You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
“Apart from me, you can do nothing.”
Context is everything. In some instances, these words could sound insufferably egomaniacal, pompous, even abusive. Spoken by Jesus, to his closest followers, shortly before he takes leave of them forever? They sound like loving truth about where the power for ministry comes from. “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”
If we’re talking vines and branches, it’s clear: the branch cannot generate fruit if it is cut off from the vine. And a branch cut off from the vine, whether by pruning shears or by withering, is good for nothing. But what about when we’re talking people? Disciples? Can there be no good done in the world without its doers being connected to Jesus?
This passage does not address that question. Jesus is talking here to insiders, believers, disciples. He has been training them in the ways of that realm he called the Kingdom of God, equipping them to participate in God’s mission to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness. THAT fruit, he says, is not possible apart from him. There might be many holy people, makers of peace, bringers of justice who have no discernible connection to God in Jesus Christ. But ministers of the Good News? We need to be connected to the Vine.
What kind of nutrients come through a vine to its branches and ultimately the fruit they bear? There are sugars and enzymes needed for growth, for warding off diseases, for the formation of fruit. As the vine harnesses nutrients from its roots in the soil and the water it receives, and chemicals catalyzed by the sunshine, it passes along to the branches what they need to be as whole and life-giving as possible. And the only way the branch gets what it needs to be fruitful is through staying connected to the vine.
Let’s transfer the metaphor to us. Jesus says he is the Vine, we are the branches. He is rooted in the long tradition of God's activity since before time began. He is himself the source of Living Water. He is glorified in the light of God; indeed, he is the Light of the World. Through our connection to him – united with him in baptism, renewed in him in prayer, eucharist and mission– we receive everything we need to exercise ministries of transformation.
And how do we stay connected? By spending time with him in prayer; by gathering with other branches regularly; through the Word, the sacraments; through the exercise of ministry in his Name – which means letting his Spirit work amazing things through us. We can feel the difference between doing good work on our own strength, and how it feels when we're running on Holy Spirit wind. When we allow ourselves to be filled and "loved through," those nutrients come through to us from the Vine.
Branches are not responsible for the fruit they bear. We just need to be as connected as possible, and if the vine is healthy, the fruit will grow. Our Vine is Jesus – we can trust there will be wonderful fruit as we are faithful. Here endeth the metaphor!
© 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.
4-25-24 - Fruitful
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.A few years ago, inspired by a neighbor’s lovely pineapple plant, I planted the top of a pineapple. It grew, and I managed to keep it alive for several years, and then last fall brought it into my office, which gets abundant sunshine. It thrived… and this winter I happened to look down one day and was amazed to see a teeny-tiny pineapple growing on it! Fruit! Fruit is one of God's greatest gifts. And, according to Jesus, fruitfulness is the one criterion for success as a follower of Christ: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing... My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.” And later in this long teaching, he adds, “You did not choose me. I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. ”(John 15:16).
What does it mean to be fruitful? It goes deeper than simply being productive. Productivity involves generating outcomes and measurable results, things you can tick off a task list. Fruitfulness obviously includes a product – the fruit – but fruit develops in different ways on varying timetables. And we don’t “produce” fruit – we grow it. Or we allow it to grow; we can't make it grow. We can only create the right circumstances for it to grow. And we can't hurry it along. (Somebody tell tomato growers that...).
I love productivity – especially if I have produced things I can see: articles, songs, sermons, newsletters, gardens, a clean floor. On a day with many pastoral appointments and meetings, I sometimes have trouble feeling I’ve “done” anything, because I can’t see or measure the outcomes – but those are deeply fruitful days. Jesus invites me to value fruitfulness even more than productivity.
How can we assess fruitfulness? We look for changed lives. When we see people changing, healing, growing, turning God-ward, we are seeing good fruit. When we bring justice or peace or reconciliation to a community, we are seeing good fruit. When we experience greater joy and more love in our lives, we are seeing good fruit.
Where in your life do you feel the most fruitful? What branches seem barren, producing little? What fruit do you feel is still forming in your life?
Does it have the water, sun and nutrients it needs? How might you foster greater growth?
What fruit do you see, and would like to see in your community of faith? How might you help cultivate greater fruitfulness, more changed lives? Fruit forms well as it is attached to the plant that nourishes it. Our fruitfulness in life, and as followers of Christ, flourishes as we allow God’s Spirit to flow through us, to form and ripen us and our ideas, to bring us to the fullness of who we are intended to be. Then we bring delight to others, just like a luscious peach or a perfect pineapple!
© 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.
What does it mean to be fruitful? It goes deeper than simply being productive. Productivity involves generating outcomes and measurable results, things you can tick off a task list. Fruitfulness obviously includes a product – the fruit – but fruit develops in different ways on varying timetables. And we don’t “produce” fruit – we grow it. Or we allow it to grow; we can't make it grow. We can only create the right circumstances for it to grow. And we can't hurry it along. (Somebody tell tomato growers that...).
I love productivity – especially if I have produced things I can see: articles, songs, sermons, newsletters, gardens, a clean floor. On a day with many pastoral appointments and meetings, I sometimes have trouble feeling I’ve “done” anything, because I can’t see or measure the outcomes – but those are deeply fruitful days. Jesus invites me to value fruitfulness even more than productivity.
How can we assess fruitfulness? We look for changed lives. When we see people changing, healing, growing, turning God-ward, we are seeing good fruit. When we bring justice or peace or reconciliation to a community, we are seeing good fruit. When we experience greater joy and more love in our lives, we are seeing good fruit.
Where in your life do you feel the most fruitful? What branches seem barren, producing little? What fruit do you feel is still forming in your life?
Does it have the water, sun and nutrients it needs? How might you foster greater growth?
What fruit do you see, and would like to see in your community of faith? How might you help cultivate greater fruitfulness, more changed lives? Fruit forms well as it is attached to the plant that nourishes it. Our fruitfulness in life, and as followers of Christ, flourishes as we allow God’s Spirit to flow through us, to form and ripen us and our ideas, to bring us to the fullness of who we are intended to be. Then we bring delight to others, just like a luscious peach or a perfect pineapple!
© 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.4-23-24 - Pruning
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
I was given a rose bush six years ago which blooms frequently and has done better than expected, given that I just plunked it in the ground. But I don’t know the first thing about if, how or when to prune it to make it healthier. Pruning is a painful process. No one wants to cut into living things, or beautiful ones, though a gardener or farmer – or surgeon – will do so in order to allow a plant to become as healthy and fruitful as possible.
Jesus said that even God is in the pruning business: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”
Jesus talks both about the cutting away of non-fruitful branches, and the cutting back of fruitful ones. Nothing seems to be exempt from the pruning shears.
We prune to conserve resources so that the fruitful parts receive maximum nutrients. The same is true in our lives – and churches. Too many branches dissipate the focus and energy available to each one. Not every part bears good fruit. Some used to, and are now past the point of producing. We must undertake pruning processes, or allow God to work them within us.
Are there aspects to your life or work or relationships that no longer feel fruitful? Patterns of thinking or behaving or relating that are not life-giving? Make a list today of “branches” you might be willing to cut away, leave behind entirely.
As you read through that list, where do you feel the greatest sense of loss or failure? Where the most relief?
Pray through it with Jesus and/or discuss it with a spiritual adviser or friend. Then act on what you've discerned.
What areas of your life, work or relationships feel fruitful? Are there ways you can prune or refine your involvement in them to allow for even more growth?
There’s an old adage that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” I suggest the same is true of an “unpruned life.” It resembles an overgrown garden – hard to move around in, lacking in differentiation and clarity, with healthy growth often impeded by weeds and undergrowth. Undergrowth! There’s a great term. That which is overgrown becomes undergrowth. If we want to see growth in our lives and our spirits, not to mention our ministries, bring on the pruning.
© 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.
I was given a rose bush six years ago which blooms frequently and has done better than expected, given that I just plunked it in the ground. But I don’t know the first thing about if, how or when to prune it to make it healthier. Pruning is a painful process. No one wants to cut into living things, or beautiful ones, though a gardener or farmer – or surgeon – will do so in order to allow a plant to become as healthy and fruitful as possible.
Jesus said that even God is in the pruning business: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”
Jesus talks both about the cutting away of non-fruitful branches, and the cutting back of fruitful ones. Nothing seems to be exempt from the pruning shears.
We prune to conserve resources so that the fruitful parts receive maximum nutrients. The same is true in our lives – and churches. Too many branches dissipate the focus and energy available to each one. Not every part bears good fruit. Some used to, and are now past the point of producing. We must undertake pruning processes, or allow God to work them within us.
Are there aspects to your life or work or relationships that no longer feel fruitful? Patterns of thinking or behaving or relating that are not life-giving? Make a list today of “branches” you might be willing to cut away, leave behind entirely.
As you read through that list, where do you feel the greatest sense of loss or failure? Where the most relief?
Pray through it with Jesus and/or discuss it with a spiritual adviser or friend. Then act on what you've discerned.
What areas of your life, work or relationships feel fruitful? Are there ways you can prune or refine your involvement in them to allow for even more growth?
There’s an old adage that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” I suggest the same is true of an “unpruned life.” It resembles an overgrown garden – hard to move around in, lacking in differentiation and clarity, with healthy growth often impeded by weeds and undergrowth. Undergrowth! There’s a great term. That which is overgrown becomes undergrowth. If we want to see growth in our lives and our spirits, not to mention our ministries, bring on the pruning.
© 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.
4-24-24 - Abiding
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
“Abide” is not a word we use these days the way it is used in the Bible. Which is a pity – it’s a good word, much richer than its nearest contemporary equivalent, “hang out with.”
A Google search reminded me that we do use the word – in the sense of something we comply with, or barely tolerate (“I will abide by the ruling”; “I can’t abide eggplant.”) But the meaning in this week’s gospel passage is nothing like that. It means to dwell with over time. Abiding suggests resting with deeply, not rushing away. Oh! Maybe that’s why we don’t use it these days – we do so much rushing, so little “resting with deeply,” “ staying quietly with.”
Jesus used the term that our forebears translated as “abide” quite a bit, especially in these farewell remarks captured in John’s Gospel. He uses it as a verb and as an imperative: “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches.”
This image conveys an even stronger notion of connectedness. To abide as a grape abides in the vine suggests that it both comes from and is connected with the vine, so connected it would take some force to part one from the other. This is not to undermine distinction and independence. It is a connection intended for greater fruitfulness: “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”
How do we abide with Jesus and let him abide in us? We hang out with him in prayer and conversation and praise and worship. We recover our awareness of how we are connected to him, despite the efforts of the world and its messages and the pressures of our lives to shake us loose. It is easy to feel disconnected from God except in those times when we consciously return. How would it be to carry that felt connection around with us daily?
That can happen as we live into the second part – letting Jesus abide in us. We are promised that Jesus lives in us through baptism, a connection that is renewed at eucharist, through the Word, through prayer and ministry. So one way we abide with him and he in us is to make more space for him. Don’t toss him in a back room, stopping by to visit only when you’re feeling sad or stressed. Give him a seat at the table, when you’re doing dishes, paying bills, going to sleep. Don’t relegate him to a few moments here and there; make some time to nurture your connection.
Some monastics have practiced a form of constant prayer called “hesychasm,” the prayer of the heart, which trains one to pray with each breath, in and out, so that practitioners pray without ceasing. Whether we adopt that practice, or set alerts on our phones, or set aside times and places to rest deeply with Jesus, he promises us a more fruitful life through that connection. And we can be sure HE is abiding with us, even when we’re rushing off somewhere that feels more important.
© 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.
“Abide” is not a word we use these days the way it is used in the Bible. Which is a pity – it’s a good word, much richer than its nearest contemporary equivalent, “hang out with.”
A Google search reminded me that we do use the word – in the sense of something we comply with, or barely tolerate (“I will abide by the ruling”; “I can’t abide eggplant.”) But the meaning in this week’s gospel passage is nothing like that. It means to dwell with over time. Abiding suggests resting with deeply, not rushing away. Oh! Maybe that’s why we don’t use it these days – we do so much rushing, so little “resting with deeply,” “ staying quietly with.”
Jesus used the term that our forebears translated as “abide” quite a bit, especially in these farewell remarks captured in John’s Gospel. He uses it as a verb and as an imperative: “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches.”
This image conveys an even stronger notion of connectedness. To abide as a grape abides in the vine suggests that it both comes from and is connected with the vine, so connected it would take some force to part one from the other. This is not to undermine distinction and independence. It is a connection intended for greater fruitfulness: “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”
How do we abide with Jesus and let him abide in us? We hang out with him in prayer and conversation and praise and worship. We recover our awareness of how we are connected to him, despite the efforts of the world and its messages and the pressures of our lives to shake us loose. It is easy to feel disconnected from God except in those times when we consciously return. How would it be to carry that felt connection around with us daily?
That can happen as we live into the second part – letting Jesus abide in us. We are promised that Jesus lives in us through baptism, a connection that is renewed at eucharist, through the Word, through prayer and ministry. So one way we abide with him and he in us is to make more space for him. Don’t toss him in a back room, stopping by to visit only when you’re feeling sad or stressed. Give him a seat at the table, when you’re doing dishes, paying bills, going to sleep. Don’t relegate him to a few moments here and there; make some time to nurture your connection.
Some monastics have practiced a form of constant prayer called “hesychasm,” the prayer of the heart, which trains one to pray with each breath, in and out, so that practitioners pray without ceasing. Whether we adopt that practice, or set alerts on our phones, or set aside times and places to rest deeply with Jesus, he promises us a more fruitful life through that connection. And we can be sure HE is abiding with us, even when we’re rushing off somewhere that feels more important.
© 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.
4-22-24 - The Looong Goodbye
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
If John’s Gospel is a reliable historical record (a question over which scholars have spilled much ink…), the Last Supper would have lasted a Long Time. As John tells it, after the drama and rituals of washing feet, breaking bread and sharing wine, Jesus delivers himself of many Last Words. This discourse, filling chapters 14-18 of the Fourth Gospel, is dense, elliptical, sometimes repetitive - and full of nuggets of teaching that theologians would later mine in developing core church doctrines like the Trinity, Incarnation, the Holy Spirit, Heaven.
These words are not a transcript. At best, they are a compilation of memories and themes, filtered through several witnesses some 40-60 years after the events being described, and in conversation with movements and controversies in the early church. Yet I choose to believe Jesus said much of what is set down here, if not in these exact words, sequence, or necessarily on that occasion. At some point Jesus spoke to his followers about vines and branches and abiding in God. And these words still resonate for us: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”
Jesus is about to take his leave of these beloved and frustrating disciples. He has said he is going to a place they cannot follow, but know the way to. It’s a good time to talk about pruning and fruitfulness, as he is about to become the branch cut away, despite the manifold fruit he had borne in just three years, the fruit of thousands of lives renewed, loves restored, sins forgiven and infirmity healed.
But Jesus is not referring to himself in this moment. He is the true vine, he says, and God will remove every branch in him that bears no fruit. That means the branches to which Jesus has given life. That means his apostles. And that means us.
This week’s Gospel passage is not long, but it is ripe with metaphor and meaning. Using the image of a vine and its branches, Jesus talks about how we are connected, honed, and nurtured, and how to stay fruitful as servants of God, friends of God. Exploring this passage offers opportunity for spiritual inventory. Today let’s start by thinking about ourselves as branches connected to that True Vine.
How connected do we feel? How fruitful do we feel we are? How much in the way of nutrients is making its way to us?
Jesus needed to be sure his closest followers understood some things before the harrowing ordeals ahead, while he was still with them in flesh. Hence the Long Goodbye. But for us, these words are a Big Hello, for our fruitfulness is ever before us. Let's receive them as such and greet the exploration ahead.
© 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.
If John’s Gospel is a reliable historical record (a question over which scholars have spilled much ink…), the Last Supper would have lasted a Long Time. As John tells it, after the drama and rituals of washing feet, breaking bread and sharing wine, Jesus delivers himself of many Last Words. This discourse, filling chapters 14-18 of the Fourth Gospel, is dense, elliptical, sometimes repetitive - and full of nuggets of teaching that theologians would later mine in developing core church doctrines like the Trinity, Incarnation, the Holy Spirit, Heaven.
These words are not a transcript. At best, they are a compilation of memories and themes, filtered through several witnesses some 40-60 years after the events being described, and in conversation with movements and controversies in the early church. Yet I choose to believe Jesus said much of what is set down here, if not in these exact words, sequence, or necessarily on that occasion. At some point Jesus spoke to his followers about vines and branches and abiding in God. And these words still resonate for us: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”
Jesus is about to take his leave of these beloved and frustrating disciples. He has said he is going to a place they cannot follow, but know the way to. It’s a good time to talk about pruning and fruitfulness, as he is about to become the branch cut away, despite the manifold fruit he had borne in just three years, the fruit of thousands of lives renewed, loves restored, sins forgiven and infirmity healed.
But Jesus is not referring to himself in this moment. He is the true vine, he says, and God will remove every branch in him that bears no fruit. That means the branches to which Jesus has given life. That means his apostles. And that means us.
This week’s Gospel passage is not long, but it is ripe with metaphor and meaning. Using the image of a vine and its branches, Jesus talks about how we are connected, honed, and nurtured, and how to stay fruitful as servants of God, friends of God. Exploring this passage offers opportunity for spiritual inventory. Today let’s start by thinking about ourselves as branches connected to that True Vine.
How connected do we feel? How fruitful do we feel we are? How much in the way of nutrients is making its way to us?
Jesus needed to be sure his closest followers understood some things before the harrowing ordeals ahead, while he was still with them in flesh. Hence the Long Goodbye. But for us, these words are a Big Hello, for our fruitfulness is ever before us. Let's receive them as such and greet the exploration ahead.
© 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.
4-19-24 - Freely Offered
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
We are doing the “Being With” course at my churches this Lent and Eastertide. Being With is a 10-week exploration of Christian faith and practice, meeting weekly with a talk and discussion. This past week the topic was the Cross, which gets to the heart of what Jesus’ crucifixion meant and means for us. There are many ways of interpreting this event, depending on which of the four canonical gospels you’re reading and where you sit on the theological spectrum.
There are also no answers to so deep and unsettling a mystery. Did humans operating out of sin and evil kill Jesus? Did God have his own son killed? Was Jesus’ death due to politics, paranoia, personal feuds? Could it have been prevented? Was it simply the inevitable consequence of human choice, or a divine plan?
Perhaps a combination of all of these. Jesus predicted his arrest, death and resurrection often enough that it seems to have been a plan he was enacting. Yet that plan required human beings to make choices that could have gone in other ways. And any notion that Jesus was a passive victim of either human or divine operation is contested by these words attributed to Jesus as he talks about being the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep: “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”
Laying things down, things that we call life, is a constant effort in the life of a Christ-follower. Jesus demonstrated a self-giving love that offered everything, including his life, including separation – if even for a moment – from his Father and the Spirit. Where are we called to sacrifice our comfort or convenience or resources so someone else might have more room to live?
Like many Americans, I am more often in conversations these days about racial reckoning and reconciliation. I’ve heard someone say it’s not enough for those of us born into privilege to say we’re sorry for the historic and current injustice that limits access to the wealth and security we enjoy; we may actually need to get up and out of the chair, to make space for someone who hasn’t had our advantages. That’s a way of laying down of our lives at a high level. There are also smaller scale choices we can make – to lay down our insistence on being right, or knowing better, or having more. What comes to mind for you?
It is our privilege to make a choice to yield our privilege. Like Jesus, we have power to lay down our lives and to take them up again. In fact, when we lay them down, we truly find a richer life to take up. As we lay down those things to which we cling so tightly, we make room for God’s life to expand in us. As we give our life away, we find ourselves living that abundant life Jesus promised.
© 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 are doing the “Being With” course at my churches this Lent and Eastertide. Being With is a 10-week exploration of Christian faith and practice, meeting weekly with a talk and discussion. This past week the topic was the Cross, which gets to the heart of what Jesus’ crucifixion meant and means for us. There are many ways of interpreting this event, depending on which of the four canonical gospels you’re reading and where you sit on the theological spectrum.
There are also no answers to so deep and unsettling a mystery. Did humans operating out of sin and evil kill Jesus? Did God have his own son killed? Was Jesus’ death due to politics, paranoia, personal feuds? Could it have been prevented? Was it simply the inevitable consequence of human choice, or a divine plan?
Perhaps a combination of all of these. Jesus predicted his arrest, death and resurrection often enough that it seems to have been a plan he was enacting. Yet that plan required human beings to make choices that could have gone in other ways. And any notion that Jesus was a passive victim of either human or divine operation is contested by these words attributed to Jesus as he talks about being the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep: “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”
Laying things down, things that we call life, is a constant effort in the life of a Christ-follower. Jesus demonstrated a self-giving love that offered everything, including his life, including separation – if even for a moment – from his Father and the Spirit. Where are we called to sacrifice our comfort or convenience or resources so someone else might have more room to live?
Like many Americans, I am more often in conversations these days about racial reckoning and reconciliation. I’ve heard someone say it’s not enough for those of us born into privilege to say we’re sorry for the historic and current injustice that limits access to the wealth and security we enjoy; we may actually need to get up and out of the chair, to make space for someone who hasn’t had our advantages. That’s a way of laying down of our lives at a high level. There are also smaller scale choices we can make – to lay down our insistence on being right, or knowing better, or having more. What comes to mind for you?
It is our privilege to make a choice to yield our privilege. Like Jesus, we have power to lay down our lives and to take them up again. In fact, when we lay them down, we truly find a richer life to take up. As we lay down those things to which we cling so tightly, we make room for God’s life to expand in us. As we give our life away, we find ourselves living that abundant life Jesus promised.
© 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.
4-18-24 - Other Sheep
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Many sayings of Jesus have inspired Christian evangelism through the ages – the Great Commission, for one, or references in parables to an eternity in hellfire for those who do not accept God's invitation of salvation. One of the sweeter imperatives to sharing the Good News comes in his somewhat cryptic remark about “other sheep”: I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
In its early years, the nascent church struggled with issues of inclusion and identity. For whom was Jesus’ message intended? How far were they to stretch the boundaries of belonging? Jesus’ original followers were Jews, and a few times he names the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” as the focus of his mission. Yet the gospels record several occasions when he ministered to Gentiles – non-Jews, Romans and Greeks, Samaritans and even a Syro-Phoenician family. And after his resurrection and ascension, the apostles found themselves confronted with Gentile converts to the Jesus movement, and clear guidance from the Holy Spirit that Jesus’ message and ministry were for all people, for all time. (Read the book of Acts!)
This line about “other sheep that do not belong to this fold” seems to support that view, though Jesus might also have meant people outside the norms of acceptability, those lepers and harlots and bruised and blemished folk that seemed so drawn to him. Whatever groups he was referring to, at the very least he implies that there are insiders and outsiders – and that those outside need to be invited in.
One of the most dangerous descriptors for church communities is, ironically, “family.” A congregation that refers to itself as “just one happy family” is often less likely to grow. Why? Because the group identity is so strong it presents a barrier to those who might want to join. Visitors may be greeted warmly and offered hospitality, but are treated as just that, visitors, not part of the family.
As followers of Christ we are to be always thinking of the sheep that are not in the fold, whom Jesus might want us to invite in. And where will we be most apt to encounter these sheep? Out in the pastures, not in the sheepfold. The more we get ourselves out of our folds into the pastures, the better positioned we will be to come into relationship with others, relationships in which we can naturally talk about our spiritual selves and invite them to share theirs.
What is a "pasture" you might hang out in, getting to know other sheep? How might you introduce them to our Shepherd, until they can come to know his voice for themselves? Then the next time we come back to the sheepfold – which we need to do, regularly, for rest and refreshment – some of those other sheep just might follow us Home.
© 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.
Many sayings of Jesus have inspired Christian evangelism through the ages – the Great Commission, for one, or references in parables to an eternity in hellfire for those who do not accept God's invitation of salvation. One of the sweeter imperatives to sharing the Good News comes in his somewhat cryptic remark about “other sheep”: I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
In its early years, the nascent church struggled with issues of inclusion and identity. For whom was Jesus’ message intended? How far were they to stretch the boundaries of belonging? Jesus’ original followers were Jews, and a few times he names the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” as the focus of his mission. Yet the gospels record several occasions when he ministered to Gentiles – non-Jews, Romans and Greeks, Samaritans and even a Syro-Phoenician family. And after his resurrection and ascension, the apostles found themselves confronted with Gentile converts to the Jesus movement, and clear guidance from the Holy Spirit that Jesus’ message and ministry were for all people, for all time. (Read the book of Acts!)
This line about “other sheep that do not belong to this fold” seems to support that view, though Jesus might also have meant people outside the norms of acceptability, those lepers and harlots and bruised and blemished folk that seemed so drawn to him. Whatever groups he was referring to, at the very least he implies that there are insiders and outsiders – and that those outside need to be invited in.
One of the most dangerous descriptors for church communities is, ironically, “family.” A congregation that refers to itself as “just one happy family” is often less likely to grow. Why? Because the group identity is so strong it presents a barrier to those who might want to join. Visitors may be greeted warmly and offered hospitality, but are treated as just that, visitors, not part of the family.
As followers of Christ we are to be always thinking of the sheep that are not in the fold, whom Jesus might want us to invite in. And where will we be most apt to encounter these sheep? Out in the pastures, not in the sheepfold. The more we get ourselves out of our folds into the pastures, the better positioned we will be to come into relationship with others, relationships in which we can naturally talk about our spiritual selves and invite them to share theirs.
What is a "pasture" you might hang out in, getting to know other sheep? How might you introduce them to our Shepherd, until they can come to know his voice for themselves? Then the next time we come back to the sheepfold – which we need to do, regularly, for rest and refreshment – some of those other sheep just might follow us Home.
© 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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