5-31-19 - Watch Where You're Going

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

The Ascension story, as told in Acts, makes me chuckle as I picture the disciples “gazing up toward heaven,” watching the soles of Jesus’ feet disappear into the ether.

…as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Where is our gaze directed? Some people are said to be “so heavenly minded they are of no earthly good,” meaning, presumably, they are so focused on eternal life, on deepening their faith, they neglect the horizontal, missional dimension of the Christian life. We can find such a consumer mentality in some modern churchgoers, seeking spiritual comfort. However, we can also become so wrapped up in doing “earthly good,” we lose the spiritual basis from which we are to meet needs and make justice – because to do so introduces the world to Jesus and the love of God.

It seems to me that the angels’ gentle rebuke (echoing their words to the disciples outside Jesus’ empty tomb on Easter morning…) is important for us as well. We are not to be looking for Jesus in the last place we saw him, or imagining him only in “some heaven, light years away” (as the lovely hymn, “Gather Us In” puts it). For he also told his followers they would see him in the hungry and naked, the sick and incarcerated, in the bread and wine of communion, in any place the Holy Spirit is discernible. He told them to go out and bear witness to his love and power “to the ends of the earth.” You can’t walk to the ends of the earth if your gaze is turned upwards – you will soon trip and fall or knock somebody over (neither pitfall uncommon for Christians…).

The call to a dual focus – fixing our eyes on Jesus, and looking outward to the world for which he lived, died and rose again – is reflected in our dual callings, to be both his disciples and his apostles. As disciples we grow as we invest our time and energy strengthening our relationship with him. As apostles, we follow his lead, training our vision to those places Jesus directs us to look, where he has fixed his loving gaze. One is a more contemplative activity, the other more active. Both draw us closer to Jesus and invite Jesus to increase his life in us.

What matters is that where we look is where we are going – he is our destination, and our companion on the way there. May we, like his disciples, go out and return to our base with great joy, continually blessing God.

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The readings for Ascension day are here.

5-30-19 - Call the Witness

(You can listen to this reflection here. The reading for Ascension is here.)

Jesus had clear orders for his disciples before his final departure: they were to bear witness to what they had seen and known with him, and further, they were to bear witness to knowing him, making him known to the people they met.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

I use this line every year, but sometimes I wonder if Episcopalians think we’re in the witness protection program. We eagerly testify to our great liturgy, our friendly coffee hours, our beautiful buildings, not to mention the movies we’ve seen, restaurants we’ve enjoyed, grandchildren, children, and pets we’re besotted with… but when it comes to talking about our faith, or tossing Jesus’ name around? Silence. Who, me?

If we think bearing witness is all up to us, maybe we have reason to hesitate – we may think our stories not exciting enough, our experiences not extreme enough, our words not eloquent enough, our knowledge not extensive enough. But notice what comes first in that sentence: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…”

Jesus’ disciples weren’t any more equipped than we are in those early weeks after his resurrection. They huddled up in that room, went fishing, prayed and wondered what the heck they were supposed to do next. But when the Spirit came upon them at Pentecost, suddenly they were empowered in ways they could not have imagined before. Peter, so quick to deny Jesus after his arrest, now risked arrest himself because he could not stop proclaiming the name of Jesus.

We think we have to figure out how to be witnesses. No. We need only be open to the Holy Spirit – invite the Spirit to fill us, empower us, equip us, embolden us. Then the stories will spill out. The “anointed appointments” will pop up in our lives. The “God-incidences” will mount up.

We are Jesus’ witnesses. It’s his life we proclaim, telling and showing how his life has intersected with and enriched and made sense of our lives. Come, Holy Spirit! Call the witness!

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The readings for Ascension day are here.

5-29-19 - Waiting for the Promise

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Sometimes playwrights (I have been one…) have a problem: How to get a character off the stage. Did God face this dilemma with Jesus? After all, he’s risen from the dead, very much alive and embodied, if somewhat different than before. Yet the embodied Jesus needs to exit the scene – his work is done, his mission accomplished, and it’s time for the Holy Spirit to be released upon all flesh. He can’t go into the earth or wander off. There’s only one way he can go: up.

"…as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight." Nice exit!

For the rest of this week we turn to the story of Jesus’ ascension, which Luke tells in more detail in Acts than he does in his Gospel. Both accounts, though, begin with Jesus’ instructions to his disciples:

While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

It is put even more urgently in Luke’s gospel: “And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."

Promises are challenging – they require us to trust the person making them. And they are by nature future events - they are promises only until they are fulfilled, at which time they become gifts. And we rarely know exactly when the promise will be fulfilled. It is often when we least expect it – for the disciples this one was met some time later, as they gathered to worship for the Jewish feast of Pentecost.

We too have been promised the gift of the Holy Spirit, and we have already received this gift. We can feel the Spirit in prayer, in worship, in ministry. Yet we can also go through periods when we’re waiting for the Spirit’s life to be activated in and around us, for direction to appear, prompts to unfold laying out the way forward for what God has already intended to do through us. The waiting is hard!

In what areas of your life do you feel you are waiting on the Spirit? Waiting for a promise to unfold, a path to appear? Have you told God that you’re waiting? How you feel about the waiting? That doesn’t always shorten the wait, but it deepens the relationship.

The Spirit acts when the Spirit acts; our job is to wait with grace, keeping busy with what is already before us even as we wait to behold what wonders God will reveal in us next. In God-Life, the only way to go is up.

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5-28-19 - God's Internal Love

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

The great theologian Karl Barth was reportedly asked after a lecture to sum up his thought, and this legendary intellect and writer of volumes of complex theology articulating the nature of God, of man, of Christ, and more, replied, “Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so.”

Does it really just come down to love? Jesus said so… “I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

In his prayer to his heavenly Father on his last night in human life, Jesus spoke of having made known to his followers the name of God, so that God’s love, with which Jesus had been loved, would reside in them – and further, that he himself would be in them. That is what we claim happens at baptism (and may happen in other times and ways; baptism is simply a guarantor) – we are united with Christ, and his spirit takes up residence within us for ever. Already. Now.

That means we too are filled with the Father’s love. Do you feel filled with God’s love? I’m not always aware of it. I can be filled with energy or anxiety, peace or hope or fury or love for another. Rarely am I conscious of being a repository of God’s love, God’s love made available to the world, through me, through you.

This may be our most important goal in the spiritual life: to become conscious, intentional conduits of the love that made the universe into a world thirsty for it. We need to be aware of our belovedness. This is old news, yet so difficult to live into.

We don’t have to find this love and ingest it – Jesus implies it is already in us, because he made God’s name known to his followers. And we are their descendants, apostles ourselves. Our job is to release this love into the world around us. How and where are we going to do that today?

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5-27-19 - Unity

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

The Easter 7 dilemma: Use the readings appointed for the seventh Sunday in Easter, or those set for Ascension Day three days earlier – knowing that no one, even if their church is named Ascension, attends Ascension Day services anymore? Let's split the difference, starting the week with the gospel for Easter 7. This takes us back again to Jesus’ last night in earthly life. After a long discourse to his disciples, he embarks upon a lengthy prayer for them. Here is a part:

“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” 

One reason to skip this reading is that it is heart-breaking to engage this prayer. Unity was Jesus’ deepest desire for his followers, we might say his last wish, and it has proved impossible for the church that bears his name to keep. And, as I have written here recently, one of the reasons the world does not believe that God sent Jesus as Redeemer is that those who follow Christ seem so to excel at division.

We have vastly different ways of reading and interpreting Scripture, what we think is important in worship, how we live out the calls to justice and generosity, care for the poor and the marginalized. We are divided by history, language, and culture, by conflicts both ancient and recent. Maybe we shouldn’t feel so bad about the current state of Christ’s church – his followers were locked in bitter divisions within a few years of his resurrection.

I am most convicted by this line, "on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word.” If we don’t speak our word, the word of grace and forgiveness and our experience of God’s overwhelming love, and if we don’t back that up by our actions, fewer and fewer will believe through us. And friends, the community of Christ-followers is spread by human contact, like a virus, a good virus, one that strengthens the immune system and promotes healthy growth and a just and secure world. We should find this as urgent a matter as Jesus did.

As we speak the words of grace and live them, and allow the Spirit to really rule our hearts and direct our actions, we will find ourselves less able to condemn our brothers and sisters in faith, even when their words or actions are reprehensible. We will be more able to pray for them and commit them to God’s hand, and keep our eyes on Jesus and spread the message of his love. Maybe if all Christians put that first, we’d have less energy for fighting with each other. And one day Jesus will see his dream of unity made real.

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5-24-19 - Healing of Nations

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Let’s move now from the pool of healing in our Gospel story, to the healing river mentioned in the end of Revelation; from the healing of persons to the healing of the nations:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

What a beautiful picture of the new heavens and the new earth, picking up on the vision of a restoring river in Ezekiel 47, which also had fruit trees on each bank, their leaves for healing. In the new vision the healing has been broadened to the healing of nations. This resonates with a theme in our reading from Acts as well:

...Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

In the capital city of Philippi, they went on the Sabbath “outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer.” There they met a woman named Lydia, who came to faith in Jesus through Paul’s words. She and her whole household were baptized. An unexpected blessing, strangers now become family in faith. Who knows what fruit came of that encounter – generations of Christ-followers, perhaps. The river of God, a place of prayer, a place of healing, across national borders and boundaries of difference; that’s where we are called to live the Good News of freedom in Christ. That Good News is for all nations.

Does the healing power of Christ extend to nations? There is only one way to find out. We may feel feeble in our prayers for peace and an end to terror and starvation, oppression and exploitation, economic and environmental devastation, because the needs are so vast, the pain so entrenched. It is hard to see outcomes to such prayers. The bigger the wound, the more complex the condition, the longer it can take to heal it – but our prayers are not impotent. Through our prayers we bless peace-makers. Circumstances change. We influence people in authority, or grass-roots activists. We don’t know – we know only that the healing stream that flows through and around us is meant for the whole world.

Maybe each day we comb the news for one name in a conflict-ridden area, that leaps out at us, and make it our task to pray for that person to be fully blessed. Maybe our churches agree to pray for one place of suffering each month, focusing our intercessions.

We don’t know where the healing stream will flow. It is up to us to be water-carriers, bearing that water of life to every place and person in need of it. It is up to us to identify and remove the obstacles in its flow. In the end, even nations will be healed, and God’s reign celebrated everywhere.

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5-23-19 - Walk

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

I was privileged to know Canon Jim Glennon, an Anglican clergyman from Australia who had an extraordinary gift and ministry of healing. We corresponded quite a bit before he died, and I invited him to lead a healing mission at Grace Church in New York. I will never forget his clear, simple teaching about God’s healing: plant the seed of faith, in Christ; give thanks for God’s activity, even before you see it (“first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn…” he’d quote); and don’t be afraid to test it.

To demonstrate this approach, he asked if someone with severe back pain would come up for prayer, and a man did. The process by which Jim prayed, then checked in, and responded to the information offered is an incredible story in itself, and included the man’s realization that he needed to forgive the person who’d caused his injury. But after that occurred, and we prayed some more, Jim asked the man how his pain was now, and he said, “It’s gone! It’s been with me for 15 years, and it’s gone!” “Well, twist around,” Jim said. “Move your back. Try it out. Get up and walk.” One way we accept the healing God offers us is by moving into it.

Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Sometimes we pray for healing or transformation, and then think God has not answered. And why do we think that? Because we haven’t moved! We’re still sitting in our dis-ease and sometimes despair and mistrust, still seeing the matter from the same angle, perhaps influenced by disappointments in the past. But when we get up and move around, we have to see it differently, for our position changes. (Not to mention the real physiological benefits for our brain chemistry of moving…).

We can assume that our God of love has heard our prayers, that this God who loves and desires freedom and wholeness for us is indeed acting on our behalf. So we give thanks even before we see the fullness of the healing we desire. We begin to walk, to move ourselves into the healing stream of God’s love and power. Maybe we limp at first; maybe we move cautiously; but we can move toward that freedom and wholeness, fixing our attention not on our remaining symptoms but on the unwavering love of God in Jesus Christ.

I do believe God’s healing stream is that Living Water Jesus promised would well up inside us to eternal life. And God’s healing stream is that mighty river of Life that flows around us as we move in the Spirit. If the flow is impeded by anxiety or anger or unforgiveness or unhealed trauma, we invite the Spirit to help transcend those obstacles. Yet it is remarkable how much healing we can experience even as we’re getting free of some of those impediments.

Today, pray for healing in whatever area you’ve been considering this week. (Maybe pray with another – the faith of two is stronger than one). Believe that God desires wholeness for you, whatever that will look like. Give thanks for God's activity even before you see the fruits. And then begin to walk in faith, into healing. First the blade, then the ear, then the fullness of life!

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5-22-19 - Always Another Way

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

I once knew someone whose life had become a living hell. So many traumas and losses had accrued, exacerbated by and exacerbating physical and mental illness, family and financial troubles, she was like a fly caught in the web of a very busy spider. Listening, I didn’t know where to begin; she was sure no good outcome was possible.

Isn’t there always a good reason things won’t improve? We don’t have the support we need; something derailed us; we’re in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong people. The sick man in this week’s gospel story laid the blame for his continued infirmity on the other sick people around him who, he said, never let him get into the healing waters when they were stirred.

The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”

I love Jesus’ response: he says nothing about the pool. He doesn’t tell the man to stop feeling sorry for himself. He doesn’t advise how to compete with the other people. He sidesteps the whole process in which the man has put his hope, and gives a command that has the power to effect what it commands: “Stand up, take your mat, walk.”

How did these words land on this man, so sure there was only one dim possibility for reversal, if only he could get into that pool at the right moment? Did he think Jesus was mocking him? Crazy? Or did he feel a sensation in his body and limbs that told him something was awakening, something had changed? Did he worry people would think him insane if he attempted to stand? We don’t know; we’re told only that he did stand and began to walk.

This man did not heal himself. He did not exercise faith and become more open to healing. This was entirely Jesus’ faith at work. That’s important for us, both as we seek healing for ourselves, and as we minister to others. We don’t have to put ourselves or others into the right frame of mind. We only have to bring Jesus into the picture and believe in his presence. And if we hear a command – and we may or may not – we should act on it.

If you were to tell Jesus in prayer today about the most “stuck” area of your life, the one about which you feel the most despair, what would it be? Try it, and try listening inwardly for a response. It might come through a word that fixes in your mind, or an image or scene. Or you might find yourself sitting or walking with Jesus in your imagination. Whatever unfolds, go with it. Might Jesus give you insight on the stuckness? Might he command you to be free?

In the life of God there is always another way healing can come. We cannot assume it will come only through prayer or medical care or neither or both. We are to take the actions before us, but not get tied to them. At any moment, even thirty-eight years later, Jesus can come into our picture and set us free. He doesn’t have to untangle the web; he has only to command in love, and the bonds fall away. And if we invite him in, we can experience release that much sooner.

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5-21-19 - Do You Want Healing?

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

It can be scary to ask for healing. Alarmed as we might be by illness, symptoms, loss of freedom and mobility, or even impending death, it can be more daunting still to ask for God’s transforming power to effect a change. What if God doesn’t act? Then, in addition to the scourge of illness, our faith has taken a hit. This fear is enough to keep many people stuck in infirmity.

One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”

It’s a fair question. I have wanted to ask it of quite a few people, and I’m sure some have wanted to ask it of me. Thirty-eight years seems like a long time to endure illness, but dis-ease can easily become a habit. I’ve known robust, active people rendered prematurely homebound by pain or constrained mobility; it seems to the people around them that they’ve given up way too soon. But the shock of limitations deals its own blows to the psyche.

We don’t know the circumstances of the man in our story. He comes off as a bit of a whiner – and as we learn in the next part, he snitches on Jesus to the temple authorities, which doesn’t make him very likable. But whiners take to whining when no one listens to them, and this man may have had good reasons why his illness became chronic. Once that became his way of life, and possibly his livelihood through the charity of others, he may no longer have been able to imagine himself well. After all, when we are sick all our energy goes into getting through the day; we don’t have much left for imagining wellness or praying for healing.

But God can always imagine us well. God’s desire for us is wholeness. Perhaps the first prayer we make is not “Heal me,” but “Show me your vision of me whole.” Perhaps in prayer we imagine Jesus looking at us and asking, “Do you want to be made well?” in whatever area of our life we feel broken or wounded.

And answer honestly. Do you want to be healed? Do I? Are there advantages to our conditions, be they physical, emotional or spiritual – attention we get, or ways in which expectations are comfortably lowered, other people taking responsibility for things? Are there relationships that would be upset if we were healed and whole?

I believe the power to heal comes from God, and has already been given to us, as Christ lives in us through baptism. The question for us is what impedes the flow of that healing stream in and around us? What keeps us on the sides of that pool, afraid to jump in? Knowing that can help release the Love that restores us to wholeness.

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5-20-19 - Faint Hopes

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

Context is everything. With Memorial Day Weekend just ahead, to read about a pool with a bunch of people lying around it every day, we might think it a place of joy and leisure. This place was anything but. This was a spot where invalids gathered, drawn by a tradition that healing could be found when the pool’s waters were stirred.

Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.

The invalids may have been there for several reasons, perhaps parked for the day by caregivers. People blemished or infirm in any way were considered ritually unclean, and thus unfit for entry into the temple courts where they might defile others. It was a harsh, isolating life for the blind, lame, paralyzed in Jesus’ day, with no promise of medical treatment. The man at the center of our story had been ill for thirty-eight years; how many of those had he spent in this place? This faint hope of healing in the pool must have kept them going, one day to the next, a community of invalids stuck together by misery and occasional blessing.

You don’t have to be blind, lame or paralyzed to know the power of faint hope. In fact, usually when people say, “I’m hoping for the best…” they have long since abandoned any hope for the best, and have settled for a dim “maybe things will change…” I know many a church in decline where that thinking operates. Often we will endure unhappy or unfulfilling circumstances for far longer than we should because of our stubborn hope that something could change. And often the only thing likely to bring a positive change is our changing the way we engage that situation.

As we begin to explore this story, let’s bring to mind the places we feel stuck or running on fumes. Where in your life might clinging to a faint hope be blocking movement toward a more robust change?

Who do you know who puts up with circumstances that could perhaps be altered – enduring pain or misconnection or half-life because it seems too scary or difficult to seek a better strategy? This story offers some clues into how we might facilitate movement in others.

The invalids gathered at that pool were hoping for the best, without knowing what the best really was – that the Best had walked into their midst that day when Jesus showed up. Even we who know his power sometimes hesitate to hope for his best in our lives. And to us he whispers, “Let me show you!”

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5-17-19 - A Bigger Box

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's reading is here.)

Even to the Gentiles. That is what the Jewish Christian believers in Jerusalem concluded when Peter finished his story about why he was keeping company with the “uncircumcised.” God has extended “even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.” This was shocking, unprecedented (well, not really...), outside their categories. And what convinced Peter and, through him, the other leaders, was evidence of the Holy Spirit.

"And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

We see the scene in Cornelius’ house in greater detail in the previous chapter. Peter has arrived, noted that it would not ordinarily be lawful for a Jew to enter the home of a Gentile, described the supernatural occurrences that led him there, and then begins to preach to them. His opener is startling: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him." Wow. Is God really that accepting? Even Peter had trouble holding onto this truth, and Christ’s church has ever struggled with it.

As Peter winds into his sermon, something even more extra-ordinary happens: the Holy Spirit comes upon those listening, though they are not Jews nor, as yet, Christians. They begin to speak in tongues and praise God, just as the disciples did at Pentecost. Peter and his companions are astounded. 

Then Peter said, "Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?’ So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

Jesus had told Nicodemus that the Spirit blows where it will. But we’re still surprised when that wind of God carries seeds into ground we did not think prepared to receive it. Where else have we been thinking too small or limiting the way we share the Good News of Jesus Christ? One of the primary excuses people give for not sharing their faith is “people have perfectly good religions of their own.” Some do, some don't - and maybe all might receive the Holy Spirit if we go where God sends us and bring our faith and our love.

It is not our job to persuade, only to witness to our own experience and our joy. New grandparents will tell anyone they meet their good news. They're not trying to make other people into grandparents; they’re just sharing their joy. That's our call too.

I wrote yesterday that it is human nature to sort and categorize people. It is also human nature to try to define God and God’s activity. So we read our texts and repeat our stories and make our definitions and pronouncements and try to put God in a box that is manageable and vaguely comprehensible. And the history of God in humankind tells us this: We will always need a bigger box.
Make more space for the Holy Spirit, and maybe we’ll also need bigger baptismal fonts.

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5-16-19 - No Distinctions

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

My friend Peter says, “The one place the Holy Spirit can’t hide is in the timing.” There is Holy Spirit timing all over the book of Acts. People in different places are given instructions by the Holy Spirit more or less simultaneously, or in such a way that the timing dovetails perfectly. Each has to act on the instructions, exercising more than a little faith, and then finds confirmation when the other party is revealed. This happens with the centurion, Cornelius, when he is visited by an angel who instructs him, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter…” Then we learn that his messengers arrive at Peter’s lodging at the very moment his vision of unclean foods ends. As Peter tells it,

At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ 

There are so many remarkable details in that paragraph – angels, messengers, divine timing, salvation. But perhaps the most startling is what Peter reports the Spirit saying to him: go with these Gentile strangers, and do not "make a distinction between them and us.” Much of Jewish law and identity lay in making distinctions between Jew and non-Jew, sacred and secular, clean and unclean. In times of persecution, allegiance to these identity markers became even more pronounced; the early church was struggling with whether and how to integrate "uncircumcised" - i.e., non-Jewish - believers in Christ. And now God tells Peter to make no distinctions between these Gentiles and himself?

It is not only Judaism which excels in making distinctions. It is human nature to define oneself and one’s tribe in ways that welcome some in and rule others out. I would go so far as to say it is human nature to make distinctions, and to rank people based upon them. Could we function with no distinctions at all, seeing every person as equally worthy of our love and attention and provision? What a wonderful world that would be! Or would it be total chaos?

And what about Christians? We’ve made a fine art of distinctions with our multiple denominations and their variations and permutations. Are we not to distinguish ourselves from those who do not follow Christ? Jesus said his followers were to be known by their love for each other; that assumes they should be recognizable as Christ-followers.

Once again, love is the answer. It’s not that we shouldn’t note, even celebrate, differences. We’re just not to judge one more worthy than another, and we certainly are not to decide that we can consort with some and not others. Every person is worthy of our company and attention, no matter their background, beliefs, even behavior. Peter’s experience tells us that the Spirit may indeed lead us to people who do not know Jesus as Lord. And often that is because he wants us to make the introduction.

Cornelius had to take a step of faith to believe that angel and send for Peter. Peter had to take a step of faith to believe that the Spirit had urged him forward, and then to go with the messengers and enter the home of a Gentile. Both men responded in faith – and created space for God to show up. And boy, did God show up! Stay tuned…

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5-15-19 - Kill and Eat?

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

We’ve spent two days on Sunday’s Gospel reading. For the rest of the week, let’s focus on the reading from Acts, which amplifies the message of “love one another.” Just what happened to the apostle Peter while he sojourned in Joppa?

We hear these tales as Peter reports them to his brethren in Jerusalem. Many of these Jewish believers were suspicious about Gentile converts to faith in Jesus Christ, fearing this was too great a departure from their tradition (it's only been a short while since Jesus’ resurrection, and they are already defending the tradition…) So Peter goes to Jerusalem to explain to these “circumcised believers” why he eats and drinks with Gentiles, or non-Jews. Have they already forgotten Jesus having to defend his eating companions?

Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision…”

Peter relates a bizarre vision in which a sheet is lowered from heaven containing mammals, reptiles, and birds, as a voice says, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” Peter protests that he has never eaten anything non-kosher, but the voice replies, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ This happens three times, and the moment he emerges from his trance, he receives word that some men want to see him. They ask him to come and speak to those gathered at the home of a Roman centurion, Cornelius. (These stories appear in greater detail in Acts 10 - what we have here is Peter’s re-telling). Peter would not normally have met with Gentiles, but with this vision fresh in his mind, and the Spirit’s nudging, he goes.

We’ll explore later what wondrous things happen in the home of the centurion. Today let’s stay with the vision and message Peter received, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” Do we have here a hint of how the Holy Spirit expands our understanding of God’s word? The extension of the Good News to Gentiles, and the early church’s grappling with that in light of earlier interpretations of their scriptures, is instructive for us in our church conflicts over biblical interpretation and social issues. Christians on the more progressive end of these tensions believe that the Spirit has enlarged our interpretative lens, if you will, while those on the more conservative side feel that tradition must be narrowly honored and upheld. Yet it seems to me you can’t get a more radical expansion of Mosaic food laws than, “Do not call profane what God has made clean.” What else might the Spirit be inviting us to re-examine?

What are some areas in which you have had to wrestle with scripture, traditional interpretation of that scripture, and a call to a more expansive view? Does this vision of Peter’s help or hinder your struggle?

For Peter, this experience provided critical data that he needed right away when called to a Roman centurion’s home. What happened when he got there confirmed the vision a thousand times. That’s how God works – God shows us something new, leads us into the unfamiliar, and then lets us know we are exactly where he wanted us to be.

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5-14-19 - Commanded To Love

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

We don’t tend to think of love as something one must be commanded to do. Isn’t a commandment to love a contradiction? Love by its nature is freely given. Yet we know that when love is only a feeling and not a choice, it can fluctuate the way feelings do, resulting in chaos and heartbreak. So we put structures around love with vows and norms and tax laws. People pledge commitments to one another for the days when they don’t feel so loving.

Jesus must have known it wouldn’t be any easier to be his church than it is to be married. The commandment he gave his disciples on his last night with them was directed to those who would carry forward his name in the world, the community of Christ-followers. And he was direct:

"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

Love is to be the mark of Christian community. Not church size or feeding programs or missionaries supported or protest marches participated in. Love. For each other.

How are we doing by that measure, 2000+ years later? Does it surprise us that many churches have more real estate than people? Poll after poll shows that many, especially the Millennials everyone wants in their churches, see the Church as judgmental, commercial, hypocritical, greedy, intolerant and/or irrelevant. If Christians are not in the papers for offending someone, we’re boring people to death. The liberal/conservative fault lines are so deep, there are such discrepancies between how certain scriptures are interpreted, and even which scripture to focus on – have we lost the heart of Jesus in the scramble to represent him?

I believe in God's dream for the Church, the mystical Body of Christ, his hands and feet and voice and conscience given for the life of this world. There is still power in this ancient idea, this sacred community across time and space. I believe this is the way God has chosen to make his love abundantly real to the world, the vessel through which God’s transforming love can work the most powerfully.

And the only message the world will truly understand is love. But how do we live into Jesus’ command to love our fellow Christ-followers, even when they seem to flout or distort his commands? We can only get there by allowing God to love us, to fill us with his love. We can only get there by acknowledging the ways we judge and belittle others. We need to invite God to show us what she treasures about our brothers and sisters who offend us, to see the wounds that might cause behavior or words we consider harmful.

Today, think of a Christian you have trouble with. Hold him or her in your mind’s eye. And then pray for her or him to be blitzed with God’s blessing. Rinse and repeat tomorrow.

Friends. Jesus said his disciples were no longer servants, but friends, chosen in love, appointed to bear fruit, enduring, life-changing fruit. If we want to do that, be that, we need to learn how to love one another. God is counting on us.

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5-13-19 - Separation Anxiety

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
And I see that this is my 1500th Water Daily post - thank you for being a part of this far-flung community of readers, listeners, responders, fellow travelers and saints of God!)

Nobody likes to be left, not even Jesus’ disciples. In our Eastertide lectionary travels we’re back to the night Jesus was arrested. He says a lengthy farewell to his friends in the upper room where they have just had supper. He has washed their feet, and said strange things about the bread and wine, and predicted that one of them would betray him. Judas has just left to do that. Now Jesus has still more to say to his followers before they go out into the Garden of Gethsemane.

He says something rather opaque about glorifying and being glorified, but the next part is painfully clear: "Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.'" 

I think of a child wailing, “Wanna come with! Wanna come with!” as his parents gently but firmly explain why he cannot join them for work or an evening out. “Where I am going, you cannot come.” But a parent usually adds, “I’ll be home later.” Jesus tells his disciples the worst: “I am with you only a little longer.” And soon he would be gone, gone, gone… and then mysteriously back, but not in the same way. Never again in the same way.

The movement of God is always forward, not back. The mystery of God is One in unity, yet Three distinct persons. And one of the mysteries we live with as followers of the risen and ascended Christ is being separate from him, yet mystically united with him. We claim his life lives in us through the Spirit, yet when we pray, it is to an Other distinct from us.

The disciples had to get used to Jesus’ absence. We have a different challenge: to become used to his presence, real though not embodied. For when Jesus made his final departure in bodily form, he promised that his Father would send his Spirit to his followers, that he would be with them through his Spirit.

Children learning to deal with separation from parents are often given a “transitional object,” a blanket or toy or stuffed animal that carries some of the presence of the parent and eases the separating process. Christ-followers are given what we might call the ultimate in transitional objects, the Spirit of the Holy God to fill us, surround us, comfort us, empower us – and remind us that God will never leave us or forsake us.

Separation anxiety is real, and affects us in varying degrees relative to our experiences in early childhood. But in the spiritual life, the Life we live in God’s realm, Jesus is always here, always present. Not only is he never leaving again; he wants us to come out and play.

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5-10-19 - The Fierce Shepherd

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

My sister and I recently discussed our wish for a Jesus Action Figure. Googling, we found a few – but they were too pious or hokey or jokey. None of them had the requisite fierceness. Popular art and hymnody often portray Jesus as gentle and mild, serene, a peacemaker and solemn teacher. Maybe it’s all those pictures of him carrying a cuddly little lamb in his arms, and our desire for a world in which the meek inherit the earth. He did say that, and he meant it, but our word “meek” does not convey how Jesus did business.

In fact, the popular image of Jesus as a gentle shepherd shows ignorance about shepherding in his day. It was a dirty, dangerous, violent and sometimes nasty business. Shepherds were hired to take care of sheep that belonged to the boss; if they lost one to a predator, or a poacher, or a passing ravine, they were responsible for the cost. It was not a field that attracted the finest of men. I wonder if Jesus' taking on the label “shepherd” itself raised some eyebrows.

The Jesus we meet in the Gospels is strong; fierce on behalf of the broken and marginalized; merciless with the self-righteous; challenging to the wealthy and powerful; harsh with his followers; often sarcastic, and occasionally rude. He is frequently seen arguing with religious leaders, whom he mocked to their faces and in his parables. He spoke with authority and did not hold back, even when threatened with death. He was “in your face” to the max – especially when it came to his claims about his relationship with God, his Father, as he does again in this week's Gospel reading.

“What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

More clearly than we see in other passages, Jesus defines his “flock” and his mission as a gift from his Father, and with all humility elevates himself above all others. I say “with all humility” because humility means having an accurate, “right-sized” view of yourself, and Jesus was, after all, God. But he didn’t look like God to the religious leaders around him, so they took great offense at such claims. After hearing him say, “The Father and I are one,” we’re told “The Jews took up stones again to stone him.”

How we see Jesus matters, because it shapes how we reveal him to the world. Many churches reflect the cultural view of Jesus – solemn and contented, comforting and complacent, unlikely to challenge the structures of society or provoke anyone to action. Often, we present Jesus as someone to have tea with, not one to join in reclaiming, restoring and renewing all of creation, to follow into battle with injustice and corruption. No wonder many find him irrelevant.

Let’s become reacquainted with the Jesus of the Gospels, even if it means reading them back-to-back several times over. Let’s look at our congregations and see how well we reflect the Jesus that multitudes found so compelling they left everything to follow him, whom thousands believed rose from the dead, bearing that conviction to a martyr’s grave.

And let’s look at ourselves, how we walk with Jesus among the people we know, how well we reflect the Jesus of the Gospels. That’s a guy people want to know better. Let’s make him known.

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5-9-19 - Held and Free

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

Do you ever want to feel you belong to someone, someone who desires the best for you and will hold your heart, and not let anyone take you away? That is the basis of many a romance – and maybe some stalker scenarios. We want to be held tight, and to have our freedom, often at the same time.

This is one of the promises Jesus gives those who follow him as Lord. We have the freedom to walk away, but he will not let anyone take us from him.

My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.I reflect on this promise when I think of people who seem to have been snatched away from Jesus by greed or mental illness, addiction or trauma, people who claim to have no use for the gift of life he promises. I choose to believe that if they have once considered themselves as belonging to Jesus, if only as children, they are still his, no matter what happens later. I have watched people walk away for years, only to be drawn back, time and again, realizing that his story holds their story, that his people are their people.

And I wonder, were we more conscious daily about being tethered to Jesus, would we feel more grace in daily life? Would we go easier on ourselves? Be easier on other people? What does it mean to feel held fast and fully alive, all at once?

As I write that question, a picture comes to mind, the famous image from the movie Titanic, Kate Winslet at the bow of the ship, her arms outstretched, face into the wind, exhilarated by freedom, as Leonardo DiCaprio holds her safe. Schmaltzy, yes, but perhaps not a bad way to understand the gift of being held so we can be adventurous and free. I know God wants us to know his love. And I know God wants us to be free. And I know God wants us to be fully alive – in this world, and in the life that comes next, which flows in unbroken continuity from this one. We are already living the eternal life Jesus has won for us; we get to explore it here and now, becoming ready for Life Without Any Ends.

We are free to ride the winds of the Spirit knowing Jesus holds us fast. And no one can snatch us out of his arms.

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5-8-19 - Hearing Jesus

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

In our gospel reading this week, we see the religious leaders of Jesus’ time demand he state whether or not he is the Messiah. "None of this hinting around. Are you or aren’t you?” they ask. In reply, he throws an “Are you or aren’t you?” back at them: Are they his sheep, or not? Actually, he doesn’t ask, because he knows they are not:

The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.

Jesus' circular argument is a boon to those who believe in predestination - that faith and salvation only come to those already chosen by God; other passages in the bible suggest a broader view. But his assertion is hard to refute – and hard to accept. He says, “If you believe in me, you’re one of my sheep. But you're not of my flock, so you won't believe in me." Looking at the whole passage, and recognizing that this conversation is being relayed by John, who has particular axes to grind, 50-60 years after the fact, I believe he is saying, "You've already made up your mind not to believe in me – so you won’t recognize my voice and become one of my sheep.” He defines his critics “out” as firmly as he defines his followers “in.” That cannot have felt very good to the leaders, already suspicious of him.

How about us, reading this so many thousands of years later? Do you feel like one of Jesus’ sheep? He describes his relationship with his sheep as an intimate one, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” Do you feel known by Jesus? Do you feel you are following him?

It can be hard to follow him if we don’t hear his voice, and it can be hard to hear his voice in the din in which we live – actual noise, constant input and stimulus from social media and email and voicemail, not to mention the incessant chatter inside our own heads… How can we hear Jesus’ voice? Well, here are some ways:

• In prayer, inviting him to speak to us as we wait in silence;
• In the Gospels, reading them with an eye to get to know the Jesus we find in them – chewing on his words as we encounter them;
• In the sacraments, inviting him to speak through objects and actions both sacred and ordinary;
• In hymns and spiritual songs, attending to phrases that stick or come to the surface;
• In other people, especially people in need, in whom he said he could be found;
• in our responses to suffering and joy;
• In our own thoughts, as we invite the Holy Spirit to speak in us.

In which of these ways do you hear Jesus most clearly?

We can follow him without hearing him – that’s called faith. But I believe Jesus wants his sheep to hear his voice. Let’s explore and see if one or more of these avenues opens the ears of our hearts to hear Love calling us in.

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5-7-19 - Are You For Real?

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

Some people just want a straight answer. They don’t want to be told a story, or given a demonstration, or be delivered an elliptical discourse that circles around, making its points indirectly. People like that had trouble with Jesus.

People like that still have trouble with Jesus, especially as we meet him in the Gospel of John, much of which shows the Jewish religious leaders (“the Jews” in John’s shorthand) grappling with the often contradictory “evidence” about Jesus: he teaches with authority, yet seems to flout the Law at will; he has undeniable spiritual power and holiness, yet he consorts with people who are “impure.” Worst, he makes radical claims about himself and his relationship to God, who he refers to as his “heavenly Father.” Who is this guy?

So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.’ Jesus answered, ‘I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep."

There’s a reason no one is going to win this argument, Jesus asserts, because the religious leaders will never accept his claims; their suspicion blocks their ability to believe. And only believing Jesus’ claims can dismantle their suspicions. As far as Jesus is concerned, his works of power (miracles) are incontrovertible testimony supporting his claims. If the leaders won’t accept that testimony, they will never believe. And they can’t accept that testimony because Jesus doesn’t look like or sound like the kind of Messiah they believe in. “The guy comes from Galilee, for Christ’s sake!” they reason (rough paraphrase…).

Not much has changed in the millennia since these encounters. It’s hard to accept Jesus as Risen Lord and Savior without faith, and we’re told faith is a gift from the Spirit of Christ. It is hard – but not impossible for those who want to believe. It is more challenging for those who refuse to believe, or who are so sure that God could never look or sound like a poor, itinerant preacher and miracle-worker from a backwater county who died on a cross. Or those who would only follow a Lord who delivers on their prayer requests with more speed and accuracy than God has promised. Everyone has reasons for holding back their hearts from full faith and trust in Jesus.

We may all have times in our lives when we want to say, “Are you for real, Jesus, or aren’t you? Because I’m tired of trusting and believing and not feeling the love, not seeing the fruits.” The Good News is that Jesus invites those questions and the longing behind them. Jesus entertains our expressions of doubt as he entertained Thomas’, just as he delights in our affirmations of faith. First and foremost, Jesus invites us into a relationship of knowledge and intimacy and trust – the trust of a sheep for their shepherd.

Where does the balance between faith and suspicion lie for you today? What do you want to know about Jesus? Go ahead and ask him!

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5-6-19 - A Winter's Tale

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Must we leave our beach breakfast barbecue and head to Jerusalem in the dead of winter? The Lectionary says so. The fourth Sunday in Eastertide always has as its Gospel reading one of Jesus’ Good Shepherd discourses. One might think these passages comforting, but they have a rather dark and dangerous cast, showing Jesus at his most contentious. (If you want a more cuddly Good Shepherd story, read Jesus’ parable about the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep to go find the one who’s lost. That’s very comforting – unless, perhaps, you happen to be among the 99… )

Why can’t we just stay with resurrection appearances for the whole seven weeks of Eastertide, or at least the 40 days that mark Jesus’ resurrection sojourn in this world? If we better understood resurrection life, we might live more God-centered. Or maybe not – just as we proclaim life in the midst of death, it remains true, this side of glory, that we must contend with death the midst of life. So we go back in the story, back to before Jesus’ arrest and passion, death and glorious resurrection, to Jerusalem in the wintertime.

At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon.

What is the Feast of Dedication, you ask? I had to look it up – it is the eight-day remembrance of the Maccabean revolt that regained the temple from the defiling Seleucid rulers. Part of the festival recalls the miracle of the small quantity of unprofaned oil found in the temple that somehow lit the lamps for eight days until they could prepare and bless more, now celebrated as Hanukkah. That’s the “when” in this week’s story – a festival of light, a festival recalling the victory of God’s people over evil. Hmmm....

The “where” has significance as well – we are in Solomon’s Portico, “a many-pillared, three-aisled portico that ran the length of the eastern boundary of the court of Gentiles.” Perhaps I make too much of this proximity to the area where Gentiles were permitted – but we will see in this encounter Jesus setting a clear distinction between his followers, those who “know my voice,” and those who do not. In the end, this divide would lead to the Good News being proclaimed not only to Jews but to Gentiles as well. This is the sacred geography in which Jesus proclaims his message of eternal life for those who believe in him.

This message has life for us as well, even if we have to leave our stories of the Risen Christ for a time. We now see all stories – those we find in the Bible, and those we encounter in our own lives – from the vantage point of resurrection.

Where are you being challenged to find new life in what seems like a sad story? Because Jesus rose, we can find new life in any story, especially our own. As we enjoy the smells and sounds of spring, maybe this winter’s tale will renew our faith in new life.

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5-3-19 - Fed and Feeding

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

Sunday mornings would be a lot messier in our churches had Jesus added, after serving his disciples breakfast on the beach, “Do this in remembrance of me.”  "Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.” That action no doubt had some resonance for the disciples, reminding them not only of their last supper with Jesus a few weeks’ prior, but also that picnic on a hillside, when five loaves and two fish fed thousands.

After the fish-fry, Jesus got serious: When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”

Jesus asks this question of Peter three times, and each time Peter answers, with increasing frustration, “You know I love you.” Jesus addresses him not by the nickname he had given him, “Petros,” but by his given name, “Simon bar Jonah.” Perhaps Jesus doesn't want to resume the familiar appellation until they’ve dealt with the business of Peter’s denying him the night he was arrested. That would account for the triple interrogation, inviting Peter to affirm his love as many times as he had denied his Lord.

But Jesus has more on his mind than reconciliation. With each “Do you love me?” “Yes, you know I love you,” he adds a command: “Feed my lambs.” “Tend my sheep.” “Feed my sheep.” He predicts a martyr’s death for his beloved friend, and ends the conversation the way he began it by the Sea of Galilee three years before, “Follow me.” At that time, Peter and the others followed with excitement and anticipation borne of ignorance and hope. Now they know so much better what it means to follow Christ, to the cross and beyond. Yet their job description is simpler too: Feed my lambs.

There can be no following Jesus, no loving Jesus without some outward manifestation of that love. Sometimes that involves physically feeding those who hunger; the world has no shortage of people without enough food. But I doubt Jesus was talking only about physical hunger. He was telling us to tend the spiritually hungry, the weak, the confused, the misguided, the vulnerable – all of us, at some time or other. He was inviting us – commanding us – to join him in taking care of humanity, one person at a time.

Who are the lambs for whom you’ve been given oversight? 

Do you feel called to tend some whom you don’t know yet?
And are you letting Jesus feed you? Through whom? 

  Hungry shepherds can be tempted to eat the sheep…

We are all sheep in Christ’s flock, and we are all shepherds who join him in caring for other sheep. The feasting with Jesus on the beach (or wherever our latest feast with Jesus took place…) is of a piece with the feeding of others. Who are they and where do we find them? 

Well, Jesus made that easy too. “Follow me,” he said.

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5-2-19 - Bring Some of Your Catch

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

Are there sweeter words in the New Testament than these? “Come and have breakfast.” The disciples’ encounter with the risen Christ kept getting better and better. First, they made an enormous catch of fish. Then, they realized Jesus himself was on the shore. And when they landed, they found another delightful surprise:

When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” 

What an invitation after a sleepless, fish-less night. What a reversal of circumstances in just a short time. Why did Jesus wait until morning to help them out? Why does God allow us to endure waiting or suffering or not knowing? Could it be that it strengthens or softens us, or makes us readier to receive the gift when it comes? A mystery for another time.

Now we can marvel that the fish have swarmed, the nets have filled, the Lord has come, and these hot and hungry fisherman are invited to a feast, right there on the beach. And they're not only passive guests – they are invited to help make the feast. Perhaps the most important words in this passage are “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” God provided the catch, and allowed them to participate in gathering it, and then asked them to bring some to Jesus for the celebration. Jesus provided the bread; they were invited to offer some of the fish.

So it is in our lives – God provides the feast, and allows us to participate in gathering it, and then to bring some of it together for the celebration. We could look at our weekly offering in that light, and our gathering at the eucharistic feast (of which the offering is the first part). We can look at our whole life in that light – a life of participation in God’s mission in which the Spirit leads us to the fields, or waters, allows us to help gather the harvest, and then bring some of that harvest together to celebrate.

What are the “big catches,” or areas of abundance in your life? 

And where do you feel Jesus inviting you to breakfast? What might you bring to that feast?

We don’t see a “mighty catch of fish” every day. But what if there is one? Might we say, by faith, “Yes! The fish have swarmed, my nets have filled, the Lord is right here, and I am invited to a feast, right now.” Then we look around, all around, and ask, “Okay, where are the filled nets?” I imagine each of us could name at least one area of life where our nets are filled. That’s a good start.

And then, “Where do I bring my fish? What feasts is Jesus inviting me to contribute to today?” We can trust that he has brought the Bread of Life, his own self. He invites us to bring some of the fish he has helped us catch, and enjoy the picnic with him, wherever it may happen.

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