You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's epistle reading is here.
If we wanted to update what James has to say in the passage we read this week, "Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves," we could just go with, "If you’re going to talk the talk, walk the walk." Those who hear the Word of God and think they’re all set are kidding themselves, he claims. If we don't act on what we hear, there is no way to retain the Word.
Many a churchgoer faithfully attends worship, hears the Word read and preached, and then never thinks about it again till the following Sunday, living his or her life by the values of the world. That’s what it means to be a hearer only. But what does it mean to be a “doer” of the Word?
For James, it means keeping a good guard on your tongue and resisting religiosity that lacks heart. In fact, he labels as “worthless” the religion of those who “do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts.” Worthy religion involves personal integrity and active care for the poor and vulnerable: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
These qualities, alas, are not always what people see when they look at churchgoers. Too often they see a love of prosperity, allegiance to old ways of being, and judgmental condemnation of people who look, speak or live differently. In many cases, observers do not see the Good News that Jesus Christ proclaimed and demonstrated being lived out, and so they turn away. James' word includes us!
What if we were to spend much more time and energy and resources dealing with poverty and justice, and much less on worrying about numbers and does everybody like the hymns? What if we were less inwardly focused on our own congregations, and more aware of our status as outposts in a worldwide enterprise with the strategic goal of reclaiming, restoring and renewing all of creation to wholeness? What if we put transformation before comfort?
There is a promise for us, when we focus on the law of liberty instead of legalism, when we proclaim God’s freedom for all those held captive by any person, institution or condition: "But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act – they will be blessed in their doing." May we be blessed in our doing and in our being.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-29-24 - The Implanted Word
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's epistle reading is here.
For the rest of the week, we’ll turn to the letter of James. Unlike Paul’s epistles, usually addressed to specific people or communities, about matters of concern, confusion or conflict, the letter attributed to James is more of a general exhortation on how Christ-followers are to live. He responds to problems he sees emerging in the early church, and offers correction. Because the author of James (who may or may not have been the brother of Jesus and head of the Jerusalem church) is so concerned with behavior, not only belief, the letter has been judged by some to be legalistic, too short on grace and mercy.
Yet James is strong on mercy for the poor and those on the margins; he reserves his condemnation for the wealthy, the hypocritical, those who pay lip service to the demands of the gospel but fail to live its principles. There are many nuggets for us in this letter, so as it comes up in our lectionary this season, let’s have a look.
As Paul does in Ephesians, James begins by praising the generosity of God, the “Father of lights,” whose gift to us is the ground of all giving. Like Paul, he speaks of God’s purpose being fulfilled in those who believe in Jesus, likening the early community to the “first fruits” of God’s harvest: Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
James emphasizes that this gift of God’s grace must be expressed in the way we live, especially in our interactions. His counsel is one we might all hang on our refrigerators and read as we start our day: “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God's righteousness.”
What a world we would have if more lived by that precept! Anger is often a natural response to provocation, yet we need to become aware when we feel it, try to locate its source and pray that out. We don’t need to feel entitled to express it around other people – or on social media. And being quicker to listen than to speak would also improve the quality of discourse around us.
I love the phrase James offers to help us move out of angry reactivity into grounded proactivity: “Welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.” Having rid ourselves “of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness,” we turn to the Word who dwells within, the Spirit of Christ who takes up residence in us at baptism and lives with us through everything we face. This Word is not just hanging out – he has been implanted in us by the Father of lights, in whom there is no change or shadow. Just dwell on that awhile.
How does it change the way we live to know that the Word of God has been implanted in us? How does it change the way we talk to other people? How does it change the way we regard ourselves? There’s no room for self-condemnation or shame when we’re aware that the Word of God lives in us. The more that awareness grows, the more we become like Paul, who said, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20)
I guess the next time we're filling out a medical history and are asked if we have any implants, we’ll have to say yes!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
For the rest of the week, we’ll turn to the letter of James. Unlike Paul’s epistles, usually addressed to specific people or communities, about matters of concern, confusion or conflict, the letter attributed to James is more of a general exhortation on how Christ-followers are to live. He responds to problems he sees emerging in the early church, and offers correction. Because the author of James (who may or may not have been the brother of Jesus and head of the Jerusalem church) is so concerned with behavior, not only belief, the letter has been judged by some to be legalistic, too short on grace and mercy.
Yet James is strong on mercy for the poor and those on the margins; he reserves his condemnation for the wealthy, the hypocritical, those who pay lip service to the demands of the gospel but fail to live its principles. There are many nuggets for us in this letter, so as it comes up in our lectionary this season, let’s have a look.
As Paul does in Ephesians, James begins by praising the generosity of God, the “Father of lights,” whose gift to us is the ground of all giving. Like Paul, he speaks of God’s purpose being fulfilled in those who believe in Jesus, likening the early community to the “first fruits” of God’s harvest: Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
James emphasizes that this gift of God’s grace must be expressed in the way we live, especially in our interactions. His counsel is one we might all hang on our refrigerators and read as we start our day: “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God's righteousness.”
What a world we would have if more lived by that precept! Anger is often a natural response to provocation, yet we need to become aware when we feel it, try to locate its source and pray that out. We don’t need to feel entitled to express it around other people – or on social media. And being quicker to listen than to speak would also improve the quality of discourse around us.
I love the phrase James offers to help us move out of angry reactivity into grounded proactivity: “Welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.” Having rid ourselves “of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness,” we turn to the Word who dwells within, the Spirit of Christ who takes up residence in us at baptism and lives with us through everything we face. This Word is not just hanging out – he has been implanted in us by the Father of lights, in whom there is no change or shadow. Just dwell on that awhile.
How does it change the way we live to know that the Word of God has been implanted in us? How does it change the way we talk to other people? How does it change the way we regard ourselves? There’s no room for self-condemnation or shame when we’re aware that the Word of God lives in us. The more that awareness grows, the more we become like Paul, who said, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20)
I guess the next time we're filling out a medical history and are asked if we have any implants, we’ll have to say yes!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-28-24 - Output
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Jesus’ teaching often turns on its head the conventional wisdom of the world. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, don’t seek revenge, trust in God’s provision when there is clearly not enough to go around. Here, too, he upends the standard way of looking at holiness and sacrilege, placing the focus not on what goes into a person, but on what comes out, the fruits of a life: "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."
Jesus invites us to look at our output in life, not only the big-picture achievements, acquisitions, awards, gains, goals met, works produced, but also the day-to-day external evidence of our lives. What are we putting out there for the world to see?
Is the fruit of our existence good and life-giving, nourishing and tasty, or is it old, rancid, stale, mealy? Do people associate knowing us with wisdom and insight, enthusiasm and encouragement, or do they encounter sadness or anger, stress, bitterness, resignation? What words would you use to describe your affect? Your effect?
Of course, we could ask people how they experience us – that would yield some interesting feedback. We can also become intentional about observing our interactions as we move through the day, reflecting back on each encounter. What did we lead with? What emotion was dominant? What outcomes resulted from our interactions?
Our bodies teach us that output is connected to input, so it’s not entirely divorced from what we take in. Heart, lungs and digestive system all involve input and output, in some cases waste product, and in others renewed and renewing substances. Not all output needs to be vital and important, yet over all we’d like what comes out of our mouths, our minds, our work and giftedness to bless others.
This week, pay attention to what you hear yourself say, what you watch yourself do. Rejoice in the outputs you like, and ask for God's help with the ones you don't. With God's Spirit at work in us, we can leave a trail of compassion and love, gratitude and grace.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Jesus’ teaching often turns on its head the conventional wisdom of the world. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, don’t seek revenge, trust in God’s provision when there is clearly not enough to go around. Here, too, he upends the standard way of looking at holiness and sacrilege, placing the focus not on what goes into a person, but on what comes out, the fruits of a life: "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."
Jesus invites us to look at our output in life, not only the big-picture achievements, acquisitions, awards, gains, goals met, works produced, but also the day-to-day external evidence of our lives. What are we putting out there for the world to see?
Is the fruit of our existence good and life-giving, nourishing and tasty, or is it old, rancid, stale, mealy? Do people associate knowing us with wisdom and insight, enthusiasm and encouragement, or do they encounter sadness or anger, stress, bitterness, resignation? What words would you use to describe your affect? Your effect?
Of course, we could ask people how they experience us – that would yield some interesting feedback. We can also become intentional about observing our interactions as we move through the day, reflecting back on each encounter. What did we lead with? What emotion was dominant? What outcomes resulted from our interactions?
Our bodies teach us that output is connected to input, so it’s not entirely divorced from what we take in. Heart, lungs and digestive system all involve input and output, in some cases waste product, and in others renewed and renewing substances. Not all output needs to be vital and important, yet over all we’d like what comes out of our mouths, our minds, our work and giftedness to bless others.
This week, pay attention to what you hear yourself say, what you watch yourself do. Rejoice in the outputs you like, and ask for God's help with the ones you don't. With God's Spirit at work in us, we can leave a trail of compassion and love, gratitude and grace.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-27-24 - Inside and Out
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Americans are increasingly conscious about what we consume. Soaring rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and substance abuse – not to mention a culture obsessed with body fat – have led to a focus on fat, sugar, gluten, pesticides and their attendant evils. Vegan, vegetarian, Paleo, organic diets are all the rage. We know all about the damage we can do by what we take into our bodies.
Perhaps we’re not so different from the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. Focused on the fine points of the Mosaic Law, they were hyper-conscious about the dangers of eating the wrong food, or overlooking the proper precautions and rituals. Jesus had a thing or two to say about that: Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”
He went on to list a great many sins and character flaws that issue from the human heart – and to suggest that we concern ourselves more with what comes from inside us than from without.
It’s not an either/or. The emotional climate in which we operate factors into the thoughts and behaviors we exhibit to the world, just as the actual food and drink we consume play a role in how healthy our minds and spirits are. Jesus is right, as usual: It’s ridiculous to worry about the toxicity in our food supply while we sow discord in social discourse; or to demand transparency about genetically modified foods and not in our finances, politics or media.
To Jesus’ list of “evil intentions” and wickedness of which the human heart is capable, I would like to add a list of all the good things that also issue from inside us: compassion, generosity, forbearance, empathy, love – the fruit of the Spirit at work in us that Paul mentions in Galatians.
As we allow the Spirit of Christ to live in us, we can become more aware of the interior landscape in which we ask that Spirit to dwell. Is it littered with garbage and debris, old wounds, dysfunctional patterns of being and relating? Toxic dumps of anger, fear, envy and shame that leak into our reactions and interactions? Might we ask God to tour that landscape with us, and invite healing and cleansing of all that leads to hurt? There’s some prayer work, to be done with God alone, or with the help of a spiritual director, confessor and/or therapist.
And then let’s pay attention to what we take in – not only good and healthy things for our bodies, but all that is good and true and worthy (another great list from St. Paul in Philippians 4…). So may we be able to say with the Psalmist, “Let all that is within me bless God’s holy name.”
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Americans are increasingly conscious about what we consume. Soaring rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and substance abuse – not to mention a culture obsessed with body fat – have led to a focus on fat, sugar, gluten, pesticides and their attendant evils. Vegan, vegetarian, Paleo, organic diets are all the rage. We know all about the damage we can do by what we take into our bodies.
Perhaps we’re not so different from the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. Focused on the fine points of the Mosaic Law, they were hyper-conscious about the dangers of eating the wrong food, or overlooking the proper precautions and rituals. Jesus had a thing or two to say about that: Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”
He went on to list a great many sins and character flaws that issue from the human heart – and to suggest that we concern ourselves more with what comes from inside us than from without.
It’s not an either/or. The emotional climate in which we operate factors into the thoughts and behaviors we exhibit to the world, just as the actual food and drink we consume play a role in how healthy our minds and spirits are. Jesus is right, as usual: It’s ridiculous to worry about the toxicity in our food supply while we sow discord in social discourse; or to demand transparency about genetically modified foods and not in our finances, politics or media.
To Jesus’ list of “evil intentions” and wickedness of which the human heart is capable, I would like to add a list of all the good things that also issue from inside us: compassion, generosity, forbearance, empathy, love – the fruit of the Spirit at work in us that Paul mentions in Galatians.
As we allow the Spirit of Christ to live in us, we can become more aware of the interior landscape in which we ask that Spirit to dwell. Is it littered with garbage and debris, old wounds, dysfunctional patterns of being and relating? Toxic dumps of anger, fear, envy and shame that leak into our reactions and interactions? Might we ask God to tour that landscape with us, and invite healing and cleansing of all that leads to hurt? There’s some prayer work, to be done with God alone, or with the help of a spiritual director, confessor and/or therapist.
And then let’s pay attention to what we take in – not only good and healthy things for our bodies, but all that is good and true and worthy (another great list from St. Paul in Philippians 4…). So may we be able to say with the Psalmist, “Let all that is within me bless God’s holy name.”
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-26-24 - Majoring In Minors
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Were you ever sent away from the dinner table with the stern command, “Wash your hands?” It was ingrained in me as a pre-prandial requirement, though, as a rule, we ate with utensils. When I cook I wash my hands frequently to avoid spreading bacteria that may have escaped my chicken or kale. And the pandemic, of course, taught us all to wash our hands.
Health concerns may have been the root of the elaborate washing rituals handed down in Hebrew tradition, but Jesus and his disciples seem not to have bothered with these rites, for the Jewish leaders who had come from Jerusalem to investigate the Jesus movement found them eating with “defiled” hands. So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”
Jesus is not gentle in his response: He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.' You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
Once again Jesus accuses his interrogators of missing the point, majoring in minors, and thus distorting the heart of God’s law. It would appear these rituals were age-old community practices that had become elevated to the status of Law. This was not bad in itself, but Jesus charges that these men focused an inordinate amount of attention on matters of human tradition while they ignored actual laws of God – such as the command to care for the poor, the orphan and the widow, or the command to honor your father and mother.
Sound familiar? How often do we see faith leaders attacking others over lifestyle or political issues, yet neglecting to proclaim the Good News of compassion and forgiveness in Christ? How often do we see churches, even those facing declining attendance, focus their resources on maintaining a certain style of liturgy, or replacing the sanctuary carpet, or organizing yet another congregational dinner that draws no one from outside, instead of turning their vision outward?
Oh, it’s easy to point fingers. Let’s bring it closer. What occupies much of our time and emotional energy? Is it the “commandment of God” or “human tradition?” I know I spend an awful lot of time perpetuating institutional life, which may not be how the Spirit wants me to spend the time and gifts I have been given in this limited life. How about you? Might we do a little inventory of where the bulk of our energy, time and money goes? A quick glance over calendar and checkbook (and social media…) can tell us a lot.
What if we were to ask God to tell us daily where our energies can most fruitfully be invested? And listen for the answer before going about our day? That’s a lot more important than washing our hands before meals.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Were you ever sent away from the dinner table with the stern command, “Wash your hands?” It was ingrained in me as a pre-prandial requirement, though, as a rule, we ate with utensils. When I cook I wash my hands frequently to avoid spreading bacteria that may have escaped my chicken or kale. And the pandemic, of course, taught us all to wash our hands.
Health concerns may have been the root of the elaborate washing rituals handed down in Hebrew tradition, but Jesus and his disciples seem not to have bothered with these rites, for the Jewish leaders who had come from Jerusalem to investigate the Jesus movement found them eating with “defiled” hands. So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”
Jesus is not gentle in his response: He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.' You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
Once again Jesus accuses his interrogators of missing the point, majoring in minors, and thus distorting the heart of God’s law. It would appear these rituals were age-old community practices that had become elevated to the status of Law. This was not bad in itself, but Jesus charges that these men focused an inordinate amount of attention on matters of human tradition while they ignored actual laws of God – such as the command to care for the poor, the orphan and the widow, or the command to honor your father and mother.
Sound familiar? How often do we see faith leaders attacking others over lifestyle or political issues, yet neglecting to proclaim the Good News of compassion and forgiveness in Christ? How often do we see churches, even those facing declining attendance, focus their resources on maintaining a certain style of liturgy, or replacing the sanctuary carpet, or organizing yet another congregational dinner that draws no one from outside, instead of turning their vision outward?
Oh, it’s easy to point fingers. Let’s bring it closer. What occupies much of our time and emotional energy? Is it the “commandment of God” or “human tradition?” I know I spend an awful lot of time perpetuating institutional life, which may not be how the Spirit wants me to spend the time and gifts I have been given in this limited life. How about you? Might we do a little inventory of where the bulk of our energy, time and money goes? A quick glance over calendar and checkbook (and social media…) can tell us a lot.
What if we were to ask God to tell us daily where our energies can most fruitfully be invested? And listen for the answer before going about our day? That’s a lot more important than washing our hands before meals.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-23-24 - Food Tastes Better Outside
You can listen to this reflection here.
At week’s end, let’s go back to the beginning, to the story that brought about all this “I am the bread of life” talk in the first place: Jesus’ feeding a multitude of people with only five loaves of bread and two fish. How does this “picnic” – indeed, any picnic – speak to us of our life of faith?
Well, picnics happen outside, which is where our faith is meant to be lived – outside the walls of churches and homes, on the road and in the streets, taking God’s love and life to wherever people are hungry for it. Faith is a pilgrimage and it gets stronger when we exercise it, stretching beyond our comfort zones and comfortable communities.
Picnics can take place anywhere. They might happen on a blanket laid out on a grassy field, at an outdoor concert, or wolfing down a sandwich at a bus stop. And sometimes, as once happened to me in Turkey, you’re invited to join a group of strangers grilling spiced meat and chopping up salad on a beach where you least expected a feast – and find it’s the most delicious meal you’ve ever had.
Picnics don’t just happen – someone needs to prepare them. I remember being a child in Congo - every Sunday afternoon we’d go to the ambassador’s pool, and my mother would always make egg salad and tuna fish sandwiches, and various other foods, each wrapped in their particular containers. So our faith lives require some preparation and intention if we’re to get the most out of them.
And picnics, like faith, need to be unwrapped. They come in baskets and boxes and bags, each element neatly nested. Watching a picnic come out of its containers is like seeing a mystery unfold – what’s in that bag? What’s in that container? What does it taste like? At its best, that’s what growing in faith can be – discovering nuggets in scriptures, learning new songs of praise, sensing God’s presence in prayer or ministry, tasting the richness of love in community.
Picnics are usually shared experiences, and often the meal is a combination of foods brought by different participants. This is how we live our faith communally, in church and out, with each person bringing the “dish” they make best, providing their gifts in beautiful diversity to make up a picnic that is delicious and varied, with unexpected pairings of tastes and textures and colors.
In fact, we add our gifts to a feast God has already prepared for us. On that hillside that day, Jesus sent his disciples out into the crowds to find out what was already there. Seems hard to believe they only found one boy who’d brought food, but that’s the story. That contribution, enhanced by Jesus’ faith, distributed by his faithful followers, provided more than enough for everyone.
God wants us to bring our gifts to the picnic, even if he gave us those gifts in the first place. God’s feasts are always joint efforts, and as we contribute our gifts and enjoy what others have brought, we are brought closer to the heart of love, to that Lord who is both host and feast for us, inside and out.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
At week’s end, let’s go back to the beginning, to the story that brought about all this “I am the bread of life” talk in the first place: Jesus’ feeding a multitude of people with only five loaves of bread and two fish. How does this “picnic” – indeed, any picnic – speak to us of our life of faith?
Well, picnics happen outside, which is where our faith is meant to be lived – outside the walls of churches and homes, on the road and in the streets, taking God’s love and life to wherever people are hungry for it. Faith is a pilgrimage and it gets stronger when we exercise it, stretching beyond our comfort zones and comfortable communities.
Picnics can take place anywhere. They might happen on a blanket laid out on a grassy field, at an outdoor concert, or wolfing down a sandwich at a bus stop. And sometimes, as once happened to me in Turkey, you’re invited to join a group of strangers grilling spiced meat and chopping up salad on a beach where you least expected a feast – and find it’s the most delicious meal you’ve ever had.
Picnics don’t just happen – someone needs to prepare them. I remember being a child in Congo - every Sunday afternoon we’d go to the ambassador’s pool, and my mother would always make egg salad and tuna fish sandwiches, and various other foods, each wrapped in their particular containers. So our faith lives require some preparation and intention if we’re to get the most out of them.
And picnics, like faith, need to be unwrapped. They come in baskets and boxes and bags, each element neatly nested. Watching a picnic come out of its containers is like seeing a mystery unfold – what’s in that bag? What’s in that container? What does it taste like? At its best, that’s what growing in faith can be – discovering nuggets in scriptures, learning new songs of praise, sensing God’s presence in prayer or ministry, tasting the richness of love in community.
Picnics are usually shared experiences, and often the meal is a combination of foods brought by different participants. This is how we live our faith communally, in church and out, with each person bringing the “dish” they make best, providing their gifts in beautiful diversity to make up a picnic that is delicious and varied, with unexpected pairings of tastes and textures and colors.
In fact, we add our gifts to a feast God has already prepared for us. On that hillside that day, Jesus sent his disciples out into the crowds to find out what was already there. Seems hard to believe they only found one boy who’d brought food, but that’s the story. That contribution, enhanced by Jesus’ faith, distributed by his faithful followers, provided more than enough for everyone.
God wants us to bring our gifts to the picnic, even if he gave us those gifts in the first place. God’s feasts are always joint efforts, and as we contribute our gifts and enjoy what others have brought, we are brought closer to the heart of love, to that Lord who is both host and feast for us, inside and out.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-22-24 - Where're We Gonna Go?
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
A measure of doubt and despair is normal in a healthy faith. After all, the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. If we’re going to live on the ledge of faith, it’s not surprising periodically to look down and experience a wave of “what am I doing here!” This can come in times of personal crisis, or when it seems evil is winning, or just because we read something that challenges our ideas.
It can even come because of something we hear Jesus said or did. So it was for his followers in the wake of his “Eat my flesh” comments, when he suggested that those who couldn’t accept this teaching had not been called by God: He said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.” Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
What a beautiful statement of faith Peter makes! We might detect a hint of, “You’re the best in a range of bad options” in “Lord, to whom can we go?” But that notion is quickly dispelled by the simple and profound declaration of belief: “You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
That is how faith in God grows – it is something we come to believe, and something we know, not all at once, but fully even as it is still growing. Gradually, our heart knowledge comes to override other input from our senses and intellect that suggest God is not real or to be trusted. When hard things happen or we see the persistence of evil rampant in the world, it’s not that those things aren’t real. They are true and we believe Jesus is the Holy One of God. We hold those truths in tension.
Spiritual maturity comes in our ability to live in that tension, not seeking the comforts of an either/or. The realm of God is a both/and place, and the more comfortable we become with nuance and shades of grey, the more room the Spirit has to move in and through us.
What things cause your faith to weaken? How do you deal with doubts or a desire to jump ship when they come up? We can always pray right then and there, as honestly as the psalmists do, being real with God about what we’re feeling and thinking. That’s how the relationship deepens. I pray that, through our deepening relationship with God in Christ, living more and more in the Life of God, we can come to say with Peter, “We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
A measure of doubt and despair is normal in a healthy faith. After all, the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. If we’re going to live on the ledge of faith, it’s not surprising periodically to look down and experience a wave of “what am I doing here!” This can come in times of personal crisis, or when it seems evil is winning, or just because we read something that challenges our ideas.
It can even come because of something we hear Jesus said or did. So it was for his followers in the wake of his “Eat my flesh” comments, when he suggested that those who couldn’t accept this teaching had not been called by God: He said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.” Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
What a beautiful statement of faith Peter makes! We might detect a hint of, “You’re the best in a range of bad options” in “Lord, to whom can we go?” But that notion is quickly dispelled by the simple and profound declaration of belief: “You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
That is how faith in God grows – it is something we come to believe, and something we know, not all at once, but fully even as it is still growing. Gradually, our heart knowledge comes to override other input from our senses and intellect that suggest God is not real or to be trusted. When hard things happen or we see the persistence of evil rampant in the world, it’s not that those things aren’t real. They are true and we believe Jesus is the Holy One of God. We hold those truths in tension.
Spiritual maturity comes in our ability to live in that tension, not seeking the comforts of an either/or. The realm of God is a both/and place, and the more comfortable we become with nuance and shades of grey, the more room the Spirit has to move in and through us.
What things cause your faith to weaken? How do you deal with doubts or a desire to jump ship when they come up? We can always pray right then and there, as honestly as the psalmists do, being real with God about what we’re feeling and thinking. That’s how the relationship deepens. I pray that, through our deepening relationship with God in Christ, living more and more in the Life of God, we can come to say with Peter, “We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-21-24 - Of Flesh and Spirit
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Some people “live in their head,” as though physicality counted for little,, while others seem to be so spiritually disconnected, so completely focused on matters of the flesh that they are neither very healthy nor very interesting. Most of us crave balance in the life of flesh and the life of spirit.
We are coming to the end of the “I am the bread of life” discussion between Jesus and people in his hometown synagogue. He more or less ends the argument by suggesting that the preoccupation with “flesh” – which he stirred up by saying people had to eat his flesh if they wanted to be part of the Life of God – is really a distraction from what matters most. He says, “It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”
It sounds harsh to say that “the flesh” is useless. That quote might reflect the bias in John’s gospel toward Greek thought and ideas, which posited a greater distinction between flesh and spirit than would be common in Jewish thinking. Might Jesus have made a more nuanced statement like, “The flesh is useless in the long run?” Certainly God valued human flesh enough to take it on in Christ’s incarnate life.
St. Paul uses “the flesh” as short-hand for “the human nature without God’s influence.” And that, we might agree, has a short run indeed. It is our spirits that connect with the Holy Spirit, who gives us the Life that transcends life, the Life we begin to live now, even as we still very much live the life of the flesh. That “fleshly life” allows us to enjoy the gifts of God, to fully inhabit this world and its pains and blessings. And our spiritual life allows us to hold all that lightly, to recognize it as transient and temporal. We need to nurture both in this life, for a full humanity makes for a healthier spirituality.
What do you do in your life to balance the life of the spirit with the life of the body and mind? How might you invite someone who seemed “not to have a spiritual bone in their body” to open up that part of themselves? Every day we can invite the Holy Spirit to strengthen the life of our spirit.
The flesh is indeed useless once we no longer inhabit these bodies of ours. For now, though, it is our very flesh that allows us to have the feelings and emotions and relational connections by which our spiritual lives grow. The flesh sets up the life of the Spirit, which gives us Life forever.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Some people “live in their head,” as though physicality counted for little,, while others seem to be so spiritually disconnected, so completely focused on matters of the flesh that they are neither very healthy nor very interesting. Most of us crave balance in the life of flesh and the life of spirit.
We are coming to the end of the “I am the bread of life” discussion between Jesus and people in his hometown synagogue. He more or less ends the argument by suggesting that the preoccupation with “flesh” – which he stirred up by saying people had to eat his flesh if they wanted to be part of the Life of God – is really a distraction from what matters most. He says, “It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”
It sounds harsh to say that “the flesh” is useless. That quote might reflect the bias in John’s gospel toward Greek thought and ideas, which posited a greater distinction between flesh and spirit than would be common in Jewish thinking. Might Jesus have made a more nuanced statement like, “The flesh is useless in the long run?” Certainly God valued human flesh enough to take it on in Christ’s incarnate life.
St. Paul uses “the flesh” as short-hand for “the human nature without God’s influence.” And that, we might agree, has a short run indeed. It is our spirits that connect with the Holy Spirit, who gives us the Life that transcends life, the Life we begin to live now, even as we still very much live the life of the flesh. That “fleshly life” allows us to enjoy the gifts of God, to fully inhabit this world and its pains and blessings. And our spiritual life allows us to hold all that lightly, to recognize it as transient and temporal. We need to nurture both in this life, for a full humanity makes for a healthier spirituality.
What do you do in your life to balance the life of the spirit with the life of the body and mind? How might you invite someone who seemed “not to have a spiritual bone in their body” to open up that part of themselves? Every day we can invite the Holy Spirit to strengthen the life of our spirit.
The flesh is indeed useless once we no longer inhabit these bodies of ours. For now, though, it is our very flesh that allows us to have the feelings and emotions and relational connections by which our spiritual lives grow. The flesh sets up the life of the Spirit, which gives us Life forever.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-20-24 - Too Much To Swallow
You can listen to this reflection here.
Not much got past Jesus. He was keenly aware of discord and disunity among his followers and often called them on it. So it is in this week’s passage, when some grumble at his teaching about people consuming his flesh and blood: When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?”
Instead of arguing about the thing that offends them – in this case, the flesh-eating, blood-drinking thing, which sounds like a direct violation of the Law, as well as disgusting – he takes the whole argument to a higher level, ratcheting up his claims to divinity. Maybe he was saying, “Look, that’s the least of your worries. Wait till you see me through my mission, my passion, cross, resurrection and ascending into heaven. Let that offend you!”
So much about Jesus can be too much for some to swallow. So people may pick and choose the parts of the picture they find palatable. They love the teacher but not the savior; they focus on the Good Samaritan but ignore the miracles. By comparing himself to bread, and saying we have to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he is in effect saying, “You have to swallow me.” All of it. The healer and the table over-turner. The story-teller and the lover of outcasts. The one who can walk on water yet lets himself be nailed to a cross.
When you think about Jesus, what do you find yourself drawn to?
Not much got past Jesus. He was keenly aware of discord and disunity among his followers and often called them on it. So it is in this week’s passage, when some grumble at his teaching about people consuming his flesh and blood: When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?”
Instead of arguing about the thing that offends them – in this case, the flesh-eating, blood-drinking thing, which sounds like a direct violation of the Law, as well as disgusting – he takes the whole argument to a higher level, ratcheting up his claims to divinity. Maybe he was saying, “Look, that’s the least of your worries. Wait till you see me through my mission, my passion, cross, resurrection and ascending into heaven. Let that offend you!”
So much about Jesus can be too much for some to swallow. So people may pick and choose the parts of the picture they find palatable. They love the teacher but not the savior; they focus on the Good Samaritan but ignore the miracles. By comparing himself to bread, and saying we have to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he is in effect saying, “You have to swallow me.” All of it. The healer and the table over-turner. The story-teller and the lover of outcasts. The one who can walk on water yet lets himself be nailed to a cross.
When you think about Jesus, what do you find yourself drawn to?
What do you turn away from?
Do you find some of what he said and did hard to swallow?
Do you find some of what he said and did hard to swallow?
Have you had a conversation with him in prayer about that?
The mark of a true Christ-follower is one who recognizes him as the risen and ascended Lord, and has made a choice to accept all of who Christ is revealed to be, both in the Scriptures, and in our lives today. A lot to swallow can also leave us well fed and truly nourished.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
The mark of a true Christ-follower is one who recognizes him as the risen and ascended Lord, and has made a choice to accept all of who Christ is revealed to be, both in the Scriptures, and in our lives today. A lot to swallow can also leave us well fed and truly nourished.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-19-24 - Difficult Teaching
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
What kind of sermon did you hear yesterday? I hope it was one with some grit and challenge to it, but not as outrageous as the folks in the synagogue in Capernaum heard from their homie, Jesus: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them… But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
I bet they were wishing for a parable right about then, or for him to say he was talking in metaphors. But he just kept getting more and more graphic and direct, until even some of his disciples said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”
This teaching is difficult. This chapter in John’s gospel is among the most challenging to interpret in the whole New Testament. It’s somewhat comforting to know that it was as hard for his original audience, not only that something got lost in 2000 years of translation.
But other parts of the Gospels are not much easier, when you think about it. Jesus’ parables often fly in the face of human ideals of fairness and good sense. Jesus’ miracles strike many today as unbelievable, and often offended people who witnessed them. Jesus can seem rude in his contentious interactions with religious authorities, and harsh in his instructions to disciples. If we don’t find ourselves somewhat outraged on a regular basis, maybe we’re not reading this book deeply enough, or letting it get to us.
Read through these words aloud a few times and let them settle in you (an ancient way of reading Scripture called lectio divina). “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them… But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
First time through, just notice what sticks out for you, or what you get stuck on, like a snagged zipper. Don’t overthink it, just notice.
Then read it again and see what reactions you’re having to it – positive, negative, bored, engaged, inspired, despairing… what are you feeling? You might talk with God about that reaction. Ask wondering questions if they come up.
Finally, read it again and contemplate what invitation you hear in this text. Pray that too.
Some of Jesus’ disciples turned away from him when he started saying these things. We are invited to stay with him and talk it out. Outrage, when dealt with, can give way to deeper relationship.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
What kind of sermon did you hear yesterday? I hope it was one with some grit and challenge to it, but not as outrageous as the folks in the synagogue in Capernaum heard from their homie, Jesus: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them… But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
I bet they were wishing for a parable right about then, or for him to say he was talking in metaphors. But he just kept getting more and more graphic and direct, until even some of his disciples said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”
This teaching is difficult. This chapter in John’s gospel is among the most challenging to interpret in the whole New Testament. It’s somewhat comforting to know that it was as hard for his original audience, not only that something got lost in 2000 years of translation.
But other parts of the Gospels are not much easier, when you think about it. Jesus’ parables often fly in the face of human ideals of fairness and good sense. Jesus’ miracles strike many today as unbelievable, and often offended people who witnessed them. Jesus can seem rude in his contentious interactions with religious authorities, and harsh in his instructions to disciples. If we don’t find ourselves somewhat outraged on a regular basis, maybe we’re not reading this book deeply enough, or letting it get to us.
Read through these words aloud a few times and let them settle in you (an ancient way of reading Scripture called lectio divina). “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them… But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
First time through, just notice what sticks out for you, or what you get stuck on, like a snagged zipper. Don’t overthink it, just notice.
Then read it again and see what reactions you’re having to it – positive, negative, bored, engaged, inspired, despairing… what are you feeling? You might talk with God about that reaction. Ask wondering questions if they come up.
Finally, read it again and contemplate what invitation you hear in this text. Pray that too.
Some of Jesus’ disciples turned away from him when he started saying these things. We are invited to stay with him and talk it out. Outrage, when dealt with, can give way to deeper relationship.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-16-24 - Cultivating a God-Ward Heart
You can listen to this reflection here.
At week’s end let’s turn to Sunday’s epistle reading, still Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus. This week’s snippet deals with how we cope with challenging times: Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
How do we make the most of the time when the days feel evil, when it seems to many like progress toward equity and wholeness has been rolled back on every front? Paul says we should try to understand the will of the Lord. That’s easier said than done, especially if we’re looking for prescriptions from heaven or trying to interpret signs. God’s will is rarely revealed in those ways.
We might focus more on comprehending how and where God is speaking in these times. It’s easy to know where God is not speaking – if the words or actions are contrary to scripture, to what we know of the life, teachings and actions of Jesus. God’s will is often evident wherever we find marks of the Holy Spirit at work, which we recognize by the fruits like love, joy, peace, patience, energy, miracles and such. We can always ask, where do we see good fruit?
Paul also cautions us to maintain a positive climate within and without: Do not get drunk with wine... but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
As Christ-followers, we are invited to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We do that by cultivating spiritual practices like prayer and worship, scripture and journaling; by going where our hearts are fed – for me, that is certainly my cats and my deck and water and birds. Singing spiritual songs, whether we’re playing them in the car or humming them in the house, is a wonderful way to foster a God-ward heart.
And when our hearts are turned God-ward, we’re more apt to follow the last of Paul’s suggestions: giving thanks to God at all times and for everything in the name of Jesus. The best way to cultivate an orientation toward joy is to foster an attitude of gratitude. Giving thanks is often a verbal exercise, but gratitude need not be limited to what we say or pray. We can give thanks by being generous, by seeking ways to lighten someone else’s load, by choosing to walk around with a smile.
Praise and thanks are choices. Rare is the person whose life has been so harmonious and God-focused that praise and thanks come unbidden to their hearts. We must decide to praise God in all circumstances, even in times that feel evil or threatening. Especially in times that feel evil or threatening! Praise is a way of making God’s power present, invoking the Spirit, who praises through us.
At week’s end let’s turn to Sunday’s epistle reading, still Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus. This week’s snippet deals with how we cope with challenging times: Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
How do we make the most of the time when the days feel evil, when it seems to many like progress toward equity and wholeness has been rolled back on every front? Paul says we should try to understand the will of the Lord. That’s easier said than done, especially if we’re looking for prescriptions from heaven or trying to interpret signs. God’s will is rarely revealed in those ways.
We might focus more on comprehending how and where God is speaking in these times. It’s easy to know where God is not speaking – if the words or actions are contrary to scripture, to what we know of the life, teachings and actions of Jesus. God’s will is often evident wherever we find marks of the Holy Spirit at work, which we recognize by the fruits like love, joy, peace, patience, energy, miracles and such. We can always ask, where do we see good fruit?
Paul also cautions us to maintain a positive climate within and without: Do not get drunk with wine... but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
As Christ-followers, we are invited to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We do that by cultivating spiritual practices like prayer and worship, scripture and journaling; by going where our hearts are fed – for me, that is certainly my cats and my deck and water and birds. Singing spiritual songs, whether we’re playing them in the car or humming them in the house, is a wonderful way to foster a God-ward heart.
And when our hearts are turned God-ward, we’re more apt to follow the last of Paul’s suggestions: giving thanks to God at all times and for everything in the name of Jesus. The best way to cultivate an orientation toward joy is to foster an attitude of gratitude. Giving thanks is often a verbal exercise, but gratitude need not be limited to what we say or pray. We can give thanks by being generous, by seeking ways to lighten someone else’s load, by choosing to walk around with a smile.
Praise and thanks are choices. Rare is the person whose life has been so harmonious and God-focused that praise and thanks come unbidden to their hearts. We must decide to praise God in all circumstances, even in times that feel evil or threatening. Especially in times that feel evil or threatening! Praise is a way of making God’s power present, invoking the Spirit, who praises through us.
Praise is a spiritual practice we can learn, and work at, and hone, until it becomes our default position. A heart that praises provides the most hospitable environment for the Holy Spirit to dwell in. And then the times we live in come into perspective.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-15-24 - The Bread of Not-Life
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
The book of Exodus in the Hebrew Bible tells the story of how God brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, where they had become an oppressed slave class, through the Red Sea to freedom. But freedom quickly turned into stuckness of another kind, as they wandered in the wilderness for forty years, journeying slowly toward the promised land. (One scholar estimates that they took forty years to make a two-week journey…) During that time they complained loudly and often about their conditions, wishing they could return to their days of bondage when at least they knew where their next meal was coming from. Most of all, they complained about the food, and sometimes the lack thereof.
At one point, God began to send a daily gift of manna, a coriander-like substance which fell from the sky six days a week (two days’ worth fell before the Sabbath day). This could be collected and milled into flour. In the conversation Jesus is having with Jewish leaders in our passage, this is what they bring up to him. He replies that that “bread from heaven,” though a gift of God, was not the same kind of “bread from heaven” that he himself is: “This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
There are many sorts of gifts in our lives, things and people that nurture us. But they are not the Living Bread. They might enhance our lives, but they do not give life. They are given to us to enjoy and to share but not to become the focus of our yearning or worship. When we start seeking God-Life from these gifts, however God-given they are, we often lose our focus on the true Bread.
And when we lose our focus on the true Bread and seek sustenance in the good things in life, we find they cannot meet our deep hunger. Then we often turn to things that are less life-giving – to relationships, or work, or accolades, or any number of substances that numb the pain or temporarily fill us. We turn from bread to not-bread and become hungrier still.
What kinds of “not-bread” have you looked to at times to meet your deep needs? What is different about receiving the Bread of Life in Jesus? Not-bread often fills us quite well, for a time, and often faster than the bread of life Jesus is. It takes a while to realize that, as the cliché about Chinese food goes, we think we’re full and a half-hour later, we’re hungry again.
Jesus is not so much about meeting our hunger as transforming it into a deep hunger for true Love. When we begin to let that bread in, we truly will not hunger again.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
The book of Exodus in the Hebrew Bible tells the story of how God brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, where they had become an oppressed slave class, through the Red Sea to freedom. But freedom quickly turned into stuckness of another kind, as they wandered in the wilderness for forty years, journeying slowly toward the promised land. (One scholar estimates that they took forty years to make a two-week journey…) During that time they complained loudly and often about their conditions, wishing they could return to their days of bondage when at least they knew where their next meal was coming from. Most of all, they complained about the food, and sometimes the lack thereof.
At one point, God began to send a daily gift of manna, a coriander-like substance which fell from the sky six days a week (two days’ worth fell before the Sabbath day). This could be collected and milled into flour. In the conversation Jesus is having with Jewish leaders in our passage, this is what they bring up to him. He replies that that “bread from heaven,” though a gift of God, was not the same kind of “bread from heaven” that he himself is: “This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
There are many sorts of gifts in our lives, things and people that nurture us. But they are not the Living Bread. They might enhance our lives, but they do not give life. They are given to us to enjoy and to share but not to become the focus of our yearning or worship. When we start seeking God-Life from these gifts, however God-given they are, we often lose our focus on the true Bread.
And when we lose our focus on the true Bread and seek sustenance in the good things in life, we find they cannot meet our deep hunger. Then we often turn to things that are less life-giving – to relationships, or work, or accolades, or any number of substances that numb the pain or temporarily fill us. We turn from bread to not-bread and become hungrier still.
What kinds of “not-bread” have you looked to at times to meet your deep needs? What is different about receiving the Bread of Life in Jesus? Not-bread often fills us quite well, for a time, and often faster than the bread of life Jesus is. It takes a while to realize that, as the cliché about Chinese food goes, we think we’re full and a half-hour later, we’re hungry again.
Jesus is not so much about meeting our hunger as transforming it into a deep hunger for true Love. When we begin to let that bread in, we truly will not hunger again.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-14-24 - Flesh-Eating
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
We generally associate the words "flesh-eating" with bacteria and zombies. Maybe the vogue for vampire and zombie books, movies and television shows offers the Church a crossover opportunity. For here, right in the fourth Gospel, Jesus himself is quoted, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”
It’s not surprising that some early Christians faced charges of cannibalism, with rhetoric like that floating around. And there’s no way to make these words palatable – especially to a Jewish audience, rooted in laws proscribing above all the ingestion of blood, which is life. And that is the point. The impulse toward cannibalism in communities that practice it (or so I’ve read…) is to take into oneself the power of the enemy. Jesus’ invitation is to take into ourselves the very life and power of the Friend.
He invites those who follow him to receive his life at the most atomic level into our bodies, minds and spirits. He says he came from Life and gives Life – “Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.”
So much in this world can sap life and celebrate death (like zombie and vampire entertainments...). Our culture does not lean life-ward or promote hopefulness and love. If we are to be seen as people of life, we need the Life of the Living Father to be filling us, renewed in us, every day. That happens through prayer and study, through inviting the Spirit to work through us in ministry – and it happens in this ritual many Christians celebrate at weekly worship, taking in the body and blood of Christ.
What are the sources of life in your life? And how do you best access the Life of God? And how do you go about sharing it with others? You might ask God in prayer, "Who needs to see / feel / receive your Life today? Show me how..."
There are many ways to invite people. If you know fans of True Blood, tell them we do a little blood-sipping every Sunday. If your friends are partial to The Walking Dead, you can tell them we do a little flesh-eating too. And if their tastes run more to the mundane, just tell them they can find life, life and more life in the body and blood of Christ, however they receive it.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
We generally associate the words "flesh-eating" with bacteria and zombies. Maybe the vogue for vampire and zombie books, movies and television shows offers the Church a crossover opportunity. For here, right in the fourth Gospel, Jesus himself is quoted, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”
It’s not surprising that some early Christians faced charges of cannibalism, with rhetoric like that floating around. And there’s no way to make these words palatable – especially to a Jewish audience, rooted in laws proscribing above all the ingestion of blood, which is life. And that is the point. The impulse toward cannibalism in communities that practice it (or so I’ve read…) is to take into oneself the power of the enemy. Jesus’ invitation is to take into ourselves the very life and power of the Friend.
He invites those who follow him to receive his life at the most atomic level into our bodies, minds and spirits. He says he came from Life and gives Life – “Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.”
So much in this world can sap life and celebrate death (like zombie and vampire entertainments...). Our culture does not lean life-ward or promote hopefulness and love. If we are to be seen as people of life, we need the Life of the Living Father to be filling us, renewed in us, every day. That happens through prayer and study, through inviting the Spirit to work through us in ministry – and it happens in this ritual many Christians celebrate at weekly worship, taking in the body and blood of Christ.
What are the sources of life in your life? And how do you best access the Life of God? And how do you go about sharing it with others? You might ask God in prayer, "Who needs to see / feel / receive your Life today? Show me how..."
There are many ways to invite people. If you know fans of True Blood, tell them we do a little blood-sipping every Sunday. If your friends are partial to The Walking Dead, you can tell them we do a little flesh-eating too. And if their tastes run more to the mundane, just tell them they can find life, life and more life in the body and blood of Christ, however they receive it.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-13-24 - Raised
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
One of the standards of what came to be called “renewal music,” songs for worship from the Catholic Charismatic movement of the 1960s and 70s, was “I Am the Bread of Life.” (No YouTube link – each version is more lugubrious than the last!). Its verses, verbatim renderings of Jesus’ statements in our passage, are probably not the cause of its enduring popularity. Rather it is the refrain, with its sweeping lift, “And I will raise them up, and I will raise them up, and I will rai-ai-se them u-up on the last day” that made the song such a hit. You feel your spirit rising as you sing the song.
What Jesus said was, "Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink." This highlights an interesting facet of resurrection theology: that it is Jesus who will raise us up on the last day. I had never thought to associate the Son of God with this function, and may be over-interpreting one line. It strikes me as yet another reason to get to know him in this life. Because I wonder: is the last day the only day when Jesus raises us up?
That question causes another Christian song to set itself on continuous loop in my brain – "You Raise Me Up," popularized by Josh Groban. This too has a swelling chorus and uplifting lyrics, and roots Jesus’ assistance in the here and now.
One of the standards of what came to be called “renewal music,” songs for worship from the Catholic Charismatic movement of the 1960s and 70s, was “I Am the Bread of Life.” (No YouTube link – each version is more lugubrious than the last!). Its verses, verbatim renderings of Jesus’ statements in our passage, are probably not the cause of its enduring popularity. Rather it is the refrain, with its sweeping lift, “And I will raise them up, and I will raise them up, and I will rai-ai-se them u-up on the last day” that made the song such a hit. You feel your spirit rising as you sing the song.
What Jesus said was, "Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink." This highlights an interesting facet of resurrection theology: that it is Jesus who will raise us up on the last day. I had never thought to associate the Son of God with this function, and may be over-interpreting one line. It strikes me as yet another reason to get to know him in this life. Because I wonder: is the last day the only day when Jesus raises us up?
That question causes another Christian song to set itself on continuous loop in my brain – "You Raise Me Up," popularized by Josh Groban. This too has a swelling chorus and uplifting lyrics, and roots Jesus’ assistance in the here and now.
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains/ You raise me up to walk on stormy seas. /
I am strong when I am on your shoulders/ You raise me up to more than I can be.
Despite the comical image of balancing on Jesus’ shoulders like a child getting a good view at a parade, it does remind us that we live the risen life here and now, not only there and later. And at times when we don’t feel very “risen,” we can invite Jesus to activate his life in us again.
Which generates a third musing on “raised” – Jesus as yeast that causes us to rise and become the bread of life in the world. He probably didn't intend that association, though elsewhere he likens the Kingdom of Heaven to leaven. But here it is – a wonderful image for how the life of Christ works in us. Just as yeast is proofed with water and a sweetener, so his life is made real in us through baptism. And then it works through us, kneaded by our formation as Christians, by life's hardships and challenges, by wise and wonderful mentors. And it raises us into the life of heaven, from the inside.
Where do you need “raising” today? Ask Jesus to raise you up, and then say thank you, even before you see how that prayer is being answered. After a while, you might notice something has changed. And when you do, say thank you again, and maybe write it down – even tell someone.
When we are low or weary or feeling powerless, we don’t have to call on the power of heaven from outside. We can ask God to activate the Life of heaven already at work within us. And we will find ourselves raised up – at the last day, and every day until then.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Despite the comical image of balancing on Jesus’ shoulders like a child getting a good view at a parade, it does remind us that we live the risen life here and now, not only there and later. And at times when we don’t feel very “risen,” we can invite Jesus to activate his life in us again.
Which generates a third musing on “raised” – Jesus as yeast that causes us to rise and become the bread of life in the world. He probably didn't intend that association, though elsewhere he likens the Kingdom of Heaven to leaven. But here it is – a wonderful image for how the life of Christ works in us. Just as yeast is proofed with water and a sweetener, so his life is made real in us through baptism. And then it works through us, kneaded by our formation as Christians, by life's hardships and challenges, by wise and wonderful mentors. And it raises us into the life of heaven, from the inside.
Where do you need “raising” today? Ask Jesus to raise you up, and then say thank you, even before you see how that prayer is being answered. After a while, you might notice something has changed. And when you do, say thank you again, and maybe write it down – even tell someone.
When we are low or weary or feeling powerless, we don’t have to call on the power of heaven from outside. We can ask God to activate the Life of heaven already at work within us. And we will find ourselves raised up – at the last day, and every day until then.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-12-24 - Eating Jesus
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
“…so whoever eats me will live because of me.” – Jesus of Nazareth
It’s August. In Michigan, where I am vacationing, I’m enjoying glorious weather, sunny skies and low humidity. My Facebook feed is full of people vacationing in beautiful places. Who wants to think about Jesus’ “I am the bread” discourses and their cannibalistic implications? What relevance is there to this ancient argument between Jesus and some would-be followers, in which he invokes the name of God and Israel’s history of disobedience, and then goes on to say that what he really means by “bread” is “his flesh,” which he will give for the world?
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you....Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.”
These words made little sense to those listening to Jesus that day. In fact, for Jews whose food laws required the draining of all blood from meat before it could be eaten, they must have seemed deliberately offensive. For many Christians, these words only have meaning in the context of the eucharistic meal of bread and wine signifying Christ’s body and blood – and we only have that understanding because of what the three other gospels – and not John – record as his words at the Last Supper. And they are certainly mystifying to people exploring Christianity.
The words require too much unpacking, I believe. But the action – the taking and blessing, breaking and eating – that has power even for people who have no background with this language or texts. In some mystical way, when we receive the consecrated bread and wine, by faith we become the body and blood of Christ. His life in us, received at baptism, is renewed. Our tired blood is refreshed by a transfusion of Jesus, our flagging flesh made whole in these signs of healing brokenness. And that can happen even for people who know little about Jesus when they encounter the Eucharist. (Read Sara Miles' Take This Bread.)
We don't need more words about words. I just invite you to remember how you feel when you take in those mystical signs, how that meal nourishes you for the week ahead. And if you feel nothing, ask Jesus in prayer what he wants you to experience in that taking and blessing, breaking and eating. The words may be strange to our ears; the Love that makes them real is where we get life.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
“…so whoever eats me will live because of me.” – Jesus of Nazareth
It’s August. In Michigan, where I am vacationing, I’m enjoying glorious weather, sunny skies and low humidity. My Facebook feed is full of people vacationing in beautiful places. Who wants to think about Jesus’ “I am the bread” discourses and their cannibalistic implications? What relevance is there to this ancient argument between Jesus and some would-be followers, in which he invokes the name of God and Israel’s history of disobedience, and then goes on to say that what he really means by “bread” is “his flesh,” which he will give for the world?
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you....Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.”
These words made little sense to those listening to Jesus that day. In fact, for Jews whose food laws required the draining of all blood from meat before it could be eaten, they must have seemed deliberately offensive. For many Christians, these words only have meaning in the context of the eucharistic meal of bread and wine signifying Christ’s body and blood – and we only have that understanding because of what the three other gospels – and not John – record as his words at the Last Supper. And they are certainly mystifying to people exploring Christianity.
The words require too much unpacking, I believe. But the action – the taking and blessing, breaking and eating – that has power even for people who have no background with this language or texts. In some mystical way, when we receive the consecrated bread and wine, by faith we become the body and blood of Christ. His life in us, received at baptism, is renewed. Our tired blood is refreshed by a transfusion of Jesus, our flagging flesh made whole in these signs of healing brokenness. And that can happen even for people who know little about Jesus when they encounter the Eucharist. (Read Sara Miles' Take This Bread.)
We don't need more words about words. I just invite you to remember how you feel when you take in those mystical signs, how that meal nourishes you for the week ahead. And if you feel nothing, ask Jesus in prayer what he wants you to experience in that taking and blessing, breaking and eating. The words may be strange to our ears; the Love that makes them real is where we get life.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-9-24 - Light of the World
You can listen to this reflection here. The gospel reading for the Feast of the Transfiguration is here.
Tuesday was the Feast of the Transfiguration. It is an odd event to celebrate, with its mystical magnificence and down-to-earth reactions from the three men who witnessed it. It is an event that takes place on a retreat, during prayer: Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.
When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai after 40 days in God’s presence, his face shone so brightly people found it blinding. Perhaps there is a physiological effect when a human is in the fullness of God’s presence, as Jesus was in prayer that day. When I feel filled with the Spirit, my face gets hot – is that just a very limited manifestation of the same effect?
August 6 is also the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, where a blinding light heralded not a divine manifestation but the unleashing of unimaginable destructive force, which vaporized some people, burned others alive and killed or sickened a whole populace. Between 90,000 and 146,000 people died as a result of the atomic bombing, (39,000-80,000 in Nagasaki); roughly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day. Some maintain that killing prevented a much greater slaughter had the war continued; we will never know. We must live with what happened, and mourn the children and elderly and families, and survivors who were never again the same.
On the face of it these two events have nothing in common save a date of commemoration. But the power displayed in Jesus on that mountain and the dazzling light have forged a connection of sorts in my mind. The confluence invites us to remember that light does not always signal the presence of God; after all, one name in the bible for the devil is Lucifer, which means “light-bearer.” And though God is the most powerful agent in the universe, there are other powers which humans can access as well. In fact, when a person gives him or herself over wholly to evil, he can become quite powerful and unleash unbelievable and wide-ranging destruction.
Yet even such people can be countered by those who know the true light, the One who said he was the Light of the World. And He has called us to bear this true light, to come against the forces of darkness with the power that is in the Name of Jesus. Wherever we see destruction unleashed today, whether on our borders, or in the tyranny of a drug lord in a broken neighborhood, or a dictator with no regard for the wellbeing of his people, or a corporation with no regard for the future of our planet, we can invoke the greater light we’ve been promised in Christ.
We can speak truth to power, and justice to oppression. We can sit with those in terror for their lives, bearing witness, doing our best to ensure they are treated justly. And how do we do this? By inviting the power of the Spirit to fill us as we pray and as we do ministry. It is God’s work; we are merely the vessels. And God will prevail. Whether or not our faces shine with God’s light, as we serve and proclaim and carry forth the greater light of Jesus Christ, the flashes of evil will be put down under his feet. God will be made known.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Tuesday was the Feast of the Transfiguration. It is an odd event to celebrate, with its mystical magnificence and down-to-earth reactions from the three men who witnessed it. It is an event that takes place on a retreat, during prayer: Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.
When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai after 40 days in God’s presence, his face shone so brightly people found it blinding. Perhaps there is a physiological effect when a human is in the fullness of God’s presence, as Jesus was in prayer that day. When I feel filled with the Spirit, my face gets hot – is that just a very limited manifestation of the same effect?
August 6 is also the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, where a blinding light heralded not a divine manifestation but the unleashing of unimaginable destructive force, which vaporized some people, burned others alive and killed or sickened a whole populace. Between 90,000 and 146,000 people died as a result of the atomic bombing, (39,000-80,000 in Nagasaki); roughly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day. Some maintain that killing prevented a much greater slaughter had the war continued; we will never know. We must live with what happened, and mourn the children and elderly and families, and survivors who were never again the same.
On the face of it these two events have nothing in common save a date of commemoration. But the power displayed in Jesus on that mountain and the dazzling light have forged a connection of sorts in my mind. The confluence invites us to remember that light does not always signal the presence of God; after all, one name in the bible for the devil is Lucifer, which means “light-bearer.” And though God is the most powerful agent in the universe, there are other powers which humans can access as well. In fact, when a person gives him or herself over wholly to evil, he can become quite powerful and unleash unbelievable and wide-ranging destruction.
Yet even such people can be countered by those who know the true light, the One who said he was the Light of the World. And He has called us to bear this true light, to come against the forces of darkness with the power that is in the Name of Jesus. Wherever we see destruction unleashed today, whether on our borders, or in the tyranny of a drug lord in a broken neighborhood, or a dictator with no regard for the wellbeing of his people, or a corporation with no regard for the future of our planet, we can invoke the greater light we’ve been promised in Christ.
We can speak truth to power, and justice to oppression. We can sit with those in terror for their lives, bearing witness, doing our best to ensure they are treated justly. And how do we do this? By inviting the power of the Spirit to fill us as we pray and as we do ministry. It is God’s work; we are merely the vessels. And God will prevail. Whether or not our faces shine with God’s light, as we serve and proclaim and carry forth the greater light of Jesus Christ, the flashes of evil will be put down under his feet. God will be made known.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-8--24 - Bread For the World
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
In his “I am the bread of life” discourse, Jesus becomes increasingly, alarmingly precise. He moves from “I am the bread of life” to “I am the bread that came down from heaven” to “I am the living bread that came down from heaven,” and finally to this astonishing statement: “… the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
We will explore next week how graphically Jesus “fleshes this out” and becomes yet more controversial. Today let’s stay with this idea – that his flesh is bread that he will give for the life of the world. What connections and responses does that evoke in us?
For sacramentally oriented Christians, it is easy to read back into Jesus’ words a eucharistic connotation. Beneath that is the sacrificial understanding of his crucifixion, that something life-saving, world-transforming occurred in Jesus’ offering of himself and his brutal death, something that forever broke the hold of sin and death upon humankind.
In these words are also written the story of his incarnation – God choosing to save the world through flesh and blood. For some people, that is the most radical idea of all – that the One who is Spirit came into Flesh in order to redeem flesh. We have no salvation without the Holy Spirit, but also none without Jesus becoming human, healing the human condition from the inside out.
And God still works through flesh. We, gathered at the communion table (even virtually), become the bread of life, and the Spirit of Christ now dwells in our frail and fallible flesh to make known the love of God to the world. It is simultaneously a huge responsibility, for we must be willing and show up, and none at all, for it remains God’s work, accomplished once and for all by Jesus on the Cross, and worked out in the world through us, one encounter at a time.
Do you bring your body into this faith life along with your mind and spirit? Are you willing to be the embodiment of God's love to those whom you meet today? We might begin the day by opening our arms in a big gesture of offering and openness to the Spirit, even kneeling in humility.
It is because Jesus was God and Man that he was living bread that saves. It is as we take his life into our flesh that we too become bread for the world that brings healing.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
In his “I am the bread of life” discourse, Jesus becomes increasingly, alarmingly precise. He moves from “I am the bread of life” to “I am the bread that came down from heaven” to “I am the living bread that came down from heaven,” and finally to this astonishing statement: “… the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
We will explore next week how graphically Jesus “fleshes this out” and becomes yet more controversial. Today let’s stay with this idea – that his flesh is bread that he will give for the life of the world. What connections and responses does that evoke in us?
For sacramentally oriented Christians, it is easy to read back into Jesus’ words a eucharistic connotation. Beneath that is the sacrificial understanding of his crucifixion, that something life-saving, world-transforming occurred in Jesus’ offering of himself and his brutal death, something that forever broke the hold of sin and death upon humankind.
In these words are also written the story of his incarnation – God choosing to save the world through flesh and blood. For some people, that is the most radical idea of all – that the One who is Spirit came into Flesh in order to redeem flesh. We have no salvation without the Holy Spirit, but also none without Jesus becoming human, healing the human condition from the inside out.
And God still works through flesh. We, gathered at the communion table (even virtually), become the bread of life, and the Spirit of Christ now dwells in our frail and fallible flesh to make known the love of God to the world. It is simultaneously a huge responsibility, for we must be willing and show up, and none at all, for it remains God’s work, accomplished once and for all by Jesus on the Cross, and worked out in the world through us, one encounter at a time.
Do you bring your body into this faith life along with your mind and spirit? Are you willing to be the embodiment of God's love to those whom you meet today? We might begin the day by opening our arms in a big gesture of offering and openness to the Spirit, even kneeling in humility.
It is because Jesus was God and Man that he was living bread that saves. It is as we take his life into our flesh that we too become bread for the world that brings healing.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-7-24 - Eternity
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
For centuries, the key selling point for becoming a Christian was the guarantee of a life that never ends. In a culture that has managed to increase the average life span to eight, nine, even ten decades, that isn’t the draw it once was. I meet quite a few churchgoers who assume they’ll just be pushing up daisies when they die.
On the other hand, technologies to prolong life, retain youth, maintain consciousness, move to another planet, store yourself for awakening at a later, greater time continue to be developed – and make a lot of money. Maybe people aren’t so ready to let go of life.
Jesus said eternal life can be ours without signing away our life’s savings. It can be ours through believing in him: "Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die."
All the blessings the people of God had known, he says, even a blessing as great as manna in the desert, were temporal. The only truly lasting, eternal gift is the bread of life – and that, Jesus said, was him, available to those who believe. That’s too hard for some; they don’t want to just take him at his word. After all, they can’t see Jesus; but they’re willing to plunk down millions for a place in a cryogenics pod.
Is it really so hard to believe that promise? Jesus makes it easy for us. We don’t even have to wait until we’re dead to begin to see the fruits of what we’ve signed up for. The power that raised Christ from the dead becomes a part of our lives in the here and now. The peace that transcends understanding becomes woven into our dealings with the world. The presence of God already surrounds and transforms us more and more into the likeness of Christ.
And as we allow those gifts to work in us, we become better able to manifest the love that we’re told is to mark the Christian community in this world, and will be the sole currency in the life to come. When no one lacks for anything, and no one prefers one person or thing to another, there are no impediments to love.
How does eternity sound to you? Inviting? Scary? Tedious? Exciting? When we begin to see our lives, our travails and challenges, and even joys from the perspective of eternity, the bad things don’t look as daunting, and the good we recognize as foretastes of the feast to come. This life is but an antechamber to the palace in which we will dwell – a beautiful antechamber, but just the beginning of the glory in store for us.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
For centuries, the key selling point for becoming a Christian was the guarantee of a life that never ends. In a culture that has managed to increase the average life span to eight, nine, even ten decades, that isn’t the draw it once was. I meet quite a few churchgoers who assume they’ll just be pushing up daisies when they die.
On the other hand, technologies to prolong life, retain youth, maintain consciousness, move to another planet, store yourself for awakening at a later, greater time continue to be developed – and make a lot of money. Maybe people aren’t so ready to let go of life.
Jesus said eternal life can be ours without signing away our life’s savings. It can be ours through believing in him: "Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die."
All the blessings the people of God had known, he says, even a blessing as great as manna in the desert, were temporal. The only truly lasting, eternal gift is the bread of life – and that, Jesus said, was him, available to those who believe. That’s too hard for some; they don’t want to just take him at his word. After all, they can’t see Jesus; but they’re willing to plunk down millions for a place in a cryogenics pod.
Is it really so hard to believe that promise? Jesus makes it easy for us. We don’t even have to wait until we’re dead to begin to see the fruits of what we’ve signed up for. The power that raised Christ from the dead becomes a part of our lives in the here and now. The peace that transcends understanding becomes woven into our dealings with the world. The presence of God already surrounds and transforms us more and more into the likeness of Christ.
And as we allow those gifts to work in us, we become better able to manifest the love that we’re told is to mark the Christian community in this world, and will be the sole currency in the life to come. When no one lacks for anything, and no one prefers one person or thing to another, there are no impediments to love.
How does eternity sound to you? Inviting? Scary? Tedious? Exciting? When we begin to see our lives, our travails and challenges, and even joys from the perspective of eternity, the bad things don’t look as daunting, and the good we recognize as foretastes of the feast to come. This life is but an antechamber to the palace in which we will dwell – a beautiful antechamber, but just the beginning of the glory in store for us.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-6-24 - He's From Where?
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Often, when a popular public figure starts making comments that are just too outrageous, a movement will kick in to cut them down to size. We certainly see that process unfold when Jesus begins to talk about being the “bread that came down from heaven.” People who had come to him, eager for his teaching, waiting for his next miracle, now start to grumble: Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
Knowing Jesus’ roots, they couldn’t stomach what sounded like grandiose claims. In fairness to the grumblers, his words do sound far-fetched, especially if you know his human ancestry and have no reason to guess divine origins. Much of the Gospel of John chronicles people exploring and confronting Jesus’ claims of relationship with God the Father. But he lays it out quite clearly and boldly: Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.”
This is more outrageous still! Jesus rests his authority on his divine Son-ship – and says that anyone who fails to discern his Son-ship has not been drawn by the Father. For those who believe Jesus is indeed the Son of God, that makes perfect sense. For those who don’t, this circular reasoning just makes him sound all the more mad, and more than a little manipulative.
And there it is: the life, teachings, actions, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ make sense if you believe that he came from the Father and returned to the Father, and that he is entitled to call God “Father.” If you don’t buy that, if you see him solely as a human creature, he is someone to be feared, not revered. Given that, the fact that so many billions across so many centuries have recognized Jesus’ divine origins lends some support to the truth we claim about this one who said he was Truth itself.
So how do we make this Truth known to the people around us? Should we bother? I say we introduce him as the friend and redeemer we know, and ask the Holy Spirit to make the spiritual introduction that initiates faith. We don't have to convince, only bear witness to our experience with him. We have not seen the Father. But we have seen Jesus, and can know Jesus. And in Him, God is.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Often, when a popular public figure starts making comments that are just too outrageous, a movement will kick in to cut them down to size. We certainly see that process unfold when Jesus begins to talk about being the “bread that came down from heaven.” People who had come to him, eager for his teaching, waiting for his next miracle, now start to grumble: Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
Knowing Jesus’ roots, they couldn’t stomach what sounded like grandiose claims. In fairness to the grumblers, his words do sound far-fetched, especially if you know his human ancestry and have no reason to guess divine origins. Much of the Gospel of John chronicles people exploring and confronting Jesus’ claims of relationship with God the Father. But he lays it out quite clearly and boldly: Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.”
This is more outrageous still! Jesus rests his authority on his divine Son-ship – and says that anyone who fails to discern his Son-ship has not been drawn by the Father. For those who believe Jesus is indeed the Son of God, that makes perfect sense. For those who don’t, this circular reasoning just makes him sound all the more mad, and more than a little manipulative.
And there it is: the life, teachings, actions, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ make sense if you believe that he came from the Father and returned to the Father, and that he is entitled to call God “Father.” If you don’t buy that, if you see him solely as a human creature, he is someone to be feared, not revered. Given that, the fact that so many billions across so many centuries have recognized Jesus’ divine origins lends some support to the truth we claim about this one who said he was Truth itself.
So how do we make this Truth known to the people around us? Should we bother? I say we introduce him as the friend and redeemer we know, and ask the Holy Spirit to make the spiritual introduction that initiates faith. We don't have to convince, only bear witness to our experience with him. We have not seen the Father. But we have seen Jesus, and can know Jesus. And in Him, God is.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-5-24 - No Hunger, No Thirst
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
When Jesus says that he is the bread of life, he also makes a big claim: “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Is he only speaking figuratively? On the face of it, it would seem so. Many people believe and yet experience hunger or thirst on a regular basis. We have not received all that we need so that we have no wants. Or have we?
The realm of God is an already/not yet place. Often we focus too much on the not-yet, when Jesus’ message in word and action was “It’s already here, folks! This God who loves you is near, is here, with power to heal and to provide.” The healings and the miracle of the loaves and fish were yet more ways to show that this Good News has implications in our material lives here and now, not only in our spirits. Even in the face of persecution, Jesus taught, God provides. How hard it is to trust that! Those trust muscles need to be developed and then exercised.
If anyone had reason to be thirsty, it was Rosie, a woman I met at a nursing home where I used to do a monthly service. She often added to my homilies, conveying my point better and more eloquently than I did. She lived semi-reclined in a wheelchair, and looked to me to be in her mid-40s. And she was radiant, always smiling, grateful. One time I had spoken about the living water of Christ always within us, and she said, “I know about that living water. Before I knew Jesus I had this emptiness inside me, nothing could fill it. But the moment I learned about him and said yes to faith, I felt full. Now I always feel full of God, all the time, no matter what.”
Rosie’s “no matter what” is particularly challenging, living in a nursing home, confined to a wheelchair. I’m sure she had other plans for her life. But her joy is palpable. That living water of Holy Spirit life truly runs in her and causes her to be focused on other people, on spreading God's joy and peace.
St. Paul put it well: “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:11-13)
We have received the bread of life; we renew that awareness around the communion table. We have received the water of life; Jesus promises it is like a stream welling up within us to eternity. As Rosie knows, eternity has already begun. Be fed, be quenched, be blessed. God-Life is already!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
When Jesus says that he is the bread of life, he also makes a big claim: “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Is he only speaking figuratively? On the face of it, it would seem so. Many people believe and yet experience hunger or thirst on a regular basis. We have not received all that we need so that we have no wants. Or have we?
The realm of God is an already/not yet place. Often we focus too much on the not-yet, when Jesus’ message in word and action was “It’s already here, folks! This God who loves you is near, is here, with power to heal and to provide.” The healings and the miracle of the loaves and fish were yet more ways to show that this Good News has implications in our material lives here and now, not only in our spirits. Even in the face of persecution, Jesus taught, God provides. How hard it is to trust that! Those trust muscles need to be developed and then exercised.
If anyone had reason to be thirsty, it was Rosie, a woman I met at a nursing home where I used to do a monthly service. She often added to my homilies, conveying my point better and more eloquently than I did. She lived semi-reclined in a wheelchair, and looked to me to be in her mid-40s. And she was radiant, always smiling, grateful. One time I had spoken about the living water of Christ always within us, and she said, “I know about that living water. Before I knew Jesus I had this emptiness inside me, nothing could fill it. But the moment I learned about him and said yes to faith, I felt full. Now I always feel full of God, all the time, no matter what.”
Rosie’s “no matter what” is particularly challenging, living in a nursing home, confined to a wheelchair. I’m sure she had other plans for her life. But her joy is palpable. That living water of Holy Spirit life truly runs in her and causes her to be focused on other people, on spreading God's joy and peace.
St. Paul put it well: “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:11-13)
We have received the bread of life; we renew that awareness around the communion table. We have received the water of life; Jesus promises it is like a stream welling up within us to eternity. As Rosie knows, eternity has already begun. Be fed, be quenched, be blessed. God-Life is already!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
8-2-24 - Bread From Heaven
You can listen to this reflection here.
At week’s end, let’s turn to a Hebrew Bible passage appointed for Sunday, about the “bread of life” we’ve been discussing. The story of how the Israelites were fed during their 40-year sojourn in the wilderness after escaping Egypt is what the people in our gospel reading were reminding Jesus about as they asked him to produce “magic bread.”
The account of the Exodus contains a lot of whining. No matter how the Lord provides for the people, soon enough they come back with their grievances, often revolving around food. “Oh, the onions and leeks we had in Egypt!” they wail, conveniently forgetting their harsh existence as slaves and day laborers, from which they were delivered when God walled up the waters of the Red Sea so they could escape Pharaoh’s pursuing army. Here they are again: The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
Does God turn away from their ingratitude? No – God provides, extraordinarily, but with a twist: Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not.”
The instruction is that they are to gather only enough of the manna for each day, and not to try to save it to the next day. They have to trust in God’s provision each day. Sure enough, they try to save it and it goes rancid and buggy. God provides enough on the sixth day to get them through the Sabbath, but otherwise, it’s just for each day, and more than enough.
They also have trouble recognizing this flaky substance on the ground, said to look like coriander, as food. But they soon learn they can make flour from it. Bread from heaven has been provided, not on their timetable and not as they expected it to look, but there all the same.
God wants us to experience his blessings daily as well – and they often don’t look like what we’re expecting. That’s why I’m learning to expect blessing in general, and try not to get specific about it. Most of my greatest blessings are things I wouldn’t even have known to look for.
And we are to expect blessing each day. I challenge anyone to get to the end of a day and not be able to name a single blessing from God, some unlooked-for gift, whether from God or another person, or uncanny timing, an insight given or progress made. Even in perilous times, God remains in the blessing business.
To expect blessing every day, without storing up gifts from the day before; to learn to recognize blessing when it looks different than what we envisioned – these are skills we need on our journey into faith. As we become able to live into these graces, we are more available for God to give others daily bread through us.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
At week’s end, let’s turn to a Hebrew Bible passage appointed for Sunday, about the “bread of life” we’ve been discussing. The story of how the Israelites were fed during their 40-year sojourn in the wilderness after escaping Egypt is what the people in our gospel reading were reminding Jesus about as they asked him to produce “magic bread.”
The account of the Exodus contains a lot of whining. No matter how the Lord provides for the people, soon enough they come back with their grievances, often revolving around food. “Oh, the onions and leeks we had in Egypt!” they wail, conveniently forgetting their harsh existence as slaves and day laborers, from which they were delivered when God walled up the waters of the Red Sea so they could escape Pharaoh’s pursuing army. Here they are again: The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
Does God turn away from their ingratitude? No – God provides, extraordinarily, but with a twist: Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not.”
The instruction is that they are to gather only enough of the manna for each day, and not to try to save it to the next day. They have to trust in God’s provision each day. Sure enough, they try to save it and it goes rancid and buggy. God provides enough on the sixth day to get them through the Sabbath, but otherwise, it’s just for each day, and more than enough.
They also have trouble recognizing this flaky substance on the ground, said to look like coriander, as food. But they soon learn they can make flour from it. Bread from heaven has been provided, not on their timetable and not as they expected it to look, but there all the same.
God wants us to experience his blessings daily as well – and they often don’t look like what we’re expecting. That’s why I’m learning to expect blessing in general, and try not to get specific about it. Most of my greatest blessings are things I wouldn’t even have known to look for.
And we are to expect blessing each day. I challenge anyone to get to the end of a day and not be able to name a single blessing from God, some unlooked-for gift, whether from God or another person, or uncanny timing, an insight given or progress made. Even in perilous times, God remains in the blessing business.
To expect blessing every day, without storing up gifts from the day before; to learn to recognize blessing when it looks different than what we envisioned – these are skills we need on our journey into faith. As we become able to live into these graces, we are more available for God to give others daily bread through us.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
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