You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
One way to “hear” parables afresh is to look at them from different angles. Today, let’s see what one of those “all day” workers in Jesus’ story might have to say:
You think I’m wrong to be resentful? I was up and at the marketplace by 5 o’clock this morning, ready to work. This guy hired me and a bunch of others, told us we’d receive a good day’s pay. It was good pay, better than some. I didn’t mind working all day, knowing I was going to get paid well.
Every few hours, a few more joined us – Good, I thought, There’s plenty of work. I was a little surprised when a few more came in at nearly quitting time. Oh well, they’ll get paid for an hour. Enough for a beer. Why not? Even with the extra hands, though, it was a long day, and the sun was hot.
When the foreman finally called time, I was ready. But the boss said those who worked fewer hours should get in front of the line; us all-day guys to the back. Okay, I thought, maybe he doesn’t want them to know how much we’re getting. Then I saw they were getting the full day’s pay, even the one-hour folks. Wow, this guy is generous! I couldn’t wait to see what kind of bonus I was going to get.
But when I finally got up to the front of the line, and got my pay… it was exactly the same as everybody else. Exactly the same as we’d been promised at the start. Seemed okay at 5 o’clock this morning, but now, with the sun going down, knowing what everybody else got, I feel stiffed. You bet I do. I worked like a dog today, never looked up, never sat down. Why did I bother, if others get more for doing less?
A few of us spoke up, but the boss, he just said, “Can’t I do what I like with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’” I don’t want his stinking generosity – I want things fair. You work, you get paid. You work longer, you get paid more. Tell you this, it’s the last time I agree to a daily wage. You can just pay me hourly from now on. Then I'm in control.
This guy represents the religious rulers that Jesus was always tussling with, the ones who thought God’s rewards were only for those who kept the law like they did. They show up in a lot of Jesus’ parables – the older brother in the Prodigal Son story is another example. They want to control the terms. And Jesus keeps saying, “God controls the terms. And God can welcome whomever God wants.”
Do you know anyone like this? Have you ever been someone like this, resentful when someone else gets rewarded? How are you at asking for help? Do you prefer to give gifts or receive them? These are some of the ways we know how open we are to the generosity of God.
A prayer for today: Lord, open my spirit to receive your gifts. Open my heart to rejoice in the blessings given to the people around me, whether or not they’ve earned them. Open my eyes to see who wants to give me time or help today. Open my ears to those who want to share themselves with me. Open my hands to give and receive, in love and humility and gratitude. Amen.
There’s a lot to be said for getting paid hourly… but what Jesus offers is daily bread. Enough for the day. Take it.
© 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.
9-14-26 - Unfair!
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
This week we come to one of my favorite parables – Jesus’ story about workers in a vineyard. No blood or violence in this one, just grace beyond measure. And boy, does that make some people mad!
You can read the whole story for yourself – here’s the “nutshell” version: A landowner hires day laborers for his vineyard, agreeing to a standard wage. They’re happy, he’s happy. As the day progresses, he goes back out to the marketplace at intervals and hires more workers, even at 5 in the afternoon, when the workday is nearly done. At quitting time, he instructs his manager to pay everyone a full day’s wage. Everyone gets the same – what could be more fair than that? But the ones who worked the whole day feel they should get more than those who worked less time.
"And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’"
Now, maybe their workload grew lighter as more workers were added to the vineyard… but even so, they have a point. We almost always have a legitimate grievance when we compare ourselves to other people. But when we stand before God’s grace alone, we are confronted with the abundance of mercy extended to us.
Like many of Jesus’ parables, this one is aimed at those who believe they are “in” in God’s realm by virtue of their hard work and righteousness. If we all get the same reward no matter how hard we work, what’s the point of working hard?
Precisely! The Kingdom of Heaven is not for strivers – it is for what we become when we’ve finally reached the end of our striving and give up. Give in.
The currency of God's kingdom is grace, unmerited love, and forgiveness in abundance. Grace goes beyond contract. By its very nature it is “unfair.” We cannot earn it. It is totally up to God to give, to whomever God wants, no matter how much or how little we try to please God.
How does that sit with you? On our best days, we say, “Whew!” because we know we get a pass. On our worse days, we say, “Hey! How come that one got a break?” Are you having a “thank God for grace” day or a “I want them to get what’s comin’ to them” day? If you’re in the former position, amen! You are in in the Life of God. Spend some time today giving thanks for all the ways you see and pass along God's grace.
If the idea of mercy for another – especially a heinous monster – is troubling you, that’s fine too. We feel what we feel. With those feelings we can pray for those undeserving people. Pray that they might come within reach of God’s true blessing. That’s the only force I know of that can transform the blackest heart.
Some years ago, I-Tunes users received a free gift of a new U2 album appearing in their playlists, whether or not they wanted it. Many in fact resented it. But In honor of that gift, let’s end with an old song of theirs, “Grace,” especially these lyrics: What once was hurt / What once was friction /
What left a mark / No longer stings /
Because Grace makes beauty out of ugly things.
© 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.
This week we come to one of my favorite parables – Jesus’ story about workers in a vineyard. No blood or violence in this one, just grace beyond measure. And boy, does that make some people mad!
You can read the whole story for yourself – here’s the “nutshell” version: A landowner hires day laborers for his vineyard, agreeing to a standard wage. They’re happy, he’s happy. As the day progresses, he goes back out to the marketplace at intervals and hires more workers, even at 5 in the afternoon, when the workday is nearly done. At quitting time, he instructs his manager to pay everyone a full day’s wage. Everyone gets the same – what could be more fair than that? But the ones who worked the whole day feel they should get more than those who worked less time.
"And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’"
Now, maybe their workload grew lighter as more workers were added to the vineyard… but even so, they have a point. We almost always have a legitimate grievance when we compare ourselves to other people. But when we stand before God’s grace alone, we are confronted with the abundance of mercy extended to us.
Like many of Jesus’ parables, this one is aimed at those who believe they are “in” in God’s realm by virtue of their hard work and righteousness. If we all get the same reward no matter how hard we work, what’s the point of working hard?
Precisely! The Kingdom of Heaven is not for strivers – it is for what we become when we’ve finally reached the end of our striving and give up. Give in.
The currency of God's kingdom is grace, unmerited love, and forgiveness in abundance. Grace goes beyond contract. By its very nature it is “unfair.” We cannot earn it. It is totally up to God to give, to whomever God wants, no matter how much or how little we try to please God.
How does that sit with you? On our best days, we say, “Whew!” because we know we get a pass. On our worse days, we say, “Hey! How come that one got a break?” Are you having a “thank God for grace” day or a “I want them to get what’s comin’ to them” day? If you’re in the former position, amen! You are in in the Life of God. Spend some time today giving thanks for all the ways you see and pass along God's grace.
If the idea of mercy for another – especially a heinous monster – is troubling you, that’s fine too. We feel what we feel. With those feelings we can pray for those undeserving people. Pray that they might come within reach of God’s true blessing. That’s the only force I know of that can transform the blackest heart.
Some years ago, I-Tunes users received a free gift of a new U2 album appearing in their playlists, whether or not they wanted it. Many in fact resented it. But In honor of that gift, let’s end with an old song of theirs, “Grace,” especially these lyrics: What once was hurt / What once was friction /
What left a mark / No longer stings /
Because Grace makes beauty out of ugly things.
© 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.
9-11-26 - Forgiveness For Freedom
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Lest we think this story Jesus told was hopelessly out of date, we should remember that in the United States there are still debtors’ prisons. The Southern Poverty Law Center got one in Alabama closed down a few years ago. Threatening punishment for those who cannot pay is an old strategy. Jesus even seems to employ it in the end of his parable: “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
What will the heavenly father do to us? The king in the parable hands over the unmerciful servant to be punished until he can pay the whole debt. Forgive or else, is that Jesus’ message? Let’s hope this is another of his hyperbolic turns, where he drives home a point by exaggerating it.
Whether motivated by fear or love, the call to Christ followers to excel at forgiving others is clear. In fact, it is essential if that living water of God’s transforming power and love are going to flow through us unimpeded. Unforgiveness creates blockages, debris that can – like plaque in our blood vessels – create dams. This is why forgiveness and healing are so intertwined.
I was privileged to know Canon Jim Glennon, an Anglican clergyman from Australia who had an extraordinary gift and ministry of healing. His notion of God’s healing was simple: It is God’s desire that we be whole, so we plant the seed of faith in Christ; give thanks for God’s activity, even before we see it, and don’t be afraid to test it. Jim and I corresponded quite a bit before he died, and I invited him to lead a healing mission at my church in New York, which he did.
That Saturday, he did some teaching and then, to demonstrate this approach, he asked if someone with severe back pain would come up for prayer. One man did. He’d been injured at his workplace 15 years earlier, and his pain was incessant. Jim prayed for awhile, and then stopped and asked what the man was feeling, what was happening inside. The man said, “It’s weird – ever since you began praying, I’ve had my boss’s face in my mind.” It turned out that the boss had denied him worker’s comp benefits he should have received, and the man bitterly resented him. Who wouldn’t?
Jim just said, “Are you willing to forgive him?” He didn’t push, just invited. And the man said, “Yes, I am,” and then began to sob for dear life. After some more prayer, Jim asked him how his pain was now, and he said, “It’s gone! It’s been with me for 15 years, and it’s gone!”
If you have a sense of blessings blocked, either coming to you, or from you to others, you might ask God to show you if you’re holding onto anger or resentment toward someone. (If you’d like to pray a Litany of Forgiveness I developed, you can find it here.)
As well as you are able, release that debt, asking the Spirit to do for you what you’re unable to do for yourself. And then test out your freedom, the way Jim asked the man to test his healed back by twisting around and moving. Pray for the person who hurt you. Go out and give to someone else. See what has changed.
On this day when the United States remembers the terrorist attacks of 25 years ago, and the trauma that has flowed from that aggression, we are challenged all the more to adopt Jesus’ teaching. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free,” Paul wrote. (Galatians 5:1). Let’s spread it around.
© 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.
Lest we think this story Jesus told was hopelessly out of date, we should remember that in the United States there are still debtors’ prisons. The Southern Poverty Law Center got one in Alabama closed down a few years ago. Threatening punishment for those who cannot pay is an old strategy. Jesus even seems to employ it in the end of his parable: “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
What will the heavenly father do to us? The king in the parable hands over the unmerciful servant to be punished until he can pay the whole debt. Forgive or else, is that Jesus’ message? Let’s hope this is another of his hyperbolic turns, where he drives home a point by exaggerating it.
Whether motivated by fear or love, the call to Christ followers to excel at forgiving others is clear. In fact, it is essential if that living water of God’s transforming power and love are going to flow through us unimpeded. Unforgiveness creates blockages, debris that can – like plaque in our blood vessels – create dams. This is why forgiveness and healing are so intertwined.
I was privileged to know Canon Jim Glennon, an Anglican clergyman from Australia who had an extraordinary gift and ministry of healing. His notion of God’s healing was simple: It is God’s desire that we be whole, so we plant the seed of faith in Christ; give thanks for God’s activity, even before we see it, and don’t be afraid to test it. Jim and I corresponded quite a bit before he died, and I invited him to lead a healing mission at my church in New York, which he did.
That Saturday, he did some teaching and then, to demonstrate this approach, he asked if someone with severe back pain would come up for prayer. One man did. He’d been injured at his workplace 15 years earlier, and his pain was incessant. Jim prayed for awhile, and then stopped and asked what the man was feeling, what was happening inside. The man said, “It’s weird – ever since you began praying, I’ve had my boss’s face in my mind.” It turned out that the boss had denied him worker’s comp benefits he should have received, and the man bitterly resented him. Who wouldn’t?
Jim just said, “Are you willing to forgive him?” He didn’t push, just invited. And the man said, “Yes, I am,” and then began to sob for dear life. After some more prayer, Jim asked him how his pain was now, and he said, “It’s gone! It’s been with me for 15 years, and it’s gone!”
If you have a sense of blessings blocked, either coming to you, or from you to others, you might ask God to show you if you’re holding onto anger or resentment toward someone. (If you’d like to pray a Litany of Forgiveness I developed, you can find it here.)
As well as you are able, release that debt, asking the Spirit to do for you what you’re unable to do for yourself. And then test out your freedom, the way Jim asked the man to test his healed back by twisting around and moving. Pray for the person who hurt you. Go out and give to someone else. See what has changed.
On this day when the United States remembers the terrorist attacks of 25 years ago, and the trauma that has flowed from that aggression, we are challenged all the more to adopt Jesus’ teaching. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free,” Paul wrote. (Galatians 5:1). Let’s spread it around.
© 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.
9-10-26 - Communities of Mercy
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
This week’s Jesus story still isn’t over – there is another turn to it. (You know, Jesus’ story is never really over!) The injustice wrought by the newly forgiven slave is not the last word. After he refuses to release his fellow-slave from his debt, the other servants turn the mean guy in: “When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt.”
Okay, I’m pretty sure God is not in the torture business – though we do endure a kind of spiritual pain when we withhold forgiveness. (Is that what hell is?) But here Jesus explicitly links forgiveness in and forgiveness out, as he does in other teachings on prayer. We can’t get away from it. We can’t fully experience God’s love until we can forgive ourselves and others.
I like the way the community in this story watches the situation and calls out the injustice. Having witnessed the great mercy shown this slave, they are not about to let him get away with holding someone else to harsh terms.
Injustice can be perpetrated and perpetuated in communities, and misdeeds swept under the carpet. But in healthy communities, a light is always on and members are accountable to each other. When someone acts in a destructive or prideful way, a healthy community has people of integrity who can remind her of the mercy she has received, and invite her to align her values with those of the group. In Christian communities, that means the values Jesus taught and lived. Think of how our police departments and military units and financial institutions might function if they were communities of accountability and justice. Many recent news stories would have been non-events.
Have you ever been called on your behavior or treatment of another? Was the message delivered in a way that you could receive? How did you respond?
Have you ever addressed someone about the way they were acting or speaking? Perhaps a notorious gossip or someone who routinely sows discord? Those are hard conversations to have. But when we put the health of the community and of each person in it – including the one who’s being destructive – above our social discomfort, we can move forward. And if we pray it through beforehand, and during, those conversations often go much better than we anticipate.
If someone you know is damaging the community, you may need to deal with it. Pray for that person for a time before having the conversation – it gives us more peace and gives the Spirit a chance to prepare the ground. And if, as you speak, you can cite times you have been less than wonderful, and speak with humility, it might keep the walls from going up. And if you’re able to pray with the person you’re having the conversation with, so much the better.
God sets us into communities, starting with families, classrooms, workplaces, memberships. Community is a challenging aspect of human life, and one of the richest. This story Jesus tells invites us to be active in keeping our communities as healthy and life-giving as we can. That includes speaking the truth in love.
© 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.
This week’s Jesus story still isn’t over – there is another turn to it. (You know, Jesus’ story is never really over!) The injustice wrought by the newly forgiven slave is not the last word. After he refuses to release his fellow-slave from his debt, the other servants turn the mean guy in: “When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt.”
Okay, I’m pretty sure God is not in the torture business – though we do endure a kind of spiritual pain when we withhold forgiveness. (Is that what hell is?) But here Jesus explicitly links forgiveness in and forgiveness out, as he does in other teachings on prayer. We can’t get away from it. We can’t fully experience God’s love until we can forgive ourselves and others.
I like the way the community in this story watches the situation and calls out the injustice. Having witnessed the great mercy shown this slave, they are not about to let him get away with holding someone else to harsh terms.
Injustice can be perpetrated and perpetuated in communities, and misdeeds swept under the carpet. But in healthy communities, a light is always on and members are accountable to each other. When someone acts in a destructive or prideful way, a healthy community has people of integrity who can remind her of the mercy she has received, and invite her to align her values with those of the group. In Christian communities, that means the values Jesus taught and lived. Think of how our police departments and military units and financial institutions might function if they were communities of accountability and justice. Many recent news stories would have been non-events.
Have you ever been called on your behavior or treatment of another? Was the message delivered in a way that you could receive? How did you respond?
Have you ever addressed someone about the way they were acting or speaking? Perhaps a notorious gossip or someone who routinely sows discord? Those are hard conversations to have. But when we put the health of the community and of each person in it – including the one who’s being destructive – above our social discomfort, we can move forward. And if we pray it through beforehand, and during, those conversations often go much better than we anticipate.
If someone you know is damaging the community, you may need to deal with it. Pray for that person for a time before having the conversation – it gives us more peace and gives the Spirit a chance to prepare the ground. And if, as you speak, you can cite times you have been less than wonderful, and speak with humility, it might keep the walls from going up. And if you’re able to pray with the person you’re having the conversation with, so much the better.
God sets us into communities, starting with families, classrooms, workplaces, memberships. Community is a challenging aspect of human life, and one of the richest. This story Jesus tells invites us to be active in keeping our communities as healthy and life-giving as we can. That includes speaking the truth in love.
© 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.
9-9-26 - Mercy Strained
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
What a heart-warming story we hear in Jesus’ parable about debt forgiveness. The king had pity on his poor slave and forgave his debt, all 10,000 talents of it. In fact, Jesus says, “He released him and forgave him the debt,” suggesting perhaps he was even set free from his servitude. It must have been a good day for that debtor. We'd like to think he continued the chain of mercy. Ah, but the story was not finished. Plot twist – the debtor was also a creditor: “But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt.”
So the one who, in effect, just gained 10,000 talents he no longer has to repay, refuses to even extend the collection period on a mere 100-denarii loan. Liberals like me tend to think, “Oh, if everyone just received merciful treatment, they’d treat others that way.” This parable suggests it’s not automatic. I’ve preached to guys on the street who I’m pretty sure have called for major forgiveness in life – and some of them did not approve of the forgiveness extended in the parable of the prodigal son. A lot of people prefer justice to mercy, hard as it is.
In this story Jesus suggests that when we refuse to forgive our fellow human beings for the offenses they have committed, we are being exactly like that wicked slave – because the forgiveness we have received from God is so much greater than anything asked of us. Do you buy that? We need to accept at least two conditions for it to make sense:
What a heart-warming story we hear in Jesus’ parable about debt forgiveness. The king had pity on his poor slave and forgave his debt, all 10,000 talents of it. In fact, Jesus says, “He released him and forgave him the debt,” suggesting perhaps he was even set free from his servitude. It must have been a good day for that debtor. We'd like to think he continued the chain of mercy. Ah, but the story was not finished. Plot twist – the debtor was also a creditor: “But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt.”
So the one who, in effect, just gained 10,000 talents he no longer has to repay, refuses to even extend the collection period on a mere 100-denarii loan. Liberals like me tend to think, “Oh, if everyone just received merciful treatment, they’d treat others that way.” This parable suggests it’s not automatic. I’ve preached to guys on the street who I’m pretty sure have called for major forgiveness in life – and some of them did not approve of the forgiveness extended in the parable of the prodigal son. A lot of people prefer justice to mercy, hard as it is.
In this story Jesus suggests that when we refuse to forgive our fellow human beings for the offenses they have committed, we are being exactly like that wicked slave – because the forgiveness we have received from God is so much greater than anything asked of us. Do you buy that? We need to accept at least two conditions for it to make sense:
- That we are sinners in need for forgiveness by God, and have received God’s grace.
- That, no matter how serious another’s offense against us is, it pales in comparison to humankind’s offenses against our Creator.
When we are wounded or insulted in some way, it’s hard to see anything but our pain and righteous anger. We’ll talk about it to anyone who will listen – often to anyone except the perpetrator. The idea that in God’s Big Picture our betrayals and shortcomings may be just as serious, or more, seems inconceivable in that moment. We lose perspective.
I will not try to persuade you which forgiveness is bigger. I’ll just invite us to put ourselves in the shoes of the first debtor, the one whose huge debt is removed, who has been set free. The more fully we integrate that spiritual gift, the better able we are to keep perspective when we are sinned against. When we really “get” how blissfully off the hook we are, we might just be more inclined to want other people to enjoy that feeling, even those who’ve hurt us most. Especially them.
Yesterday, I suggested some confession. Today, let’s think about people we still need to forgive for hurting us, letting us down, lying about us. Bear in mind the person you’re keeping on the hook might be yourself. It might be God. What would it feel like to release that person?
It can take a lifetime to accept God’s forgiveness and freedom, to live into the change in status conferred upon us in Christ: no longer a slave, no longer a debtor; now a daughter, a son, free. What a life we can have if we accept that gift right now.
© 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.
I will not try to persuade you which forgiveness is bigger. I’ll just invite us to put ourselves in the shoes of the first debtor, the one whose huge debt is removed, who has been set free. The more fully we integrate that spiritual gift, the better able we are to keep perspective when we are sinned against. When we really “get” how blissfully off the hook we are, we might just be more inclined to want other people to enjoy that feeling, even those who’ve hurt us most. Especially them.
Yesterday, I suggested some confession. Today, let’s think about people we still need to forgive for hurting us, letting us down, lying about us. Bear in mind the person you’re keeping on the hook might be yourself. It might be God. What would it feel like to release that person?
It can take a lifetime to accept God’s forgiveness and freedom, to live into the change in status conferred upon us in Christ: no longer a slave, no longer a debtor; now a daughter, a son, free. What a life we can have if we accept that gift right now.
© 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.
9-8-26 - Mercy Unlimited
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Jesus said there is no limit to the number of times we must be prepared to forgive someone. Then, to illustrate the point, he told one of his trademark stories. This is a longer parable, with multiple characters and scenes. As is often the case in how Matthew relates Jesus’ stories, this one has a violent cast to it.
The story in a nutshell goes like this: A king is settling his accounts with his slaves. Apparently this king not only owns slaves, but acts as their loan-shark. The terms of non-payment are pretty severe – you’re sold off, along with your wife and children, and have to sell all your belongings, with the proceeds going to service your debt. Nice. One guy owes ten thousand talents. He begs the king to forgive his debt – and he does. Wow! That was unexpected, right? What the man does in response to having his massive debt forgiven we’ll talk about tomorrow. Today, let’s focus on this ruthless king who is capable of such mercy.
Jesus starts the story by saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.” Is he saying that GOD is like such a king? Not necessarily – he says the realm of God may be so compared. At the very least, we surmise that in the economy of God’s realm, the servants owe the king quite a bit, and that settling these accounts is a normative occurrence.
Do we owe debts to God? Some theologians, like Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th century, argue that every sin we commit is akin to stealing from God. If God is perfect and has given us perfect life in his image, then every blemish on that perfection is an offense against the creator for which we must make restitution. That’s one way to look at it.
Or we might try the language of stewardship, which asserts that everything we have in this world, including our life, our gifts and resources, our relationships, our abilities, is on loan from our heavenly father, for us to use and enjoy and to nurture into growth. In this sense, every time we claim something as ours, whether money or credit for things we’ve done, we are grabbing at what was freely offered us to use. There is no “mine” in this view – we are always to be ready to account for our use of God’s gifts.
That's a way to view the process of repentance and confession – a daily settling of our accounts with God. Do you make a regular practice of confession? We do it in church, with or without much thought. Some people do it in their own prayer times. Others visit a confessor for the sacrament of reconciliation. To be honest before another person and hear the words of God’s forgiveness is a powerful grace.
We can do an inventory (here’s one to download), thinking through our relationships, our work and activities, our use of our gifts. Incidents of self-centeredness or wounding of self or others might come to mind as we do this, and we can offer them to Jesus for forgiveness. Or read through a Prayer Book litany like the one for Ash Wednesday – that’ll stir up some penitence.
When we find we’ve taken more out of the kitty than we can replace, when we have committed too serious an offense to repay – which might be all of them – we fall on God’s great mercy. If it’s anything like the king’s in this story, though the consequences could be extremely dire, we get to walk away with our books balanced, nothing hanging over our heads. That what “whose service is perfect freedom” means.
© 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.
Jesus said there is no limit to the number of times we must be prepared to forgive someone. Then, to illustrate the point, he told one of his trademark stories. This is a longer parable, with multiple characters and scenes. As is often the case in how Matthew relates Jesus’ stories, this one has a violent cast to it.
The story in a nutshell goes like this: A king is settling his accounts with his slaves. Apparently this king not only owns slaves, but acts as their loan-shark. The terms of non-payment are pretty severe – you’re sold off, along with your wife and children, and have to sell all your belongings, with the proceeds going to service your debt. Nice. One guy owes ten thousand talents. He begs the king to forgive his debt – and he does. Wow! That was unexpected, right? What the man does in response to having his massive debt forgiven we’ll talk about tomorrow. Today, let’s focus on this ruthless king who is capable of such mercy.
Jesus starts the story by saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.” Is he saying that GOD is like such a king? Not necessarily – he says the realm of God may be so compared. At the very least, we surmise that in the economy of God’s realm, the servants owe the king quite a bit, and that settling these accounts is a normative occurrence.
Do we owe debts to God? Some theologians, like Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th century, argue that every sin we commit is akin to stealing from God. If God is perfect and has given us perfect life in his image, then every blemish on that perfection is an offense against the creator for which we must make restitution. That’s one way to look at it.
Or we might try the language of stewardship, which asserts that everything we have in this world, including our life, our gifts and resources, our relationships, our abilities, is on loan from our heavenly father, for us to use and enjoy and to nurture into growth. In this sense, every time we claim something as ours, whether money or credit for things we’ve done, we are grabbing at what was freely offered us to use. There is no “mine” in this view – we are always to be ready to account for our use of God’s gifts.
That's a way to view the process of repentance and confession – a daily settling of our accounts with God. Do you make a regular practice of confession? We do it in church, with or without much thought. Some people do it in their own prayer times. Others visit a confessor for the sacrament of reconciliation. To be honest before another person and hear the words of God’s forgiveness is a powerful grace.
We can do an inventory (here’s one to download), thinking through our relationships, our work and activities, our use of our gifts. Incidents of self-centeredness or wounding of self or others might come to mind as we do this, and we can offer them to Jesus for forgiveness. Or read through a Prayer Book litany like the one for Ash Wednesday – that’ll stir up some penitence.
When we find we’ve taken more out of the kitty than we can replace, when we have committed too serious an offense to repay – which might be all of them – we fall on God’s great mercy. If it’s anything like the king’s in this story, though the consequences could be extremely dire, we get to walk away with our books balanced, nothing hanging over our heads. That what “whose service is perfect freedom” means.
© 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.
9-7-26 - Forgiveness Without End
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
In last week’s gospel passage, we explored what happens when one member of the community is wounded by another. Jesus laid out a process of confrontation leading to resolution, be it reconciliation or separation. Peter must have been thinking ahead, for he realized it wasn’t enough to be able to address conflict… if what Jesus had been saying all along meant anything, reconciliation would have to include forgiveness. How far was that supposed to go? Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”
Sometimes that's translated “seventy times seven.” I once wrote a short story called “The 489th Wrong,” about a religious woman who finally reaches that number of times she feels she’s forgiven her husband, and thinks she can stop (wrong!). But it’s not about the math. Seven is one of those infinite numbers, so Jesus is basically saying, “As many times as needed.” There is no end to the number of times Christ-followers are called to forgive.
The deeper the wound, the more forgiveness costs us. Forgiveness means “giving for.” Someone has taken something from you; they owe it, and you pay yourself for them – in effect, you lose twice. Why do that? Because it cancels the debt, clears the field, resets the clock, frees you and the other person. That’s one reason.
The other, as we’ll see from the parable Jesus uses to illustrate his point, is that while we’re busy trying to decide whether or not to forgive someone, somebody else may be wrestling with forgiving us. And even if we’ve offended no one on earth, we have likely done, said or thought something that makes us less than who God intended us to be, and therefore we need God’s forgiveness. When we think about how many times we ask God to forgive us, often for the same darn thing, we might be more inclined to cut each other some slack, as the great hymn “Forgive our sins” reminds us.
Is there someone whom you have been unable to forgive? A resentment that sits there within you? Chances are that wound remains unhealed, and gets reopened periodically, either by that person or by similar feelings. What feelings come up when you think about forgiving that person, releasing that debt?
If you don’t yet feel ready to forgive, might you be willing to let God do it? That’s one way to pray toward forgiveness, by praying, “Lord, I can’t forgive this person… but if you want to, I guess it’s okay.” Just praying that will shift the landscape a bit, generate some space, and the Holy Spirit will work with whatever space we give. If you're willing to go a little further, pray, "And if you want me to, please give me a desire to forgive..." That's another opening.
Our “forgiveness muscles” need to be exercised just like everything else in us. No one is beyond the reach of God's forgiveness. As we grow in faith, we are able, by his power, to forgive even terrorists, despots, and those who set themselves as our enemies.
© 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.
In last week’s gospel passage, we explored what happens when one member of the community is wounded by another. Jesus laid out a process of confrontation leading to resolution, be it reconciliation or separation. Peter must have been thinking ahead, for he realized it wasn’t enough to be able to address conflict… if what Jesus had been saying all along meant anything, reconciliation would have to include forgiveness. How far was that supposed to go? Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”
Sometimes that's translated “seventy times seven.” I once wrote a short story called “The 489th Wrong,” about a religious woman who finally reaches that number of times she feels she’s forgiven her husband, and thinks she can stop (wrong!). But it’s not about the math. Seven is one of those infinite numbers, so Jesus is basically saying, “As many times as needed.” There is no end to the number of times Christ-followers are called to forgive.
The deeper the wound, the more forgiveness costs us. Forgiveness means “giving for.” Someone has taken something from you; they owe it, and you pay yourself for them – in effect, you lose twice. Why do that? Because it cancels the debt, clears the field, resets the clock, frees you and the other person. That’s one reason.
The other, as we’ll see from the parable Jesus uses to illustrate his point, is that while we’re busy trying to decide whether or not to forgive someone, somebody else may be wrestling with forgiving us. And even if we’ve offended no one on earth, we have likely done, said or thought something that makes us less than who God intended us to be, and therefore we need God’s forgiveness. When we think about how many times we ask God to forgive us, often for the same darn thing, we might be more inclined to cut each other some slack, as the great hymn “Forgive our sins” reminds us.
Is there someone whom you have been unable to forgive? A resentment that sits there within you? Chances are that wound remains unhealed, and gets reopened periodically, either by that person or by similar feelings. What feelings come up when you think about forgiving that person, releasing that debt?
If you don’t yet feel ready to forgive, might you be willing to let God do it? That’s one way to pray toward forgiveness, by praying, “Lord, I can’t forgive this person… but if you want to, I guess it’s okay.” Just praying that will shift the landscape a bit, generate some space, and the Holy Spirit will work with whatever space we give. If you're willing to go a little further, pray, "And if you want me to, please give me a desire to forgive..." That's another opening.
Our “forgiveness muscles” need to be exercised just like everything else in us. No one is beyond the reach of God's forgiveness. As we grow in faith, we are able, by his power, to forgive even terrorists, despots, and those who set themselves as our enemies.
© 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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