – I love you the most.”
“Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”
Jesus leaves the story unresolved. Does the elder son relent, allow grace to flow into him? Or does he define himself “lost” by his hardness of heart, like the religious leaders to whom Jesus was likely referring? And what about us? Are we willing to count ourselves “found” if the company includes people we would have trouble forgiving? What if we let God do it for us?
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
3-27-25 - Home Comes To Us
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
As a teenager, I was enthralled with the movie Love Story, with its famous tagline, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” That kind of statement can pretty much only be made after someone’s just said, “I’m sorry…” A more accurate statement would be, “Love means always having to say you’re sorry.” We need always be aware of the ways in which we hurt or fail to notice our loved ones’ feelings. Learning to say you’re sorry quickly and naturally is one of the building blocks of a healthy relationship.
Yet working up to “I’m sorry” is often a struggle. Once we’ve wrestled through our self-justifications and acknowledged the need, we often find ourselves rehearsing, trying to find the right words. That’s exactly what the young man in Jesus’ story does: writes his speech ahead of time: “I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’” So he set off and went to his father.
When we head off to ask forgiveness of another person, we can never be sure of the reception we’ll get. This young man, who had in effect disowned his father, probably causing him to liquidate assets at a loss, may have assumed his father had disowned him. When we offer repentance, we have to simply offer it, and be willing to lay it down and walk away. We can’t compel forgiveness or even a hearing.
Ah, but Jesus tells us that it’s different with God. If this story is a picture of what the realm of God is like, we should take notice of what happens next: forgiveness doesn’t wait for this young man to express his sorrow. Forgiveness is out in the road, waiting for him: But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.
The son tries to make his speech, but his father is way ahead of him: But the father said to his servants, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!”
Was the father peering down that road every day, hoping against hope to see his son return? Did he even care if the boy was sorry, or did he only want to be reunited with his beloved? Does God really love us that much?
Jesus said “yes.” Jesus showed us “yes,” just how much God loves us. Jesus left Home and came into our road to wait for us. We don’t even have to get home – Home comes to us, with royal robes and sandals for our tired feet. This is one “I’m sorry” for which we don’t have to doubt the reception. We only need to turn ourselves toward home.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
As a teenager, I was enthralled with the movie Love Story, with its famous tagline, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” That kind of statement can pretty much only be made after someone’s just said, “I’m sorry…” A more accurate statement would be, “Love means always having to say you’re sorry.” We need always be aware of the ways in which we hurt or fail to notice our loved ones’ feelings. Learning to say you’re sorry quickly and naturally is one of the building blocks of a healthy relationship.
Yet working up to “I’m sorry” is often a struggle. Once we’ve wrestled through our self-justifications and acknowledged the need, we often find ourselves rehearsing, trying to find the right words. That’s exactly what the young man in Jesus’ story does: writes his speech ahead of time: “I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’” So he set off and went to his father.
When we head off to ask forgiveness of another person, we can never be sure of the reception we’ll get. This young man, who had in effect disowned his father, probably causing him to liquidate assets at a loss, may have assumed his father had disowned him. When we offer repentance, we have to simply offer it, and be willing to lay it down and walk away. We can’t compel forgiveness or even a hearing.
Ah, but Jesus tells us that it’s different with God. If this story is a picture of what the realm of God is like, we should take notice of what happens next: forgiveness doesn’t wait for this young man to express his sorrow. Forgiveness is out in the road, waiting for him: But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.
The son tries to make his speech, but his father is way ahead of him: But the father said to his servants, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!”
Was the father peering down that road every day, hoping against hope to see his son return? Did he even care if the boy was sorry, or did he only want to be reunited with his beloved? Does God really love us that much?
Jesus said “yes.” Jesus showed us “yes,” just how much God loves us. Jesus left Home and came into our road to wait for us. We don’t even have to get home – Home comes to us, with royal robes and sandals for our tired feet. This is one “I’m sorry” for which we don’t have to doubt the reception. We only need to turn ourselves toward home.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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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