You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Now here’s a recruitment slogan: “Calling all who are poor, all who are sad, all who are passive – I’m going to change the world with you!” These may not be the qualities we associate with leadership and success… so maybe Jesus is inviting us to reconsider our criteria for leadership. His closest followers were not the cream of society’s crop – they were Galilean fishermen, tax collectors, women with “reputations.” And yet we honor them and know their names 2000 years later.
The first three “beatitudes” deal with emotional conditions:
‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
‘Blessed are the grief-stricken, for they will be comforted.
‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth."
What does “poor in spirit” mean? I think of it as being at a low ebb, spiritual energy sapped by fatigue or sadness or disappointment, faith less than robust. I suspect most of us have felt poor in spirit. But we, Jesus promises, will inherit the fullness of God’s spiritual realm, the Life of God.
Similarly, most of us know what it’s like to mourn; for some, grief seems to go on forever. But Jesus says we will be comforted. This doesn’t end the mourning, but can shift it into a different key, so that we manage to sing a new song even in our grief.
Meekness may be the one attribute here that is less common to us. I think of “meek” as passive, not pushy, not forwarding one’s own agenda. We often associate “meek” with being a doormat. But I once heard that “meek” may not be the best translation of the Greek. In French Bibles the word is rendered “debonair.” That gives a different slant. As an essay I found online (the link no longer live, alas) says, “Gone was Casper Milk Toast. Instead, my mental images were of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, or of Gene Kelly, singing in the rain. I would so much rather be debonair than meek! The debonair are people who move with grace through life. They have style. Blessed are the debonair!”
The writer goes on to say that the Greek word can be translated ‘gentleness.’ "The word can refer to a strong animal such as a horse, who is well-trained and gentle in spirit, in spite of its strength. It can also mean the quality of being teachable — modest, generous, humble and considerate. In other words, those who are blessed are those who have strength, and yet use it with gentleness.”
You may or may not feel debonair today, but I hope you have a sense of your strength and your gentleness. God can best work through us when we combine the two. Perhaps that’s what it means to “inherit the earth” – to participate fully in God’s mission in strength and gentleness. And when grief and dispiritedness are upon us, we might pray for more of the gentle power of the Spirit to fill us, to pump up our tires (the word for spirit is pneuma, after all…), to transform our mourning into joy. In making these feelings markers of discipleship, Jesus honors our emotional truth and invites us to bring all of who we are each day into the fullness of our God-Life.
And he offers hope for us when we’re not feeling so strong, reminding us, “This is not the end of your story.” He is the end of our story, and he will lead us there, as we follow.
© 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.
10-28-26 - Holiness and Mercy
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Though sainthood is more a matter of our identity as beloved of God than our ability to be “holy,” people often associate saints with holiness. Holiness is not a word we hear a lot these days. People speak of “the holy,” and of “wholeness,” but holiness as a characteristic is not much in vogue. In an age when the disadvantaged hunger for food and thirst for water, while the well-fed hunger for things and thirst for distraction, who yearns for righteousness?
Yet holiness is at the heart of Jesus’ prescription for disciples:
Though sainthood is more a matter of our identity as beloved of God than our ability to be “holy,” people often associate saints with holiness. Holiness is not a word we hear a lot these days. People speak of “the holy,” and of “wholeness,” but holiness as a characteristic is not much in vogue. In an age when the disadvantaged hunger for food and thirst for water, while the well-fed hunger for things and thirst for distraction, who yearns for righteousness?
Yet holiness is at the heart of Jesus’ prescription for disciples:
‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.'
Righteousness and purity of heart are overlapping categories. Righteousness, being right, true, justified (as in a printer’s margin), means being grounded in God’s love and goodness, aligned to God's will. Purity of heart describes an undivided focus on God. To thirst for righteousness is to desire integration, to be authentically ourselves, to have our inner and our outer life cohere; to say what we mean and mean what we say. When we really yearn only for God, we are promised we will see God – and people will see God in us.
Between righteousness and purity of heart on his list, Jesus places mercy, perhaps in recognition that there is no such thing as personal righteousness without engaging with other people. And as soon as we engage other people, we face the need to be merciful, as we hope they will be with us. Trying to be righteous without being merciful makes us self-righteous. Purity of heart requires compassion.
As we pray today, let’s locate in ourselves that thirst for holiness and “singleness of heart,” as our prayers books put it. Let’s let that hunger fill us like an empty stomach does. Let’s ask ourselves where the flow of mercy in us might have hit a dam, and invite the Holy Spirit to help us remove those obstacles. The promise for us, as we orient ourselves to desire righteousness, mercy and purity of heart, is that we will be filled, we will receive mercy, and we will see God.
The multi-talented priest, composer and jazz-band leader Andy Barnett composed a lovely setting of the Latin American Bread Prayer. The words are simple and sink into the soul. Listen, and pray:
To all those with bread, give hunger for justice,
And to all those hunger, give bread.
© 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.
‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.'
Righteousness and purity of heart are overlapping categories. Righteousness, being right, true, justified (as in a printer’s margin), means being grounded in God’s love and goodness, aligned to God's will. Purity of heart describes an undivided focus on God. To thirst for righteousness is to desire integration, to be authentically ourselves, to have our inner and our outer life cohere; to say what we mean and mean what we say. When we really yearn only for God, we are promised we will see God – and people will see God in us.
Between righteousness and purity of heart on his list, Jesus places mercy, perhaps in recognition that there is no such thing as personal righteousness without engaging with other people. And as soon as we engage other people, we face the need to be merciful, as we hope they will be with us. Trying to be righteous without being merciful makes us self-righteous. Purity of heart requires compassion.
As we pray today, let’s locate in ourselves that thirst for holiness and “singleness of heart,” as our prayers books put it. Let’s let that hunger fill us like an empty stomach does. Let’s ask ourselves where the flow of mercy in us might have hit a dam, and invite the Holy Spirit to help us remove those obstacles. The promise for us, as we orient ourselves to desire righteousness, mercy and purity of heart, is that we will be filled, we will receive mercy, and we will see God.
The multi-talented priest, composer and jazz-band leader Andy Barnett composed a lovely setting of the Latin American Bread Prayer. The words are simple and sink into the soul. Listen, and pray:
To all those with bread, give hunger for justice,
And to all those hunger, give bread.
© 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.
10-27-26 - #Blessed
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
There is only one gospel passage assigned for All Saints Day – each year, it’s the same old Beatitudes. I’ve often grumbled at this, dismissing the Beatitudes as a how-to guide (albeit, Jesus’ how-to guide...) and I’m not big on the idea of people striving for sainthood. That’s God’s to give. But when I look past this little prejudice and more fully explore this famous laundry list of saintly characteristics – remembering that “saint” means Christ-follower – I find some gold.
Jesus is speaking to his followers on a “mountain” – probably a hill, but perhaps Matthew wants to draw parallels between Moses giving the Law on Mount Sinai in the old covenant, and Jesus giving the “law” of the new covenant. (Luke, a Gentile, seems less interested in demonstrating continuity between the Jesus movement and its Jewish roots. In his Gospel, this scene takes place on a plain, on level ground – in line with his theme of Jesus as the great leveler, equalizer.)
Jesus has been teaching every chance he gets, but on this day he has a particular message for his disciples. Knowing the hardships they will endure, he wants them to understand an important marker of their identity as his followers. He wants them, above all, to know they are blessed. This is the one word he repeats over and over.
What does it mean to be blessed? It means to stand in the light of God’s love and favor. Just as we cannot make ourselves saints, we cannot bless ourselves – it has to happen to us.
And God’s blessing is often counter-intuitive – the attributes Jesus associates with blessing are not what the world equates with success. Once again Jesus overturns the “logical” order of human priorities and introduces the upside-down reality of God’s realm. The people of Jesus’ day thought prosperity and health and offspring were signs of God’s blessing… Jesus says, “Look deeper.”
With what do you associate blessing?
In what ways do you feel blessed or unblessed?
Might you ask the Holy Spirit to show you in what ways God sees you as blessed? I often invite us to hold other people in our mind’s eye and imagine them showered with God’s holy, healing light – that is an image of blessing. So today let's imagine ourselves in that light. And know that we are blessed, no matter what we feel like on a given day.
As followers of Christ, we are blessed to be a blessing. We are one of the ways God is blessing the world. And we’re a whole lot more effective when we’re in touch with our blessedness. The next time someone says to you, “God bless you,” whether or not you’ve sneezed, say, “I'll 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.
There is only one gospel passage assigned for All Saints Day – each year, it’s the same old Beatitudes. I’ve often grumbled at this, dismissing the Beatitudes as a how-to guide (albeit, Jesus’ how-to guide...) and I’m not big on the idea of people striving for sainthood. That’s God’s to give. But when I look past this little prejudice and more fully explore this famous laundry list of saintly characteristics – remembering that “saint” means Christ-follower – I find some gold.
Jesus is speaking to his followers on a “mountain” – probably a hill, but perhaps Matthew wants to draw parallels between Moses giving the Law on Mount Sinai in the old covenant, and Jesus giving the “law” of the new covenant. (Luke, a Gentile, seems less interested in demonstrating continuity between the Jesus movement and its Jewish roots. In his Gospel, this scene takes place on a plain, on level ground – in line with his theme of Jesus as the great leveler, equalizer.)
Jesus has been teaching every chance he gets, but on this day he has a particular message for his disciples. Knowing the hardships they will endure, he wants them to understand an important marker of their identity as his followers. He wants them, above all, to know they are blessed. This is the one word he repeats over and over.
What does it mean to be blessed? It means to stand in the light of God’s love and favor. Just as we cannot make ourselves saints, we cannot bless ourselves – it has to happen to us.
And God’s blessing is often counter-intuitive – the attributes Jesus associates with blessing are not what the world equates with success. Once again Jesus overturns the “logical” order of human priorities and introduces the upside-down reality of God’s realm. The people of Jesus’ day thought prosperity and health and offspring were signs of God’s blessing… Jesus says, “Look deeper.”
With what do you associate blessing?
In what ways do you feel blessed or unblessed?
Might you ask the Holy Spirit to show you in what ways God sees you as blessed? I often invite us to hold other people in our mind’s eye and imagine them showered with God’s holy, healing light – that is an image of blessing. So today let's imagine ourselves in that light. And know that we are blessed, no matter what we feel like on a given day.
As followers of Christ, we are blessed to be a blessing. We are one of the ways God is blessing the world. And we’re a whole lot more effective when we’re in touch with our blessedness. The next time someone says to you, “God bless you,” whether or not you’ve sneezed, say, “I'll 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.
10-26-26 - Saints Alive!
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Next Sunday is All Saints Day. That “All” means “All” – all who follow Christ as Lord are saints of God. “Saints” was the term used in the early church for Christ followers; Paul would write a letter to “the saints who are in Corinth,” or “the saints in Philippi.” Saints are those called out and set aside, consecrated, made holy to the Lord, the way we use special consecrated vessels for holy rituals.
.
What is a saint? Or, more properly, who is a saint? “Saint” does not mean “a really good person” or “holier than thou.” In fact, true saints are humble enough to be quite aware of their faults and weaknesses. Our doctrine of saints recognizes that saints are made, not born. We are made holy by being united with Christ, not through our own attributes. Many of our best known saints, like St. Augustine or St. Francis of Assisi, had quite rakish pasts before the Holy Spirit got hold of them. Some, like St. Teresa of Avila, were quick of wit and sharp of tongue. Some were martyrs, some monastics, some simple, some highly educated. Saints come in all shapes and sizes.
What kind of saint are you? When are you most aware of having been made holy? Another way to ask that is, when are you most aware of the Holy Spirit working through you?
If you want to become more aware of your sainthood, I believe God is pleased to help you with that. “Make me more holy, Lord.” If you pray that prayer today, ask the Spirit to show you all the ways you already reflect God’s holiness and love. Saints are a work in progress.
The Holy Spirit’s presence always leaves a residue. As we allow the Spirit to move through us, work through us, pray and praise through us, we become tinged with the holy, and as we keep inviting the Spirit to dwell in, with and through us, that tinge of holiness grows stronger and thicker until the holiness is more obvious than the mere humanity. And then, lo and behold, someone is liable to say of you, “S/He is such a saint!”
© 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.
Next Sunday is All Saints Day. That “All” means “All” – all who follow Christ as Lord are saints of God. “Saints” was the term used in the early church for Christ followers; Paul would write a letter to “the saints who are in Corinth,” or “the saints in Philippi.” Saints are those called out and set aside, consecrated, made holy to the Lord, the way we use special consecrated vessels for holy rituals.
.
What is a saint? Or, more properly, who is a saint? “Saint” does not mean “a really good person” or “holier than thou.” In fact, true saints are humble enough to be quite aware of their faults and weaknesses. Our doctrine of saints recognizes that saints are made, not born. We are made holy by being united with Christ, not through our own attributes. Many of our best known saints, like St. Augustine or St. Francis of Assisi, had quite rakish pasts before the Holy Spirit got hold of them. Some, like St. Teresa of Avila, were quick of wit and sharp of tongue. Some were martyrs, some monastics, some simple, some highly educated. Saints come in all shapes and sizes.
What kind of saint are you? When are you most aware of having been made holy? Another way to ask that is, when are you most aware of the Holy Spirit working through you?
If you want to become more aware of your sainthood, I believe God is pleased to help you with that. “Make me more holy, Lord.” If you pray that prayer today, ask the Spirit to show you all the ways you already reflect God’s holiness and love. Saints are a work in progress.
The Holy Spirit’s presence always leaves a residue. As we allow the Spirit to move through us, work through us, pray and praise through us, we become tinged with the holy, and as we keep inviting the Spirit to dwell in, with and through us, that tinge of holiness grows stronger and thicker until the holiness is more obvious than the mere humanity. And then, lo and behold, someone is liable to say of you, “S/He is such a saint!”
© 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.
10-23-26 - The Perfect Hanger
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets,” Jesus said about the commandments he considered the greatest – to love God with all our heart, soul and mind, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
The literal side of me visualizes an actual hanger, on which hangs the fullness of God’s revelation, perfected in Christ. This hanger, like many in our closets, has three sides. The widest, the bottom stabilizing rod, is our love for God. The two angled sides, which rest on the base and join together at the top, are our love for neighbor and for ourselves – which, as we have observed this week, are interdependent and mutually reinforcing; if one side breaks the hanger goes kerflooey.
If we can manage to fully engage our love for God, neighbor and self, and give each of these loves equal energy, I believe our lives will be more centered and fulfilling. We will find ourselves thriving in the light of God, putting more and more of our life-blood into the enterprise of love. That is what we are here for, what Jesus came to make possible for us.
How might we orient ourselves into a more conscious, daily engagement with loving God, neighbor and self? We could take the hangers in our closet as a daily reminder. When you take out clothing in the morning, remember: “Oh yeah, my biggest job today is to love God, my neighbor and myself.” And when you put your clothes away in the evening (we all hang up our clothes every night, right?) review how well you remembered. Gradually this can become second nature, and we’ll see the fruit of it in our lives.
And when loving becomes second nature to more and more people, we start to see the fruits in the world around us. That world is quite frightening these days – yet I am constantly 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.
Paul wrote to the Colossians: Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience… And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
We have a closet full of hangers, on which to hang our "garments of salvation." And what supports these hangers? The rod, the perfect love of God, which can bear all the weight we need it to. God’s love enables us to 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.
“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets,” Jesus said about the commandments he considered the greatest – to love God with all our heart, soul and mind, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
The literal side of me visualizes an actual hanger, on which hangs the fullness of God’s revelation, perfected in Christ. This hanger, like many in our closets, has three sides. The widest, the bottom stabilizing rod, is our love for God. The two angled sides, which rest on the base and join together at the top, are our love for neighbor and for ourselves – which, as we have observed this week, are interdependent and mutually reinforcing; if one side breaks the hanger goes kerflooey.
If we can manage to fully engage our love for God, neighbor and self, and give each of these loves equal energy, I believe our lives will be more centered and fulfilling. We will find ourselves thriving in the light of God, putting more and more of our life-blood into the enterprise of love. That is what we are here for, what Jesus came to make possible for us.
How might we orient ourselves into a more conscious, daily engagement with loving God, neighbor and self? We could take the hangers in our closet as a daily reminder. When you take out clothing in the morning, remember: “Oh yeah, my biggest job today is to love God, my neighbor and myself.” And when you put your clothes away in the evening (we all hang up our clothes every night, right?) review how well you remembered. Gradually this can become second nature, and we’ll see the fruit of it in our lives.
And when loving becomes second nature to more and more people, we start to see the fruits in the world around us. That world is quite frightening these days – yet I am constantly 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.
Paul wrote to the Colossians: Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience… And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
We have a closet full of hangers, on which to hang our "garments of salvation." And what supports these hangers? The rod, the perfect love of God, which can bear all the weight we need it to. God’s love enables us to 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.
10-22-26 - Loving Ourselves
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.
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.
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