You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
I still remember the evening in my twenties, at a Wednesday eucharist in New York City, when I realized that I would never be happy – and maybe not able to truly love another – until I learned to love myself. I’m still working on it.
Some people have a hard time with the notion of loving self. There is a self-suppressing strain in Western culture, and the Christian church does not always present Jesus’ teachings about self-denial in a very wholesome way. We can equate loving self with selfishness, self-centeredness, self-involvement. And yet, right here at the center of Jesus' greatest commandment, is an order to love ourselves as we love our neighbors. Loving ourselves well is true humility.
If this is no challenge for you, great; you have a wonderful gift of grace and equilibrium to share with the world. If loving yourself does not come naturally, here are some ideas to help move into this way of living. First, see yourself as a child of God, created in love, for love. If you ask the Spirit to give you a glimpse of how God sees you, you may have a revelation of your belovedness. If you want a scriptural reminder of how chosen and precious you are to God, try the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.
When we are reminded whose we are, it opens the way to better discovering who we are. So a next step is to look at our wounds and faults with compassion instead of judgment. What prejudices have we been turning on ourselves, perhaps more harshly than we'd apply to our neighbors? If we are given to self-criticism, let’s offer it the way we would correct a small child, not by crushing her spirit, but calling her to her better self. Notice when your internal monologue toward yourself is harsh (“That was dumb,” “You idiot!”) and stop and redirect yourself to more affirming language.That can help repair our self-image.
Then we might move beyond accepting our “shadow sides” to actually celebrating our gifts and strengths. What are your best qualities? What is delightful about you? What do other people love in you? What do you love? And what kind of a future do you desire for this special and beloved creature of God? What do you want in your life? What do you want to do /see/ experience/ taste/ give/ receive?
Loving our selves and loving our neighbors must go hand in hand, for fundamental to the whole exercise is the understanding that we are equal in God’s sight. No one is better, or worse, more important or less, more or less worthy of regard and honor and dignity and love.
When we fully comprehend all that, loving God with our whole heart and mind and soul will be a piece of cake. We are simply recognizing the inherent beauty of God’s creation, and acknowledging that God does flawless work. You are Exhibit A.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. 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.
10-21-26 - Loving Neighbour
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus called this the second core of the Law: Love God with all your being, and your neighbor as yourself.
This commandment can tempt us to ask, “Then who is my neighbor?” A lawyer of Jesus’ day asked him just that question. Jesus answered with the story of the Good Samaritan, one conclusion of which is that the neighbor who cares for us can be someone we don’t like or trust very much. Our neighbor can be anyone, and is everyone.
Today I'm less interested in that question than in the second part of the verse – “as yourself.” Jesus (and the compilers of the law codes in Leviticus) links love for self and love for other in a way that merits deeper exploration. What does it mean to love my neighbor as I love myself? Since we don’t always love ourselves very well, we don’t always love our neighbors well either. If we are very critical of ourselves, or take poor care of ourselves, we’ll extend that tendency to other people. That is one way of loving our neighbors as ourselves – but not a very life-giving way.
How else do we love ourselves? Most of us are protective of our security – maybe loving our neighbors as ourselves means we’re equally concerned about theirs. Most of us are wired to be sure we have enough to eat and a sheltered place to live… a godly love for neighbor would include wanting the same for them.
Yikes - this is a lot! Is it just too much to love our neighbors as ourselves? Too hard? God doesn't call us to anything his Spirit can’t equip us to handle. We just have to let the Spirit rewire the faulty coding we get from this world, the message that says put yourself and your own kind first, don’t trust the Other. But can we ever love our neighbor enough to feed everybody in the world? Well, we know there is enough food; it’s just not distributed equitably. So maybe loving our neighbor as ourselves motivates us to work on that challenge, or on housing, or security. Maybe we keep less for ourselves so our neighbor has more.
Ultimately, this neighbor-loving business grows one neighbor at a time. When we go global in our thinking, we can end up paralyzed or discouraged. But one neighbor today? Maybe one you hadn’t planned on loving? Maybe start simply by praying for that person to be blessed?
In prayer today think first of yourself. Try to imagine for a moment how God sees you. Love what you see, or at least trust in God’s love for you. And then imagine someone who is your neighbor. If you’re feeling adventurous, ask God, “Who is the neighbor you want me to love today?” Who knows whose face is going to come up in your mind’s eye! Sit with the image. Ask how you’re being called to love that person.
In a world where we often experience scarcity, neighbors are one thing we’ll never run out of. And learning to love them is a challenge for our whole lifetime. We may as well get good at it, because I have a feeling that is exactly what we will be doing for all of eternity.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. 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.
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus called this the second core of the Law: Love God with all your being, and your neighbor as yourself.
This commandment can tempt us to ask, “Then who is my neighbor?” A lawyer of Jesus’ day asked him just that question. Jesus answered with the story of the Good Samaritan, one conclusion of which is that the neighbor who cares for us can be someone we don’t like or trust very much. Our neighbor can be anyone, and is everyone.
Today I'm less interested in that question than in the second part of the verse – “as yourself.” Jesus (and the compilers of the law codes in Leviticus) links love for self and love for other in a way that merits deeper exploration. What does it mean to love my neighbor as I love myself? Since we don’t always love ourselves very well, we don’t always love our neighbors well either. If we are very critical of ourselves, or take poor care of ourselves, we’ll extend that tendency to other people. That is one way of loving our neighbors as ourselves – but not a very life-giving way.
How else do we love ourselves? Most of us are protective of our security – maybe loving our neighbors as ourselves means we’re equally concerned about theirs. Most of us are wired to be sure we have enough to eat and a sheltered place to live… a godly love for neighbor would include wanting the same for them.
Yikes - this is a lot! Is it just too much to love our neighbors as ourselves? Too hard? God doesn't call us to anything his Spirit can’t equip us to handle. We just have to let the Spirit rewire the faulty coding we get from this world, the message that says put yourself and your own kind first, don’t trust the Other. But can we ever love our neighbor enough to feed everybody in the world? Well, we know there is enough food; it’s just not distributed equitably. So maybe loving our neighbor as ourselves motivates us to work on that challenge, or on housing, or security. Maybe we keep less for ourselves so our neighbor has more.
Ultimately, this neighbor-loving business grows one neighbor at a time. When we go global in our thinking, we can end up paralyzed or discouraged. But one neighbor today? Maybe one you hadn’t planned on loving? Maybe start simply by praying for that person to be blessed?
In prayer today think first of yourself. Try to imagine for a moment how God sees you. Love what you see, or at least trust in God’s love for you. And then imagine someone who is your neighbor. If you’re feeling adventurous, ask God, “Who is the neighbor you want me to love today?” Who knows whose face is going to come up in your mind’s eye! Sit with the image. Ask how you’re being called to love that person.
In a world where we often experience scarcity, neighbors are one thing we’ll never run out of. And learning to love them is a challenge for our whole lifetime. We may as well get good at it, because I have a feeling that is exactly what we will be doing for all of eternity.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. 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.
10-20-26 - Loving God
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” So reads what Jesus calls the first and greatest commandment. We might consider this the goal of the life of faith, to love God fully, without reservation, with all of our being.
This kicks up all kinds of questions in me: Do I love anyone or anything with all of my heart? Do you? In an age when our attentions are ever more fragmented, what would it feel like to focus all our heart, all our spirit, even all our mind on one thing, one person, one God?
Do I even love God at all? Taking a walk one day, I found myself praying, “Jesus, I love you,” and then wondering what I meant by that, how much need and anxiety was wrapped in that statement? Loving God presupposes a relationship. This is perhaps the richest promise of the Christian life, that Jesus has enabled true relationship with the Living God. In Ephesians we read that through Christ we “have access to the Father in one Spirit.” (Eph 2:18) So I ask, am I fully engaged in that relationship, or dipping in occasionally from the sidelines? How about you?
I am not a scholar of ancient languages, and don’t know the nuances of the Hebrew or Aramaic word Jesus was using, translated here as “love.” The English language has a limited vocabulary for love – we use one word to cover an array of different kinds. The Greeks used at least four. The Greek word used here for both loving God and neighbor has the root "agape" - a love that incorporates the divine, that is selfless and affirming. It is not the same as erotic or filial love, how we might love our parents or children or lovers or friends. It incorporates the unconditional love of God for us. It would seem that to fully love God we must first fully recognize our need for God's unconditional love for us. Then we might be able to love self and neighbor unconditionally.
How do we begin? How about with these three components, heart, spirit and mind? In prayer today, come into a quiet, centered place, and speak simply and honestly to God about where you are with loving God. Good relationships are based on honesty and authenticity. We don’t have to pretend to feel more than we do, or less.
Assuming we want to love God more fully, let’s offer our heart – and spend some time on what’s in your heart. When I think about mine, I envision a mixed landscape of joy and engagement with fear and pockets of despair. What do you see? Can you offer it to God in love, no matter what it looks like?
Then let’s offer our soul or spirit, perhaps asking the Holy Spirit to give us a picture of our soul. What do you see or discern? Can you offer your spirit to be infused with the Holy Spirit?
Then let’s offer our minds… perhaps even more cluttered than our hearts. What would it feel like to focus your mind on loving God, even for a few moments?
What might it feel like to love with all the fullness of your being, no separation, no shadow? It scarcely seems possible in this world. But I do know that the more we love God this way, the better we will be able to love ourselves – and others.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. 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.
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” So reads what Jesus calls the first and greatest commandment. We might consider this the goal of the life of faith, to love God fully, without reservation, with all of our being.
This kicks up all kinds of questions in me: Do I love anyone or anything with all of my heart? Do you? In an age when our attentions are ever more fragmented, what would it feel like to focus all our heart, all our spirit, even all our mind on one thing, one person, one God?
Do I even love God at all? Taking a walk one day, I found myself praying, “Jesus, I love you,” and then wondering what I meant by that, how much need and anxiety was wrapped in that statement? Loving God presupposes a relationship. This is perhaps the richest promise of the Christian life, that Jesus has enabled true relationship with the Living God. In Ephesians we read that through Christ we “have access to the Father in one Spirit.” (Eph 2:18) So I ask, am I fully engaged in that relationship, or dipping in occasionally from the sidelines? How about you?
I am not a scholar of ancient languages, and don’t know the nuances of the Hebrew or Aramaic word Jesus was using, translated here as “love.” The English language has a limited vocabulary for love – we use one word to cover an array of different kinds. The Greeks used at least four. The Greek word used here for both loving God and neighbor has the root "agape" - a love that incorporates the divine, that is selfless and affirming. It is not the same as erotic or filial love, how we might love our parents or children or lovers or friends. It incorporates the unconditional love of God for us. It would seem that to fully love God we must first fully recognize our need for God's unconditional love for us. Then we might be able to love self and neighbor unconditionally.
How do we begin? How about with these three components, heart, spirit and mind? In prayer today, come into a quiet, centered place, and speak simply and honestly to God about where you are with loving God. Good relationships are based on honesty and authenticity. We don’t have to pretend to feel more than we do, or less.
Assuming we want to love God more fully, let’s offer our heart – and spend some time on what’s in your heart. When I think about mine, I envision a mixed landscape of joy and engagement with fear and pockets of despair. What do you see? Can you offer it to God in love, no matter what it looks like?
Then let’s offer our soul or spirit, perhaps asking the Holy Spirit to give us a picture of our soul. What do you see or discern? Can you offer your spirit to be infused with the Holy Spirit?
Then let’s offer our minds… perhaps even more cluttered than our hearts. What would it feel like to focus your mind on loving God, even for a few moments?
What might it feel like to love with all the fullness of your being, no separation, no shadow? It scarcely seems possible in this world. But I do know that the more we love God this way, the better we will be able to love ourselves – and others.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. 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.
10-19-26 - Love and Law
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Another week, another test. For the past few weeks our Gospel passages have chronicled one long game of “gotcha” between Jesus and the religious leaders, them trying to catch him saying the wrong thing, he neatly sidestepping their loaded questions. In last week’s test, he prevailed yet again over the Sadducees, but another set of examiners was waiting in the wings. This week we see the Pharisees get back in the game – and since they were legal specialists, they asked Jesus a question about the Torah, the Law.
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
Easy A. Jesus answers with the best known of all the commandments:
He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment.”
No surprises here. This is indeed the most basic command, where Israel’s relationship with God begins. Jesus might have checked the box and moved on – but he wasn’t finished. He went on to cite a much less known commandment and put it on a par with the first: “And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’"
What’s this? An obscure half-verse from Leviticus is up there with loving God? Yes, Jesus says – “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
He isn’t making this up – he is quoting the Law as given by Moses. Nonetheless, in combining these two commandments Jesus presents a radical new way of seeing God and justice. It’s not enough to love God. We have to live out that love by the way we love our neighbors and even ourselves.
We’ll unpack these different kinds of love throughout this week. Today let’s explore this linkage Jesus makes:
Another week, another test. For the past few weeks our Gospel passages have chronicled one long game of “gotcha” between Jesus and the religious leaders, them trying to catch him saying the wrong thing, he neatly sidestepping their loaded questions. In last week’s test, he prevailed yet again over the Sadducees, but another set of examiners was waiting in the wings. This week we see the Pharisees get back in the game – and since they were legal specialists, they asked Jesus a question about the Torah, the Law.
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
Easy A. Jesus answers with the best known of all the commandments:
He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment.”
No surprises here. This is indeed the most basic command, where Israel’s relationship with God begins. Jesus might have checked the box and moved on – but he wasn’t finished. He went on to cite a much less known commandment and put it on a par with the first: “And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’"
What’s this? An obscure half-verse from Leviticus is up there with loving God? Yes, Jesus says – “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
He isn’t making this up – he is quoting the Law as given by Moses. Nonetheless, in combining these two commandments Jesus presents a radical new way of seeing God and justice. It’s not enough to love God. We have to live out that love by the way we love our neighbors and even ourselves.
We’ll unpack these different kinds of love throughout this week. Today let’s explore this linkage Jesus makes:
- Do you associate loving yourself with loving God?
- Do you connect God and neighbor?
- Do you feel the most love for God, for your neighbor, or for yourself?
- How might the way we love our neighbor increase our love for ourselves?
- How might the way we love ourselves – or not – connect to our ability to love God?
Sit with these questions in prayer as a kind of diagnostic on your "love life." Talk to God about it, notice where your energy increases.
It’s good to know where we excel in love and where we can grow, for in the realm of God, love is all and all is Love. We need that reminder all the more these days, when there is so much fear and conflict felt and expressed and acted upon. I am ever called back to John’s reminder that, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”
The absolutely best action we can take is to love actively and consciously, and increase our capacity for love every single day.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. 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’s good to know where we excel in love and where we can grow, for in the realm of God, love is all and all is Love. We need that reminder all the more these days, when there is so much fear and conflict felt and expressed and acted upon. I am ever called back to John’s reminder that, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”
The absolutely best action we can take is to love actively and consciously, and increase our capacity for love every single day.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. 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.
10-16-26 - Church and State
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Can institutional religion and institutional government co-exist in harmony when their aims are often so divergent? The Pharisees, in their sly interrogation of Jesus, implied that support for the state (admittedly, in this case a brutal occupying force…) was incompatible with support for God. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”
Jesus refused to indulge that duality – he seemed profoundly disinterested in engaging the question. After all, from the point of view of eternity, support for both the civil state and the church are temporal. Jesus is interested not so much in where we give our money as in how we give our hearts.
As human beings, we are both political and spiritual. So our societies necessarily contain both such structures, with different goals and ways of operating. Religious and civic life exist in essential and overlapping but basically distinct realms. When those realms live in creative tension, somewhat equally balanced in power and influence, human societies do alright. We go off the rails when either becomes too dominant - especially, I'm sorry to say, when it's religion that tries to run the show. Such is the power of Margaret Atwood’s 1986 novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which has seen new life as an award-winning television series, warning a new era about the incompatibility of theocracy and democracy. The danger posed to democracy by the "Christian Nationalism" movement, which is anything but Christian, is profound.
This week we are exploring how best to live in the tension of our dual citizenship, how to reflect the values of heaven on earth, and hold up the needs of earth before the power of heaven.
Can institutional religion and institutional government co-exist in harmony when their aims are often so divergent? The Pharisees, in their sly interrogation of Jesus, implied that support for the state (admittedly, in this case a brutal occupying force…) was incompatible with support for God. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”
Jesus refused to indulge that duality – he seemed profoundly disinterested in engaging the question. After all, from the point of view of eternity, support for both the civil state and the church are temporal. Jesus is interested not so much in where we give our money as in how we give our hearts.
As human beings, we are both political and spiritual. So our societies necessarily contain both such structures, with different goals and ways of operating. Religious and civic life exist in essential and overlapping but basically distinct realms. When those realms live in creative tension, somewhat equally balanced in power and influence, human societies do alright. We go off the rails when either becomes too dominant - especially, I'm sorry to say, when it's religion that tries to run the show. Such is the power of Margaret Atwood’s 1986 novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which has seen new life as an award-winning television series, warning a new era about the incompatibility of theocracy and democracy. The danger posed to democracy by the "Christian Nationalism" movement, which is anything but Christian, is profound.
This week we are exploring how best to live in the tension of our dual citizenship, how to reflect the values of heaven on earth, and hold up the needs of earth before the power of heaven.
- How do you feel called to live that dual citizenship, bringing your spiritual self into the public square?
- When do we challenge secular values with gospel values?
- How and when might we invite the power of the Holy Spirit to work through us for secular good?
It's easy to get disgusted with government. We can instead wield the spiritual power we've been given as well as our civic freedoms, being both engaged citizens and prayer warriors. The healthiest way for church and state to mingle might just be in us.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. 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.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. 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.
10-15-26 - God and Taxes
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Exactly six months from today, Americans will be required to file tax returns and pay any tax owed. For my money, April 15th is the most patriotic day in the American calendar. There is nothing more patriotic than investing your resources (mandated or not…) in the future you desire for your country.
When did we allow the conversation about taxes to become so negative, in whatever country we live? Public service and tax-paying used to be marks of a good citizen. Taxes are the way a healthy society funds the services, infrastructure and systems of justice that allow its citizens to thrive. Though they can be an instrument of oppression, under fair laws in an open society, taxes are a shared good; it should feel good to participate.
In Jesus’ time perhaps paying taxes to Caesar, the head of the often brutal Roman Empire, might not have been such a happy thing. But for us, who have a great deal of control over our destinies, despite governmental chaos and corruption, paying taxes can be something to celebrate. I hate paying speeding tickets, but I remind myself they’ll fund some county program that is needed and get over it.
What does this have to do with our spiritual lives, which is why we read Water Daily? Opening up our view of taxes is yet another way to help us release our grip on the money we think is ours. If we can see taxes as an investment in the future of the wider community, perhaps we can more freely share our resources in the community of faith, to fund the ministries through which God is working transformation. Can we loosen our grip and pledge big this season?
Christians have dual citizenship in this life. We are residents of this world with all the responsibilities and joys of being members of societies. And we are citizens of the heavenly realm, that already/not yet space of inbreaking power amidst our heart-breaking powerlessness. As long as we’re here, we are invited to invest in both realms the gifts God has given us – our money, time, privilege and talent.
We can love our country and invest in its people and future AND love our God and look forward to our eternal future. When we open our hands to give, it is amazing how quickly they are filled.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. 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.
Exactly six months from today, Americans will be required to file tax returns and pay any tax owed. For my money, April 15th is the most patriotic day in the American calendar. There is nothing more patriotic than investing your resources (mandated or not…) in the future you desire for your country.
When did we allow the conversation about taxes to become so negative, in whatever country we live? Public service and tax-paying used to be marks of a good citizen. Taxes are the way a healthy society funds the services, infrastructure and systems of justice that allow its citizens to thrive. Though they can be an instrument of oppression, under fair laws in an open society, taxes are a shared good; it should feel good to participate.
In Jesus’ time perhaps paying taxes to Caesar, the head of the often brutal Roman Empire, might not have been such a happy thing. But for us, who have a great deal of control over our destinies, despite governmental chaos and corruption, paying taxes can be something to celebrate. I hate paying speeding tickets, but I remind myself they’ll fund some county program that is needed and get over it.
What does this have to do with our spiritual lives, which is why we read Water Daily? Opening up our view of taxes is yet another way to help us release our grip on the money we think is ours. If we can see taxes as an investment in the future of the wider community, perhaps we can more freely share our resources in the community of faith, to fund the ministries through which God is working transformation. Can we loosen our grip and pledge big this season?
Christians have dual citizenship in this life. We are residents of this world with all the responsibilities and joys of being members of societies. And we are citizens of the heavenly realm, that already/not yet space of inbreaking power amidst our heart-breaking powerlessness. As long as we’re here, we are invited to invest in both realms the gifts God has given us – our money, time, privilege and talent.
We can love our country and invest in its people and future AND love our God and look forward to our eternal future. When we open our hands to give, it is amazing how quickly they are filled.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. 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.
10-14-26 - God and Governments
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Did God ordain governments? Some see governments as purveyors of chaos and corruption, when their actual purpose is to prevent those things and secure a safe and equitable society in which all citizens might thrive. We know too many cases where government works against the values we hold, though it is also society’s chief agent of justice.
Some passages in scripture read as though God very much works through political systems and leaders, even ones outside the people of Israel (read up on the Cyrus passages in Isaiah, also appointed for this Sunday…). Saint Paul, writing in Romans 13, seems to feel that no ruler on earth can exercise power without God’s authority – which makes me wonder what he thinks about corrupt and oppressive rulers, of which his day saw as many as ours. Jesus, in the passage we are exploring this week, seems to take governments as a given, not saying where they fit in God’s plan. As he tells Pilate under interrogation, “My kingdom is not of this world.”
Government is a natural human phenomenon, as is institutional religion. Human beings have to organize around power, supplies and spirituality, and all organizations soon take on a life and culture of their own. Like the human beings of which they are comprised, governments exist on a continuum between good and evil, helpful and self-serving, visionary and banal. Government, in a functioning democracy, is us, and we are it. We don’t get to call it a “them.”
So where does that leave us as people of faith? Perhaps it leaves us with a call to be agents of healthier government and a more life-bringing body politic. In recent years our rhetoric has grown more and more polarized and shrill, though the urgency of justice sometimes calls for turning up the volume. Many Christians have sought to find an appropriate place as promoters of equality and resisters of evil. What if Christ followers participated primarily as peacemakers, not trying to convince the irrational, but refraining from demonizing, holding up the values of justice and equity and freedom?
Sound like a pipe dream? We have at our hands the power that transforms worlds. Surely we can pray for our governments and those who claim a desire to lead us.
I don’t know if God ordains governments. I do believe God will work through anyone who asks. Let’s ask.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. 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.
Did God ordain governments? Some see governments as purveyors of chaos and corruption, when their actual purpose is to prevent those things and secure a safe and equitable society in which all citizens might thrive. We know too many cases where government works against the values we hold, though it is also society’s chief agent of justice.
Some passages in scripture read as though God very much works through political systems and leaders, even ones outside the people of Israel (read up on the Cyrus passages in Isaiah, also appointed for this Sunday…). Saint Paul, writing in Romans 13, seems to feel that no ruler on earth can exercise power without God’s authority – which makes me wonder what he thinks about corrupt and oppressive rulers, of which his day saw as many as ours. Jesus, in the passage we are exploring this week, seems to take governments as a given, not saying where they fit in God’s plan. As he tells Pilate under interrogation, “My kingdom is not of this world.”
Government is a natural human phenomenon, as is institutional religion. Human beings have to organize around power, supplies and spirituality, and all organizations soon take on a life and culture of their own. Like the human beings of which they are comprised, governments exist on a continuum between good and evil, helpful and self-serving, visionary and banal. Government, in a functioning democracy, is us, and we are it. We don’t get to call it a “them.”
So where does that leave us as people of faith? Perhaps it leaves us with a call to be agents of healthier government and a more life-bringing body politic. In recent years our rhetoric has grown more and more polarized and shrill, though the urgency of justice sometimes calls for turning up the volume. Many Christians have sought to find an appropriate place as promoters of equality and resisters of evil. What if Christ followers participated primarily as peacemakers, not trying to convince the irrational, but refraining from demonizing, holding up the values of justice and equity and freedom?
Sound like a pipe dream? We have at our hands the power that transforms worlds. Surely we can pray for our governments and those who claim a desire to lead us.
I don’t know if God ordains governments. I do believe God will work through anyone who asks. Let’s ask.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. 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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