You can listen to this reflection here.
At week’s end, let’s look at the epistle reading appointed for Sunday, from Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus. There may be more than one letter contained in this document, as this section from the end of chapter 3 is a clear sign-off. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 start new threads. This “sign-off” is a beautiful, doxological prayer from the heart for Paul’s listeners – and, I think, for all those who would be followers of Christ. So let’s hear these words as if addressed to us: "I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name."
Paul begins as all prayers should, acknowledging the One to whom the prayer is made, the One who often has inspired the prayer in the first place. This naming of God, Father, Source roots us in the relationship of which our prayer is an expression. Then Paul asks of that Source specific gifts for his beloveds: "I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love."
How wonderful to think of being strengthened on the inside, that Christ might dwell in our hearts as we are rooted and grounded in love. Let’s stay with that for a moment – if Christ dwells in our hearts, we are rooted and grounded in love. Not rooted in condemnation or grounded in anxiety – rooted and grounded in love. Wow. Christ does dwell in us, by virtue of God’s promise to us in baptism, activated by our faith – so love is our foundation. Think about starting each day with that knowledge.
Paul knows how hard it is to hold that knowledge and live in it, so next he prays that his listeners – and all the saints, including us – may have the ability to grasp the full extent of that love: "I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."
“To know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.” Our minds alone cannot know the fullness of God’s love; our minds are too small to contain such a mystery. We need to know it in our bodies, in our senses, in our spirits, in the beauty and intricacy and grandeur that surrounds us in this world. And we really only begin to grasp the extent of that love in community with others trying to know it. I daresay only in community can we be filled with the fullness of God.
So Paul ends with this doxology, recognizing that we are entirely reliant upon the power of God to know and to act out of the fullness of that love: "Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen."
God’s power – the power that made the heavens and the galaxies and the complexity of each cell – is at work in each of us. That power, not our own, enables us to accomplish things far beyond the realm of the possible, even more than we can imagine.
Only one thing is up to us, really: to invite and release that power, to believe that God can accomplish abundantly more than we can ask or imagine. If we just leave it sitting inside, nothing in this world will change. But if we let it out – look out! Love can change everything.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
7-25-24 - Master of Molecules
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
It can be hard to fathom the pressure Jesus was under, from his celebrity, notoriety, people’s expectations. After the miracle of the loaves and fish, the stakes got even higher: When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
As people began to grasp Jesus’ messiah-ship, the danger intensified. There were divergent views about who the messiah would be and why he would come. In times of war and hardship, messianic hopes became conflated with dreams of military victory, a restoration of Israel’s autonomy. Jesus could see how quickly people might make the leap from “the prophet who is to come” (i.e, Messiah) to king – and he wanted to be very sure not to get caught in that crossfire. So he went off alone to pray and recharge.
Ironically, what happened next demonstrated how much more power Jesus had than any prophet or king before or since. Needing to catch up with his disciples who’d gone ahead in the boat. Jesus simply exercised the authority he had over all of creation, molecules and all, and took a shortcut across the water: When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.”
But wait, there’s more – not only did he walk on the water; when he caught up with the boat, it immediately reached its destination: Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going. No more battling the head winds – Jesus said, “We’re going home,” and that was it. Home they were.
Jesus didn’t often circumvent the laws of nature with the laws of Spirit – but on this day, he did it many times. Last week I quoted a definition of faith: “Faith is a spiritual force that becomes a catalyst to activate spiritual laws that have authority over natural laws.” That’s what Jesus was doing, multiplying molecules of food, solidifying molecules of water, teleporting a boat to the shore. He was activating spiritual laws that have authority over natural laws.
So… can we do that? I believe we can do a lot when the faith moving through us is strong enough. The apostle Peter took a few steps on the water (in Matthew’s version of this story). Agnes Sanford, a healer, exercised faith over storms and earthquakes, and tells stories of commanding wild animals and being obeyed. Madeleine L’Engle remembers as a child routinely going down stairs without touching them. There are many stories. Yet I know that it is very, very hard for us to disconnect from all the data that says “impossible” and open ourselves to the Power for whom all things are possible. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t stroll on the waves. Today, anyway...
But I can build up my faith with prayers for healing and guidance, and the occasional rebuke of wind and weather. Our faith is a spiritual force, and like our muscles, it gets stronger as we exercise it.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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 can be hard to fathom the pressure Jesus was under, from his celebrity, notoriety, people’s expectations. After the miracle of the loaves and fish, the stakes got even higher: When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
As people began to grasp Jesus’ messiah-ship, the danger intensified. There were divergent views about who the messiah would be and why he would come. In times of war and hardship, messianic hopes became conflated with dreams of military victory, a restoration of Israel’s autonomy. Jesus could see how quickly people might make the leap from “the prophet who is to come” (i.e, Messiah) to king – and he wanted to be very sure not to get caught in that crossfire. So he went off alone to pray and recharge.
Ironically, what happened next demonstrated how much more power Jesus had than any prophet or king before or since. Needing to catch up with his disciples who’d gone ahead in the boat. Jesus simply exercised the authority he had over all of creation, molecules and all, and took a shortcut across the water: When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.”
But wait, there’s more – not only did he walk on the water; when he caught up with the boat, it immediately reached its destination: Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going. No more battling the head winds – Jesus said, “We’re going home,” and that was it. Home they were.
Jesus didn’t often circumvent the laws of nature with the laws of Spirit – but on this day, he did it many times. Last week I quoted a definition of faith: “Faith is a spiritual force that becomes a catalyst to activate spiritual laws that have authority over natural laws.” That’s what Jesus was doing, multiplying molecules of food, solidifying molecules of water, teleporting a boat to the shore. He was activating spiritual laws that have authority over natural laws.
So… can we do that? I believe we can do a lot when the faith moving through us is strong enough. The apostle Peter took a few steps on the water (in Matthew’s version of this story). Agnes Sanford, a healer, exercised faith over storms and earthquakes, and tells stories of commanding wild animals and being obeyed. Madeleine L’Engle remembers as a child routinely going down stairs without touching them. There are many stories. Yet I know that it is very, very hard for us to disconnect from all the data that says “impossible” and open ourselves to the Power for whom all things are possible. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t stroll on the waves. Today, anyway...
But I can build up my faith with prayers for healing and guidance, and the occasional rebuke of wind and weather. Our faith is a spiritual force, and like our muscles, it gets stronger as we exercise it.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
7-24-24 - More Than Enough
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
How do you feed 5,000 people with just five loaves of bread and two fish? Ask people to sit, and get started. Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.
As Luke tells the story, Jesus has people sit in groups of fifty, and the disciples distribute. It’s more manageable to feed 50 than 5,000, right? When a challenge feels overwhelming, we can break it down into pieces – much as the bread was broken. No one can eat a whole loaf without breaking it up; no one can feed a crowd without breaking it down.
Once the people were seated, they were fed. But how? There were only five loaves and two fish. As Andrew said, "But what are they among so many people?” What they were was plenty – people got as much of both bread and fish as they wanted. Jesus and his followers just kept giving them out, and there kept being enough. This story appears in all four gospels, and in no version does it say Jesus prayed and created a gigantic pile of food that was then distributed. He took what they had, blessed it and gave it out, and everyone had as much as they wanted – AND there were leftovers: When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.
Abundance is a principle of God’s realm. As Jesus demonstrated the Life of God, there was always more than enough – vats of water turned into wine, twelve baskets of food left after 5,000 people or more were fed to satisfaction. To people living under the cruel thumb of the occupying Romans, over-taxed to the point of starvation, Jesus said, “Trust in God’s way – it is the way of enough and to spare.”
We may not see abundance in every situation, but we should always expect it and look for it as we move in faith. Often we don’t experience abundance when we do not move in faith, but on our own steam. I have found that when I do expect it, I experience it more often. And when I expect “not enough,” that’s often what I find.
Many churches and people are locked into “not enough” thinking, oriented to scarcity. That’s a zero sum game that often leads us to squander the assets we’ve inherited without generating new resources, because who wants to give to an institution that sees itself as lacking? We shrink our missions budgets and pour money into aged, leaky buildings, while the world goes hungry for lack of the Bread of Life we have to share. How might we turn around, take the loaves and fishes we have, and get out there and start feeding people?
Where in your life do you experience abundance? And where does scarcity rule? How might we invite God to shift our expectations toward abundance in all areas? Sometimes that requires dealing with the losses and disappointments we’ve experienced. It takes a lot of courage to hope for more than enough. Yet I have found that when I do, that’s when the leftovers pile up.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
How do you feed 5,000 people with just five loaves of bread and two fish? Ask people to sit, and get started. Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.
As Luke tells the story, Jesus has people sit in groups of fifty, and the disciples distribute. It’s more manageable to feed 50 than 5,000, right? When a challenge feels overwhelming, we can break it down into pieces – much as the bread was broken. No one can eat a whole loaf without breaking it up; no one can feed a crowd without breaking it down.
Once the people were seated, they were fed. But how? There were only five loaves and two fish. As Andrew said, "But what are they among so many people?” What they were was plenty – people got as much of both bread and fish as they wanted. Jesus and his followers just kept giving them out, and there kept being enough. This story appears in all four gospels, and in no version does it say Jesus prayed and created a gigantic pile of food that was then distributed. He took what they had, blessed it and gave it out, and everyone had as much as they wanted – AND there were leftovers: When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.
Abundance is a principle of God’s realm. As Jesus demonstrated the Life of God, there was always more than enough – vats of water turned into wine, twelve baskets of food left after 5,000 people or more were fed to satisfaction. To people living under the cruel thumb of the occupying Romans, over-taxed to the point of starvation, Jesus said, “Trust in God’s way – it is the way of enough and to spare.”
We may not see abundance in every situation, but we should always expect it and look for it as we move in faith. Often we don’t experience abundance when we do not move in faith, but on our own steam. I have found that when I do expect it, I experience it more often. And when I expect “not enough,” that’s often what I find.
Many churches and people are locked into “not enough” thinking, oriented to scarcity. That’s a zero sum game that often leads us to squander the assets we’ve inherited without generating new resources, because who wants to give to an institution that sees itself as lacking? We shrink our missions budgets and pour money into aged, leaky buildings, while the world goes hungry for lack of the Bread of Life we have to share. How might we turn around, take the loaves and fishes we have, and get out there and start feeding people?
Where in your life do you experience abundance? And where does scarcity rule? How might we invite God to shift our expectations toward abundance in all areas? Sometimes that requires dealing with the losses and disappointments we’ve experienced. It takes a lot of courage to hope for more than enough. Yet I have found that when I do, that’s when the leftovers pile up.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
7-23-24 - Not Enough?
You can listen to this reflection here.
Jesus and his disciples have been around the Sea of Galilee, trying to get some alone time. But they keep being interrupted by crowds seeking Jesus’ healing and teaching. In this week’s passage, we find them sitting on a hill as yet another crowd approaches: Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples… When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do.
Why did Jesus feel responsible for feeding the crowd – did they look hungry? Did he want to keep them peaceful? Or is it just a set-up for the miracle about to be revealed? John implies the latter – Jesus already knows the answer, but wants to know what Philip will say. Philip has done the math: “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”
What are we to do when faced with a big need or a big challenge? Assess the cost. Jesus said that those who would follow him must “count the cost,” just as a builder setting out to erect a tower must project the expenses of materials and labor. So in ministry we need to estimate what any given mission will require. Philip does this, and concludes that the cost is greater than they could ever manage. I’ve heard more than one church leader do the same.
But assessing the cost is only one step. One also has to inventory the assets at hand. Andrew takes this step, asking around, doing some re-con: One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.” Andrew does his homework, but comes to the same conclusion as Philip: It’s not enough. "But what are they among so many people?”
For both Philip and Andrew, the size of the crowd overrides all other data. The magnitude of the need shuts down their ability to think creatively and act strategically. As another gospel tells this tale, the disciples actually suggest dismissing everybody before things get out of hand – the idea of feeding the crowd does not occur to them. It’s impossible.
What needs make you feel helpless? It may be a personal need for resources or a health challenge; it may be a national or global crisis. For me, the damage of climate change and the need to protect wildlife and wild places from the depredations of human industry and greed is the crisis about which I feel “there’s not enough.” We don’t have enough time or money or political will. How will help come, and in time?
When we only look at need and resources and make our assessments, we often forget the x factor: the power of God. Jesus knew God could feed that crowd through his disciples. He needed his followers to learn that lesson for themselves.
Today I invite you (and me) to sit with a situation that to you feels too big, too scary, too impossible. Then imagine what Jesus sees when he looks at that situation – try to see it through his eyes. Where are the resources? Where is the abundance? Where do you see God-energy at work? That's the place to go, to get our faith renewed, and start feeding.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
Jesus and his disciples have been around the Sea of Galilee, trying to get some alone time. But they keep being interrupted by crowds seeking Jesus’ healing and teaching. In this week’s passage, we find them sitting on a hill as yet another crowd approaches: Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples… When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do.
Why did Jesus feel responsible for feeding the crowd – did they look hungry? Did he want to keep them peaceful? Or is it just a set-up for the miracle about to be revealed? John implies the latter – Jesus already knows the answer, but wants to know what Philip will say. Philip has done the math: “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”
What are we to do when faced with a big need or a big challenge? Assess the cost. Jesus said that those who would follow him must “count the cost,” just as a builder setting out to erect a tower must project the expenses of materials and labor. So in ministry we need to estimate what any given mission will require. Philip does this, and concludes that the cost is greater than they could ever manage. I’ve heard more than one church leader do the same.
But assessing the cost is only one step. One also has to inventory the assets at hand. Andrew takes this step, asking around, doing some re-con: One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.” Andrew does his homework, but comes to the same conclusion as Philip: It’s not enough. "But what are they among so many people?”
For both Philip and Andrew, the size of the crowd overrides all other data. The magnitude of the need shuts down their ability to think creatively and act strategically. As another gospel tells this tale, the disciples actually suggest dismissing everybody before things get out of hand – the idea of feeding the crowd does not occur to them. It’s impossible.
What needs make you feel helpless? It may be a personal need for resources or a health challenge; it may be a national or global crisis. For me, the damage of climate change and the need to protect wildlife and wild places from the depredations of human industry and greed is the crisis about which I feel “there’s not enough.” We don’t have enough time or money or political will. How will help come, and in time?
When we only look at need and resources and make our assessments, we often forget the x factor: the power of God. Jesus knew God could feed that crowd through his disciples. He needed his followers to learn that lesson for themselves.
Today I invite you (and me) to sit with a situation that to you feels too big, too scary, too impossible. Then imagine what Jesus sees when he looks at that situation – try to see it through his eyes. Where are the resources? Where is the abundance? Where do you see God-energy at work? That's the place to go, to get our faith renewed, and start feeding.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
7-22-24 - Drawing a Crowd
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
We haven’t moved much in the past few weeks – we’re still with Jesus and his disciples as they criss-cross the Sea of Galilee, encountering one crowd after another, preaching, teaching and healing. But this week we'll see the scene from the perspective of John’s Gospel: After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick.
John begins this section, “After this…” “After what?” we ask. In the previous chapter, Jesus healed an invalid at the pool of Bethsaida, once more landing in trouble with the temple leaders. As he tries to explain his relationship with his heavenly Father, he antagonizes them further. It doesn’t help when he says things like: “But I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me.”
Throughout the Gospels, we see religious leaders mistrust Jesus. He too often challenges the status quo, and they feel their authority threatened. But ordinary people flock to him. He is enveloped in crowds wherever he goes, people even running back and forth around lakes to get to where they see his boat headed. What draws these crowds to Jesus? We’re told it’s his teaching and his healing. He did not teach the way other rabbis taught, questioning and crafting complex arguments. He described this realm he called the Kingdom of God by telling stories set in everyday scenes – farms, vineyards, kitchens, pastures, business offices. He spoke of it as a place of grace.
And he demonstrated the reality of this realm through what John calls “signs,” miracles of healing, forgiveness and restoration. Jesus was fully present, compassionate, intuitive, creative – and filled with the Spirit. If we would make our churches centers of contagious faith, we need to model those qualities, inviting Jesus to make them real in us.
There are places in the world where people do throng to hear the Gospel, to receive its teaching, to engage in enthusiastic worship and experience healing. Yet few mainline churches in the West draw crowds – some see a trickle at best. To make ourselves feel better, we say, “Who needs a crowd? Probably just full of curiosity seekers. It’s quality, not quantity that matters.” That’s all true – and just maybe God would like our churches to be full of curiosity seekers and those craving meaning and purpose and spiritual connection. Better yet, God might love to see us out of our church buildings, bringing that power and love and joy to people in the course of their daily lives.
I get so consumed with the business of running churches, I don’t even know where or how I’d go about preaching and healing outside – though the internet is an active mission field that calls to me. We don’t want to be intrusive, but we want people to know God is real and alive and present. Perhaps you’d join me in praying about the where and when and who. Where might you and your church be called to go beyond and make God known?
We don’t need to be obsessed with numbers, but neither need we fear expanding our reach. People still need the same things from Jesus they needed in his day, healing and understanding. If they know they will meet him through us, who knows – we may see throngs too.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
We haven’t moved much in the past few weeks – we’re still with Jesus and his disciples as they criss-cross the Sea of Galilee, encountering one crowd after another, preaching, teaching and healing. But this week we'll see the scene from the perspective of John’s Gospel: After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick.
John begins this section, “After this…” “After what?” we ask. In the previous chapter, Jesus healed an invalid at the pool of Bethsaida, once more landing in trouble with the temple leaders. As he tries to explain his relationship with his heavenly Father, he antagonizes them further. It doesn’t help when he says things like: “But I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me.”
Throughout the Gospels, we see religious leaders mistrust Jesus. He too often challenges the status quo, and they feel their authority threatened. But ordinary people flock to him. He is enveloped in crowds wherever he goes, people even running back and forth around lakes to get to where they see his boat headed. What draws these crowds to Jesus? We’re told it’s his teaching and his healing. He did not teach the way other rabbis taught, questioning and crafting complex arguments. He described this realm he called the Kingdom of God by telling stories set in everyday scenes – farms, vineyards, kitchens, pastures, business offices. He spoke of it as a place of grace.
And he demonstrated the reality of this realm through what John calls “signs,” miracles of healing, forgiveness and restoration. Jesus was fully present, compassionate, intuitive, creative – and filled with the Spirit. If we would make our churches centers of contagious faith, we need to model those qualities, inviting Jesus to make them real in us.
There are places in the world where people do throng to hear the Gospel, to receive its teaching, to engage in enthusiastic worship and experience healing. Yet few mainline churches in the West draw crowds – some see a trickle at best. To make ourselves feel better, we say, “Who needs a crowd? Probably just full of curiosity seekers. It’s quality, not quantity that matters.” That’s all true – and just maybe God would like our churches to be full of curiosity seekers and those craving meaning and purpose and spiritual connection. Better yet, God might love to see us out of our church buildings, bringing that power and love and joy to people in the course of their daily lives.
I get so consumed with the business of running churches, I don’t even know where or how I’d go about preaching and healing outside – though the internet is an active mission field that calls to me. We don’t want to be intrusive, but we want people to know God is real and alive and present. Perhaps you’d join me in praying about the where and when and who. Where might you and your church be called to go beyond and make God known?
We don’t need to be obsessed with numbers, but neither need we fear expanding our reach. People still need the same things from Jesus they needed in his day, healing and understanding. If they know they will meet him through us, who knows – we may see throngs too.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
7-19-24 - He Is Our Peace
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
At week's end, let’s skip to the epistle reading appointed for Sunday, from Paul’s beautiful letter to the church at Ephesus. This section discusses reconciliation between two factions of Christians who were estranged and becoming more so. Anyone concerned about the alarming divides in American Christianity will note the parallels.
The primary tension afflicting the earliest churches, according to what we read in the Book of Acts and Paul’s letters, was between those Jewish Christians who came to faith through Jesus’ Jewish disciples in Judea, and the growing number of Greek and Roman “Gentile” Christians converted through the missionary journeys of Paul and his associates. Paul tried to navigate the conflicts, getting the Jerusalem leadership to back off their demand that Gentile believers be circumcised before baptism, and encouraging the Gentile churches to give generously toward those afflicted by a famine in Judea. But tensions remained; Christ’s body has never in human history been truly one.
In this letter, Paul addresses Gentile believers tired of being considered “not quite Christians” by the Jerusalem factions. He reminds them that they were once outsiders, “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” In light of their new status, he wants them to seek reconciliation with those who would exclude them, and stay rooted in Christ. “For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.”
Can we be reconciled with Christians who seem to ignore so much that Christ did, said and taught? Who ignore his command to welcome the stranger and love the enemy; who uphold the sanctity of unborn life but dismiss the life-threatening violence and poverty afflicting so many already born; who dismiss Jesus’ command to be peacemakers and rather seek to impose their worldview on others, violently if need be? How can we be reconciled in Christ if some don’t seem to worship the same Lord we meet in the New Testament? Here’s a place to start: So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.
We all have access to the Father in the Spirit, and so we all have the same access to the truth. What each does with it remains a matter of choice, and it is up to God to reveal and to judge. We are called to bear witness to the truth we encounter in the Gospels, and the Truth we have met in the living person of Jesus Christ. The answer is draw near to Christ, if not to all those who claim to follow him.
Paul ends with this stirring reminder: So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.
If we make it our intention to base our life in faith on Christ Jesus himself; if we make it our desire to grow together spiritually into a place where God can be known on earth, a temple, a dwelling place; we will have a firm foundation on which to stand in relationship to those who seem to distort Christianity We can disagree without condemning, remembering the thousands around us who are thirsty for God, and rightly repelled by our conflicts. Let's get busy introducing them to Jesus, our peace.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
At week's end, let’s skip to the epistle reading appointed for Sunday, from Paul’s beautiful letter to the church at Ephesus. This section discusses reconciliation between two factions of Christians who were estranged and becoming more so. Anyone concerned about the alarming divides in American Christianity will note the parallels.
The primary tension afflicting the earliest churches, according to what we read in the Book of Acts and Paul’s letters, was between those Jewish Christians who came to faith through Jesus’ Jewish disciples in Judea, and the growing number of Greek and Roman “Gentile” Christians converted through the missionary journeys of Paul and his associates. Paul tried to navigate the conflicts, getting the Jerusalem leadership to back off their demand that Gentile believers be circumcised before baptism, and encouraging the Gentile churches to give generously toward those afflicted by a famine in Judea. But tensions remained; Christ’s body has never in human history been truly one.
In this letter, Paul addresses Gentile believers tired of being considered “not quite Christians” by the Jerusalem factions. He reminds them that they were once outsiders, “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” In light of their new status, he wants them to seek reconciliation with those who would exclude them, and stay rooted in Christ. “For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.”
Can we be reconciled with Christians who seem to ignore so much that Christ did, said and taught? Who ignore his command to welcome the stranger and love the enemy; who uphold the sanctity of unborn life but dismiss the life-threatening violence and poverty afflicting so many already born; who dismiss Jesus’ command to be peacemakers and rather seek to impose their worldview on others, violently if need be? How can we be reconciled in Christ if some don’t seem to worship the same Lord we meet in the New Testament? Here’s a place to start: So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.
We all have access to the Father in the Spirit, and so we all have the same access to the truth. What each does with it remains a matter of choice, and it is up to God to reveal and to judge. We are called to bear witness to the truth we encounter in the Gospels, and the Truth we have met in the living person of Jesus Christ. The answer is draw near to Christ, if not to all those who claim to follow him.
Paul ends with this stirring reminder: So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.
If we make it our intention to base our life in faith on Christ Jesus himself; if we make it our desire to grow together spiritually into a place where God can be known on earth, a temple, a dwelling place; we will have a firm foundation on which to stand in relationship to those who seem to distort Christianity We can disagree without condemning, remembering the thousands around us who are thirsty for God, and rightly repelled by our conflicts. Let's get busy introducing them to Jesus, our peace.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
7-18-24 - Even the Fringe
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
We end this action-packed chapter of Mark’s gospel with the camera pulling back to a wide angle; after these very specific stories about Jesus’ ministry, we get an overview: And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.
All who touched it were healed. All who touched even the fringe of Jesus’ cloak were healed. No wonder some healing ministries mail out pre-blessed “healing” handkerchiefs and bits of cloth to people who’ve sent a donation. And maybe I shouldn’t be snarky – if we encounter God in the form of energy, perhaps that divine power lingers in cloth or the walls of holy places. Or is it rather the faith of the people who believe the cloth will heal them that results in healing? Time and again, Jesus told people, “Your faith has healed you.” Is that a "placebo effect?"
Well, as my friend Peter says, "If we knew how, everybody would be doing it." We would actively invite God’s healing stream into people. And most Christians do not do that. Why? Perhaps because we have not seen “all healed.” We’ve seen one or two healed, on occasion, and we allow the weight of all those "not healed" to overwhelm us.
I don’t know why so many people in our world get sick and die without any visible healing – but I do know that our prayers need to be part of the equation. God could just go ahead without us, yet the record of scripture and humanity’s history with God suggests that God has chosen to work through us. And if we don’t allow God to work through us… healing often does not occur. On rare occasions, God’s will might be for something other than healing, but over all the reign of God leans toward life and more life.
Jesus said healing is a manifestation of God’s Good News. Why would we leave one of the most central Gospel tools unused? God’s desire for us is not illness or trial, but that we be whole and beloved and available to share God’s love with the world. We can pray anywhere and everywhere, anytime someone tells us they are struggling with infirmity, be it physical, mental or spiritual. We can invite the healing stream of God’s life already in us by virtue of our baptism to be released into every situation.
And we can help people become aware of the obstacles to that healing flow – obstacles like self-loathing, or a conviction that healing is not possible, or a deep-seated resentment, or unhealed trauma. We can help shine the light of the Spirit into those dark corners so our friends become more receptive to the power of God at work in them.
I once heard an interesting definition of faith: “Faith is a spiritual force that becomes a catalyst to activate spiritual laws that have authority over natural laws.” If chapter 6 of Mark’s Gospel teaches anything, it is that Jesus demonstrated amazing authority over natural laws – food, water, diseased cells. As he and others exercised faith, people experienced healing and deliverance.
Jesus still has that authority. He is still coming through the villages, towns and marketplaces – but now through us. Let's make ourselves available as conduits of that healing stream. We are now the fringe of Jesus’ cloak.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
We end this action-packed chapter of Mark’s gospel with the camera pulling back to a wide angle; after these very specific stories about Jesus’ ministry, we get an overview: And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.
All who touched it were healed. All who touched even the fringe of Jesus’ cloak were healed. No wonder some healing ministries mail out pre-blessed “healing” handkerchiefs and bits of cloth to people who’ve sent a donation. And maybe I shouldn’t be snarky – if we encounter God in the form of energy, perhaps that divine power lingers in cloth or the walls of holy places. Or is it rather the faith of the people who believe the cloth will heal them that results in healing? Time and again, Jesus told people, “Your faith has healed you.” Is that a "placebo effect?"
Well, as my friend Peter says, "If we knew how, everybody would be doing it." We would actively invite God’s healing stream into people. And most Christians do not do that. Why? Perhaps because we have not seen “all healed.” We’ve seen one or two healed, on occasion, and we allow the weight of all those "not healed" to overwhelm us.
I don’t know why so many people in our world get sick and die without any visible healing – but I do know that our prayers need to be part of the equation. God could just go ahead without us, yet the record of scripture and humanity’s history with God suggests that God has chosen to work through us. And if we don’t allow God to work through us… healing often does not occur. On rare occasions, God’s will might be for something other than healing, but over all the reign of God leans toward life and more life.
Jesus said healing is a manifestation of God’s Good News. Why would we leave one of the most central Gospel tools unused? God’s desire for us is not illness or trial, but that we be whole and beloved and available to share God’s love with the world. We can pray anywhere and everywhere, anytime someone tells us they are struggling with infirmity, be it physical, mental or spiritual. We can invite the healing stream of God’s life already in us by virtue of our baptism to be released into every situation.
And we can help people become aware of the obstacles to that healing flow – obstacles like self-loathing, or a conviction that healing is not possible, or a deep-seated resentment, or unhealed trauma. We can help shine the light of the Spirit into those dark corners so our friends become more receptive to the power of God at work in them.
I once heard an interesting definition of faith: “Faith is a spiritual force that becomes a catalyst to activate spiritual laws that have authority over natural laws.” If chapter 6 of Mark’s Gospel teaches anything, it is that Jesus demonstrated amazing authority over natural laws – food, water, diseased cells. As he and others exercised faith, people experienced healing and deliverance.
Jesus still has that authority. He is still coming through the villages, towns and marketplaces – but now through us. Let's make ourselves available as conduits of that healing stream. We are now the fringe of Jesus’ cloak.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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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