You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Jesus was often under scrutiny by the religious leaders of his day – all the more because they didn’t approve of many whom he welcomed into his company: Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Why are “tax collectors” and “sinners” so often lumped together in the Gospels? Tax collectors of Jesus’ time were no mild-mannered IRS accountants. They were Jews who made a living by “collecting” taxes for the Romans from their fellow Jews. As such, they were collaborators with a hated regime and enforcers of cruel and often capricious extortion. And the Romans didn’t pay them for this – they allowed them to tack on a “fee” or surcharge. The meaner the tax collector, the higher the “fee” they commanded. Tax collectors were easy to loathe.
Yet Jesus invited one of these, Matthew, to be a disciple. He ate at the home of another, Zaccheus. He seemed to be a magnet for them – and he didn’t just dine with them. He invited them to repent and be renewed. Many saw their lives transformed, as did other “sinners” who spent time with Jesus. Who better to hang around with than someone who talks about forgiveness and the love of the heavenly Father? Who sees you as a human being despite the despicable way you’ve treated others?
And what about these Pharisees and scribes? They weren’t bad people. Pharisees deeply loved the Law of Moses and strove for lives of great holiness. In the process, they often became self-righteous, judgmental, and tipped into a compassionless legalism that – Jesus felt – caused them to focus on picayune laws at the expense of God’s greater command to care for the poor and defenseless. The scribes were temple leaders, and regulated the apparatus of worship and sacrifice. They had limited power under Roman authority, and like many such people, excelled in exerting that power over people with even less.
So we have, on the one hand, notorious sinners and low-lifes, and on the other, hypocritical and arrogant “holy” people. If all the low-lifes were in one room, and all the religious people in another, and you HAD to pick one, which room would you go in? Why? What would you say to those gathered in each room?
What kind of people do you find yourself judging, even condemning? (We all do it… let’s just bring it to the surface so we can look at it…). Think of some examples of individuals or groups. My social media feed is full of videos of ICE and DHS agents snatching people off the streets, even out of cars in Washington, DC. Hard not to think of them and their task masters when I ask this question…
Who comes up for you? Bring them to mind.
Now bring Jesus into that picture. What does he do? Say? How do you feel?
What kind of people do you feel are hypocritical? How do you suppose they got that way? Think of some examples of individuals or groups. Bring them to mind.Now bring Jesus into that picture. What does he do? Say? How do you feel?
Those who flout the rules and those who cling rigidly to them are both living outside the sweet spot of God's grace. Jesus invites us all into the center.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
The first time I went on retreat, I immersed myself in prayer, scripture, worship and the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux. His passion for God was so fervent, at one point I remember praying, “Oh Lord, set my heart on fire with love for you!” Right away a response came in my mind: “Do you know what you’re asking? My fire burns away everything that is not of me, everything.” I thought of all those references to God as a refiner’s fire, a consuming fire, and I felt I was being offered a choice – the “high road” of full commitment to the way of Jesus, or the lower, slower way of mixed motives and divided devotions. I chose the slower, messier way. And you?
The hard teachings we’ve been wrestling with this week concern this choice. Jesus tells those who would follow his way that they must walk away from the claims of this world, family and money. “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” James in his epistle says even more starkly, “Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.”
Did Jesus really mean we should hate this life we’ve been given? The passage from Deuteronomy appointed for this Sunday urges us to “Choose life.” “…today I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him…”
Jesus invites us to choose the life that is the most real, the most true, the most eternal; the God-life, visible to the eyes of faith, not the mere world-life apparent to our physical senses. “I have come that they may have life, and have it in abundance,” he says. (John 10:10). He invites us to leave behind all that distracts us from receiving the abundance of love, joy, peace, grace, forgiveness, healing – and ministry – that God offers us.
I chose the slow road, the “middle way.” I may still be on it, but over the years, as my commitment has sharpened, I perceive that this is also a kingdom path. The God Jesus revealed meets us on any road we’re on, any time we turn away from the emptiness allegiance to the world brings us. This Father in heaven rushes out to greet his children as we come back to ourselves and back to our true home.
Jesus’ invitation is to follow him, to start consciously walking the road with Him every day. As we do that, He will point out sights we may not have noticed before. He may introduce us to people who live closer to the edge; might nudge us to give to this organization or that ministry. We might find ourselves making friends in parts of town we never saw before.
Who have you met on the road? When have you experienced the Father’s greeting? When have you experienced the Holy Spirit guiding you, protecting you, strengthening you? Write down those stories – other people might want to hear them.
The original name for Christ followers was “The People of the Way.” If we’re on the road with Jesus, guided by the Holy Spirit, we will end up where God wants us.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
I have heard some suggest that Jesus “preferred” the poor. That’s not what the Gospel record shows. Jesus had great love for people who were poor, partly because others ignored them, but we also see him interact affectionately with many prosperous folks, even as he invites them to loosen their grip on their resources. He didn’t demand poverty of everyone – but it seems he did of those who wished to go beyond “friend” or “follower” to “disciple.” “So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions."
Maybe I'm not a disciple yet. I’m on the slow road to giving it all away, as are most people I know. Do we count as wealthy? You bet. When we compare ourselves to people with more money, it looks like we’re just getting by. But even the poor in America are richer than 85% of people in the world, many of whom try to live on less than $1 a day. You do the math.
To some of the wealthy people Jesus interacted with he said, “Give it all.” To others, he didn’t. Zacchaeus in the flush of conversion offers to give half his net worth to the poor; Jesus doesn’t say, “What about the other half?” When Jesus talks about how hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, he may be saying it’s impossible – or simply noting that people of means often put their security in their accumulated wealth rather than in God. If you can walk the fine line of having a lot of resources and not relying on them, then you might have the freedom to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
God wants us to trust in God’s provision, not in our own resources or strategies. The expression, “God helps those who help themselves” is not in the Bible, and is contrary to the spirit of the Good News Jesus preached. Jesus urged radical openness to the grace of God and radical generosity to the poor in wallet. If everyone viewed every child as a precious gift of God, there might be fewer living on garbage heaps.
So, how do we respond, if we’re not ready to give it all away? Today, maybe we begin with gratitude for the resources we have. Name a few, write them down. If you feel a tug of remorse, offer repentance, not because of your resources, but for clinging to them. Have you felt called to share what you have, and didn’t? Name it.
The best way to get better at giving it away is to practice giving it away, a lot. Increase your giving to your church. Sign up for a few more monthly automatic gifts to organizations you believe in. It starts with “Yes, Jesus. I want to follow you. This is what I can give today.” If we truly walk with Him, “what I can give today” will grow and grow. So will we.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
This Sunday’s gospel passage begins, "Now large crowds were travelling with him…" I wonder how large the crowds were when Jesus was done talking. Was he trying to cull out the faddists and thrill-seekers with his talk of “hating your mother and father,” and “carrying your cross?”
“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Talking about “carrying your cross” to subjects in a Roman colony might just cause many to turn away – the cross was a brutal and terrifying instrument of imperial execution. I can imagine a few people in that crowd paused, let themselves fall back to the margins, and slunk off home.
I might have been one of them. If we interpret “carry the cross” as “embrace your suffering,” as some have done, I won’t rush forward to sign up. But I don’t believe God desires suffering for his beloved, despite passages in the bible that suggest it can be part of God’s plan. I believe God shows up in the midst of suffering that comes our way from other sources; that God’s power and love can redeem and transform it into an opportunity for healing and growth.
How else might we interpret “carry your cross?” One way might be, "Take up your ministry, commit yourself to your part within the whole of God’s mission of restoration and reconciliation." The way each of us is called to participate in God’s mission is a product of our gifts, our passions and our circumstances – and the leading of the Holy Spirit. It is not something we undertake alone. We undertake it with the second half of that imperative, “and follow me.” As we become people of purpose following Christ, using our gifts, filled and guided by the Holy Spirit, we find ourselves more focused and peaceful.
The fullness of Jesus’ ministry involved suffering on the cross. Because he did, we don’t have to. We may be asked to sacrifice our resources, our prerogatives, our agendas; we might even encounter resistance and suffering, but not because suffering is redemptive – because passionate engagement in God’s mission transforms us and the world.
What do you see as one of your ministries as a Christ-follower? Where do your gifts, passions and circumstances intersect? List some of your gifts and passions, and think through your circumstances: where do you live, what do you do, who do you live with, who do you live around? That's important data.
Do you feel asked to sacrifice, “lay down” any of your privileges, preferences or resources to make space for others? To alleviate suffering for other people? Have a conversation with Jesus about the answers you come up with.
Finding our way into God’s mission is a lifetime vocation. At different times in our lives we’re called to live out our mission in different ways. Where will you “carry the cross” today?
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
In our current culture, the most benign-seeming things can become controversial, and nothing so much as family. The term “family values” is often associated with conservative Christian groups and their positions on social issues. More liberal elements in society might redefine the term "family" beyond biological kin to include those we choose to love, be they adoptive children or romantic partners.
Jesus had something to say about family values, but I doubt our arguments about family would have interested him much. He told his followers to leave the whole concept behind and focus on making his Gospel of forgiveness and freedom known to the world: Now large crowds were travelling with him; and he turned and said to them, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”
Did Jesus really say that? Well, this was the man who, when told that his mother and brothers wanted to see him, said, “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mt. 12:50) This is the man whose followers left their homes and families to travel with him, checking in now and then, but committing themselves to a bigger, messier, non-biological family.
Jesus’ teaching radically undermines how human nature and culture lead us to think and act. Our earthly families can be great blessings – and they are among the “things that are passing away.” In the perspective of eternity, they pale in importance to our membership in the family of God. We are invited to walk a fine line in loving and nurturing our human families and not letting our love for them distract us from cultivating our relationship with God and God’s people.
That means prizing our family members as gifts from God given in us trust to nurture and help grow, not to possess or cling to. We don’t have to love our biological families less – we are invited to love our mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters and brothers in the household of God more. Then we are able to be even more loving to those in our human families.
Today, let’s give thanks for our families of origin – the gifts, the challenges, the truth.- If your experience of family is painful, can you invite the living water of healing into those wounds?
- Then reflect on who you’ve come to know and love in your “God-family” – grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins in the faith. Who comes to mind? What has she or he brought to your life?
- And who are your “children” in faith – people whom you’ve mentored and supported in their faith life?
- Finally, who do you know who could use a new family, whom you might bring into the household of God?
During the Covid pandemic, my congregation expanded to enfold some Canadians who still regularly worship, study, pray and minister with us online. We’ve visited one another, marveling at the warm reception – but that’s how you welcome family. Two of our Toronto flock even drove for two days to help me unpack in Halifax when I moved. The family of God is ever growing, as we expand our circles of love and healing to include ever more brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews. That’s a lot of birthday cards!
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
“You’ll get your reward in heaven.” That’s a line I heard a lot growing up. But most of the marketing we encounter (and generate…) is geared toward letting us know the rewards we will get the moment we begin using the product. "Credit cards” are now often called “reward cards.”
I frequently encourage people to get involved in helping other people, often those who fall into the category Jesus names in this story, “the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind,” those who, due to circumstance of birth or disability, are not fully equipped to provide for themselves. I always stress the rewards – the satisfaction of using your gifts to make a difference, the expansion of personal experience, the chance to make new friends, the opportunity to participate in God’s mission of restoration and wholeness.
Jesus had no such gambits. He just said, “You’re not going to be rewarded in this life. You’ll see your pay-off way down the line. Do it anyway.” "But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
I have a little quibble with this, because there is something disempowering about only receiving “services,” not having a chance to give back. But Jesus is not talking about works of charity. He is challenging us to forge relationships with people who have nothing to offer us in this world. And notice he doesn’t say anything about dropping off sandwiches – he’s talking about banquets to which we invite those who have nothing to offer us back.
Or do they have more to offer than we realize? Something changes when we stop seeing those who frighten or annoy us as “those people,” or view those who are in need or debilitated as “victims” or “needy,” and rather as people with assets and talents and gifts to offer. It becomes a lot easier to think about having “them” in “our” space. We enlarge our space to accommodate them. Our reading from Hebrews on Sunday reminds us, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”
I once welcomed a big, multiply tatted, leather-clad, "motorcycle mama," somewhat scary looking woman to church. I wasn't sure what I was doing.... but it turned out she'd been a cook in restaurants. She ended up helping me prepare a parish dinner, teaching me to chop onions the way chefs do. She joined that church, and a few years later went to seminary. Angels.
The realm of God is one of radical social equality (maybe that’s why so many decline to dwell there). “In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, woman nor man, slave nor free,” Paul wrote into the future. Our superficial differences melt away as we become part of the family of God. And you do meet the most amazing people hanging out with this family.
This “no rewards” card has a surprising number of rewards to offer, right here and now.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Being in a new community, I’m already making mental lists of people I’d like to invite over, people I'd like get to know better, those who have already taken me out to dinner – and maybe some who I’d like to invite me back. I've been known to invite people I think are important, with whom I’d like to become friendly so I feel important. Wrong! says Jesus. "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.”
This teaching hits us where we live, literally. In this day and age, living as we do in fragmented and stratified communities, most people see their homes as places of safety and refuge. We might be willing to be challenged outside, and invite the marginalized into our church halls and community centers. But into our homes?
Or is that exactly where we are to live out the Good News? Jesus was always crossing boundaries of difference to bring the Good News – as he did in coming to us in our time and space in the first place. As his followers we also are called to go beyond our zones of familiarity and comfort to reach out to the Other.
What kind of “Other” most scares or bothers you? (think age/ ethnicity/ profession/ style…)
In prayer, can you imagine inviting one of those people into your home, to sit at your table? This is a way we can pray for and about people – in our imaginations.
What would you serve? Try to sit with this in your imagination, really feel what you would be feeling.
What might you say? What might your guest say? Who else might be around that table?
Inviting strangers or people we find strange into our homes might be a stretch for most of us; it is for me. Perhaps we could start by inviting someone we consider “other” to breakfast or lunch in a restaurant – start with the encounter itself, deal with the discomfort of possibly disconnected conversation. If we remember that Jesus is also at that table with us, we might find it an adventure that opens up possibilities in us.
After all, the One who tells us to cross that boundary in the first place isn’t going to skip the party himself…
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
It’s funny to think of humility as a virtue at which to excel – if we truly succeed, no one will know. “Mirror, mirror on the wall – who’s the humblest of them all?”
But that’s the upside-down-ness of the Life of God – it’s all backwards from the way we naturally think. Jesus said, “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted,” Humility is to be a characteristic of those who follow Christ. It’s worth spending some time on. Let’s start with what it is not:
Humility is not humiliation, which is exposure of our worst attributes or actions. Enduring humiliation can sometimes lead us into true humility, but it’s a twisty, most undesirable road that can lead to despair and destructiveness instead.
Humility is also not self-abasement or self-denigration. Talking about how awful and unworthy we are is, spiritually speaking, pride; pride being that tendency to think ourselves equal to God. When we run ourselves down, we are setting ourselves as judges of God’s work. That’s pride. Oh, we can judge our actions, and repent of destructive words, thoughts, behaviors – but to judge ourselves innately less worthy than another is as prideful as to say we are innately more worthy than another.
We might best define humility as the art of seeing ourselves clearly, seeing God clearly, and knowing who’s who. Humility includes rejoicing in our gifts and talents, in who we are as unique creatures made in God’s image. It includes enjoying being the best at what we do – and delighting in that as a gift from God, a gift enhanced by God’s life moving in us. (For a powerful reminder of this, watch the first 1.44 minutes of this clip from the movie Chariots of Fire…)
Humility includes loving ourselves despite our shortcomings, which creates space for those shortcomings to be transformed. Humility helps us love other people better because we see them as neither more nor less important than we are. Humility helps us invite the love and grace of God into those parts of ourselves that are not as we wish, so that we become transformed from the inside.
What do you love most about yourself?
What about yourself do you most wish to be transformed?
God is in the transformation business, and you have put yourself in God’s hands. Start giving thanks now for the beauty that shines through you – the beauty of perfect Love mixed with the beauty of Love’s unique creation that is you. Alleluia!
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
It can be amusing at Episcopal clergy gatherings watching people try to work their way toward the bishops, angling for seats next to them at meals. Access to the “important people” is often restricted. So imagine my surprise, in my third week in a new diocese, when I had the opportunity to have lunch with my new bishop not once but twice in two days. I must be hot stuff.
Jesus might say, “Cool your jets!” He had a few things to say to those Pharisees who were observing his table manners so closely. In fact, he turned the tables on them: “If you’re invited to a wedding, go sit at the place furthest away from the action, where you feel the least honored. You might get upgraded, maybe to a table with the bride or groom’s family. But if you pick out that better seat, look out. You just might be asked to move down.”
“For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Some people go through life expecting to be seated in the “lesser” seats – and they tend to be a lot happier than those of us who think we know what seats we merit. It can be a great spiritual practice to walk into any event or party and just end up where and with whom we end up, not trying to plan or maneuver it. Sometimes, though, when I’ve been seated with strangers at a wedding, it’s been challenging; instead of a delightful surprise, I just felt I was sitting with people I found uninteresting. And that just means I didn’t take the spiritual practice far enough. What I should have done was to seek Christ in them.
It doesn’t really matter where we sit, or with whom, as long as Jesus is at the table. And he’s already sent us an open invitation. So any time you don’t know where else you’re going to land, go to his house. Every seat there is perfect.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
In this week’s gospel story, we see not only that Jesus could heal infirmity with a word of faith; we see him establish healing as an activity worthy of the Sabbath, God’s holy day. Healing is what God does: “And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.
It’s great that the crowd rejoiced at what Jesus was doing. I bet he wanted even more for them to start doing what he was doing, to believe in the power of God released into the world. He wanted them – and us – to engage in healing as a principal sign of the reign of God unleashed.
Maybe if we saw such immediate outcomes to our prayers, we would do a lot more praying. And if we engage more often in healing prayer, we might see many more immediate outcomes. God’s life is a both/and kind of place. We are invited to pray at all times and in all places. And I can testify that the more we approach infirmity with prayer, the more often and quickly we see healing.
If I fall or get hurt, I immediately invoke the presence of Jesus to be with me, to release his healing love already in me. When I burn or ding myself, I invite God to release healing power and love in my body, thanking all the cells for their healing work – and I often see things heal faster without scarring. When I practice my faith on relatively small things, it’s stronger when I need to pray for bigger, scarier things, inviting God to release peace and power into a huge complex of anxiety or illness.
So it is today, in any and every place where the Spirit of God is present through the Body of Christ. That’s us, Christ’s hands and feet and eyes and ears and voice of love in the world now. We have been given tremendous power through our access to God in the Spirit. So when we encounter someone afflicted in body, mind or spirit, we don’t have to think, “I’m not the right person.” We can just go, “Oh yeah, I know the right person. And he’ll show up any time I invoke his name. Come, Lord Jesus.” That is the ancient prayer, “Maranatha.” Come, Lord Jesus.
Today, keep inviting God to release healing love and power in you, where you’re hurting. And keep praising. And add a third thing: ask God to show you today someone for whom you are to pray, for whom you are to invite Jesus to release healing grace. It might be a person close to you, or someone you see on the news. You don’t have to offer to pray with them, though that’s always great. You can simply say, “Come Lord Jesus – here’s someone who needs you. Be here. Release your power and love in him, in her.”
God is with us seven days a week, 24 hours a day, at all times and in all places. God cannot be contained or constrained. The more we pray, the more God’s life breaks out and restores the world. Every day.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Have you ever tried to praise God when you’re hunched over or miserable? Of all the types of prayer, praise is one of the most embodied. When we are filled with the Spirit of God, excited about what God is doing or has done in, through, or for us, we naturally straighten our spines, even extend our arms, open our hands. Our bodies participate with our minds and our spirits in the act of praise.
Praise is the first thing the crippled woman in our story did, as the effect of Jesus’ declaring healing on her took hold: immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.
Maybe she was exulting at being able to stand up straight for the first time in eighteen years. She was also participating in the prayer, inviting the Spirit to bless her into wholeness. Praise is one of the best conductors for healing power there is. When we’re praising God, it’s hard to focus on how sick, scared or miserable we are. Those things may still be there, but they’re not where we’re putting our energy.
Maybe praise releases endorphins – spiritual, if not chemical. Really exuberant praise, as at rock and roll shows or sports events, probably releases the chemical kind. When we release ourselves in praise, it also spreads good feelings to the people around us. There’s no downside to praising the One who made us, who heals us, who loves us.
Praise is a choice, an act of will. We choose to praise God for everything we know and believe about God, no matter what else is going on in our lives. It’s an act of will that opens us up to the power that makes us whole. Most of us need to practice praise; it doesn't come naturally. It can be hard to do with words, because we run out of them quickly. And it can feel funny to just repeat phrases like “God, I praise you. I honor you. I exalt you….” We don’t talk to people in our lives that way – we don’t have to be so stiff with God either. We can let our spirit take the lead.
Try praising God without words. Maybe sing a hymn or song you love, or bring up an image of beauty or love in your mind and thank God for that. And if something anxious or negative intrudes, gently say, “Not now. It’s praise time…”
We might invite our bodies to take the lead, opening ourselves into a posture of praise: sit or stand up straight; fill your lungs with deep, long, cleansing breaths; ask your arms how they would like to praise their maker. We might dance, or walk. If movement is difficult, we move what we can, and make that a prayer for restored mobility.
What if our posture was the first thing we address when we’re feeling stressed or sad or anxious? Remember that woman, bent over for so long, suddenly able to stand straight. She can be our model for the posture of praise.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
How long have you lived with an ailment or a limitation? A destructive habit? A job that doesn’t fit your gifts? This week we meet a woman who was bent over, crippled for 18 years. And then she met Jesus: Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight.
Eighteen years. That’s a long time not to be able to look anyone in the eye, to have to strain to see the sky. That’s a long time to be the object of pity and whispers, maybe even scorn. A long time to live in pain, for scoliosis, if that’s what she had, is painful, and when your spine is so radically out of alignment, it puts pressure on other muscles in the body.
But she persevered. As this week’s gospel passage tells the story, she doesn’t even ask for healing. She just shows up for worship on the sabbath, when Jesus happens to be teaching. It may not even have occurred to her that she could be free of her disabling and incurable condition.
Perseverance is a virtue – which sometimes can get in the way of our faith. As Christ followers we are invited to believe that there is nothing in this world we need to be stuck with. Nothing is beyond the reach of God’s transforming power – except a human heart firmly turned away from him. God’s power can set us free from illness, infirmity, even injustice as we exercise our faith and invite God to release that healing stream in us. We may not always live long enough to see the full healing, especially of societal ills, but imagine how much healing we do see as we believe and pray.
As we begin this week, bring into the foreground of your awareness something you feel you are truly stuck with, from which you’d like to be freed. Just hold it in your mind’s eye, and imagine what you would look or feel or act like released from that condition. That visioning in itself is an act of prayer.
Let’s see what the Holy Spirit does with that as we continue in conversation with God about it. I believe something will break open – maybe our hearts, for a start.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's epistle reading is here.
I once saw a cartoon which showed a little boy at a funeral asking his mother, “Mommy, is Pop-Pop in the cloud now?” As we end this week, let’s touch on one more reading for Sunday, the great passage from the New Testament letter to the Hebrews. It explicates the writer’s definition of faith: “… the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” The passage lists a host of God’s people who persevered in faith despite persecutions and trials, never seeing the fruit for which they worked. The writer suggests these departed heroes and heroines of dogged faithfulness constitute a cloud of encouragers to inspire us to righteousness and Christ-centered living:
...since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.
Faith can sometimes feel like heavy work in the face of the world’s ills and evidence of human destructiveness – but remember, faith is not a solitary undertaking. Faith is to be practiced in community, and our community stretches beyond what we can see, even beyond the breathing. Anglicans, with other Christian traditions, affirm the communion of saints, those alive today and those who have gone before us. How might it strengthen your faith to cultivate a greater awareness of that cloud of witnesses surrounding you, upholding you in prayer?
I want to be clear – the cloud of witnesses is not about ghosts. Whatever ghosts may be, they seem to be spirits not yet at rest. The spirits to which the writer to the Hebrews refers are saints in light, existing in the presence of God, emanating love, not direct communications. When we get messages from the heavenly places, it is from the Holy Spirit. If we think a person is communicating with us from beyond, that is a different matter, and one I do not consider spiritually healthy for Christ-followers to engage with. The Spirit of Christ is the only spirit we need.
When we undertake God’s mission in the face of uncertainty, and when we face setbacks in ministry, we can call to mind that cloud of witnesses and set our successes and failures in the light they shed. We can even, in prayer, invite strength from that holy number, and draw on their store of faith when ours feels insufficient. God invites us to believe the impossible; the communion of saints helps us do that.
Sometimes, when facing a church with way too many empty seats, I remember there are others worshiping with us, filling the air and every available place, our space thick with their faithfulness and love. That is a “cloud-based resource” at the highest level, and it’s absolutely free, forever and ever.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's reading from the Hebrew Bible is here.
There are yards and yards of wild raspberries growing by Christ Church Wayside (actually, they’re wine berries, an invasive but delicious cousin to the raspberry). It’s always a delight to come upon fruits or vegetables growing wild. Often they seem all the sweeter for being unexpected. So why would God have a problem with wild grapes? As Isaiah’s parable continues,
And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.
What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?
When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?
The prophet Isaiah is speaking for God – that’s what prophets do, deliver a message they believe God has entrusted them to carry. He was writing in a time of impending crisis for Israel, as attempts to play off competing empires against each other were failing and yet another foreign occupation loomed. Jerusalem was threatened; Israel’s way of life and faith was in peril. Many of the prophetic writings attempt to explain how these dire times had come to pass. The prophets usually located the cause in Israel’s unfaithfulness to the One God; the charges most commonly cited were failure to honor the Law; failure to exercise economic justice and care for the poor and vulnerable; and diluting the holiness of the tradition by mingling with people of other religions.
This is what is meant by “wild grapes,” not simply free-spirited non-conformists, but people and communities who have turned from God’s way. Isaiah asserts that the community has now turned so fully away it stands in opposition to God – “Judge between me and my vineyard.” The God he poetically reveals is having a moment of frustration – “What more was there to do that I have not done?” and lament - “Why did it yield wild grapes?”
This is certainly a very human depiction of God, yet it invites us to imagine a process by which the incarnation of the Son came to be. Was it the plan from the “beginning of the ages,” as some scriptures say, or was it a response by a loving vine-grower unwilling to walk away when his crop came up wild? “What more was there to do?” We can imagine the next thought, “I will send my son…”
Jesus later told a parable, a midrash, or new version, of this passage, about a vineyard rented to tenants who abuse their relationship with the owner, beat his representatives and finally kill his son. The grapes were still wild in his earthly sojourn. But he knew that was not the way the story ended, that the death of the son was not the last word, that Life would triumph over death, over sin, over despair.
In that Life, which we receive in baptism and renew in holy communion and prayer, we have the capacity to lose our mouth-puckering wildness, to become sweet and juicy, wine to gladden the hearts of those we meet. We can grow on the sides of paths where people will come upon us, maybe even think we’re wild. But we are God’s grapes, bearers of Life.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday'; reading from the Hebrew Bible is here.
There are few images more evocative of life and fruitfulness, mystery and joy than vineyards. All over the bible we can find vineyards, literal and figurative. For the rest of this week, let’s go to the vineyard depicted in Isaiah – a place of cultivation and care, which yielded a surprising crop:
Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.
He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watch-tower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it;
he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.
In the gospel passage set for this week, we find Jesus in “scorched earth” mode, literally. He speaks of the fire he has come to bring upon the earth, wishing it were already kindled. We can find precedent for his righteous rage in this prophetic poetry of Isaiah’s, which tells in a few short lines the whole history of God and God’s people. It speaks of this world as a vineyard carefully cultivated by God in a fertile place, cleared and planted, with provisions for protection and wine-processing.
This is how we might see the creation – a beautiful world prepared for us, a place of fertility, with everything provided so that we can thrive and produce good fruit. It even has a watch-tower – an image of God’s vigilant protection from evil for God’s beloved. And this creator is also named as beloved. It’s all set up to enable humankind to produce vats of wonderful, life-giving, joy-inducing wine.
But – there’s always a 'but' in a good story – the choice vines (chosen people?) did not yield cultivated grapes. What grew were not smooth, sweet wine grapes, but wild grapes. Wild grapes might have some virtues, but they’re not reliably sweet. What a great metaphor for what early theologians called original sin – a proclivity toward self-gratification that results in thoughts and actions that do not honor God, neighbor or even our truest selves. God expects us to be sweet grapes, and often we can be wild, destructive.
This is the wrong Jesus came to right, the condition he came to heal, the conversion he came to empower. Because of Jesus, we are not stuck in “wild grape” mode; we can become fruit-bearing, life-bringing grapes. And as we actively participate in God’s mission to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness in Christ, we attach ourselves to vines that carry that mission into every place and person in pain and need.
Our story of salvation is the story of God’s restoration of that vineyard. God invites us to be a part of bringing that work to completion, until the Creator’s full intention is reflected in our world. That is work worth raising a glass to.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
When I need to know how to dress for the day, or whether or not to close my windows, I check a weather app. I can get a detailed forecast 48 hours ahead, or a more general one ten days out. In former times people had other ways of predicting the weather: He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”
Jesus has just spoken of an impending crisis: “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” He does not clarify the exact nature of this crisis, but he’s furious that his followers seem unable to discern what is happening. From where we stand, it appears he is referring to his spiritual battle with the forces of evil, and the human structures and systems that allow evil to have its sway. He is on a mission to burn away the chaff of sin, and to release the captives who are bound to it. And the way he will do that, this “baptism with which I am to be baptized,” is his upcoming passion and death.
Jesus did accomplish the redemption of the world on the cross, and confirmed that in his rising to new life on Easter morning. If he has already won our liberation, is there more discernment for us? Do we need to scan signs to predict what is to come? How are we to read this troubling passage?
We live in the “already/not-yet. His work is accomplished yet still being brought to completion. The devil’s days are numbered, yet sin and evil are still having a pretty good run. And the means by which God seems to have chosen to engage these final skirmishes is through us. We don’t need to battle evil – but we do need to see it, name it, and call in the spiritual forces of God to overcome it.
Paul writes that one of the gifts given to Christ-followers is the ability to discern spirits – to know when evil is present, to know when God is present. We are to pay attention to the clouds darkening our land, the prevailing winds blowing in the world, and to pray all the more when the signs indicate bad weather ahead. We don’t need to shrivel up in a heap when things look bad, or tuck our heads into the sands of our many modes of distraction and avoidance – we can stand firm on the promises of God, the saving work of Christ, our identity as redeemed sinners and saints of the Realm of God.
Evil cannot stand against the name of Jesus. It is our work to invoke his name and his power, early and often.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here.
Reading the prophets of Israel can feel like witnessing an abusive relationship. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” “Wham! You’ll get what you deserve.” “Oh, but I love you and one day it’ll all be wonderful…” These writings tell the story of a broken relationship between God and God’s chosen people, who seem incapable of fidelity despite God’s gracious provision and forgiveness. And the way the prophets rendered the words of God (and the way those who later wrote down those words conveyed them) often make God sound like a petty tyrant as well as a thwarted lover.
In addition to deep disappointment, we get a sense of danger: “Here is what I wanted for you, what I did everything to ensure for you – but you could not stay with me, and now I can’t protect you from the consequences of your choices.” It’s often a bitter message, and I confess as I read both the gospel appointed for this Sunday and the passage from Isaiah, it’s hard not to see these texts through the lens of the turmoil in our country and world.
Let’s start with the Gospel, which shows Jesus in a dire mood, speaking of fire and division. He has just been telling a parable about being prepared for God’s appearing, and he seems pretty ticked off: “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”
If division is what Jesus was after, he’d be happy in America at this moment in our history. We are defined by many things other than our divisions, but our fault lines keep getting more pronounced, our positions dug in, fissures widening. This cannot possibly be God’s will for us, can it?
Jesus is the Prince of Peace, as the angel foretold at his conception. He is the source of peace for us, and the power for us to be peacemakers. But let’s not forget: Jesus did come into this world to do battle with the powers of evil – that is the fight he was itching to engage, the fight he wants his followers to join him in. Each time those who might be his disciples capitulate to injustice, tolerate intolerance, benefit from systems rigged in favor of the white and wealthy, fail to love our neighbor as ourselves, we recede from that fight. And every time we make a different choice, an inconvenient or even sacrificial choice, we help usher in the reign of true peace Jesus brought into this world.
How does this scripture sit with you? Where are you being called to draw the line, to pray for the conversion of those who seek only their own good to the harm of others? We are called to stand with Jesus against evil, injustice, oppression, lying and hate-mongering. That’s a division, if you will, one that can lead us to unity.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's epistle reading is here.
The last line of our reading from Genesis and the first in our passage from Hebrews flow so naturally into each other, it is as though they were one text. From “And Abram believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness,” we go right into: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.
The writer of Hebrews even uses Abraham as Exhibit A of his thesis. He cites Abraham's faithfulness in leaving his homeland and family and setting out with Sarai into the land God had promised him, despite the derision of his clan (“You think there is only one God, and he talks to you?!?”), and he cites Abraham’s believing the preposterous promise of heirs more numerous than the stars in the heavens. Abraham is a pretty mixed bag when it comes to character and choices, but in his fidelity to the One God and the intimacy of that relationship as it is conveyed in Genesis, he is a shining star.
Why is it so hard for us to feel sure about things we only hope for – for, once we receive what we hope for, we no longer need to hope. Why do we waver in our conviction about things we cannot see, cannot prove? We trust in engineers we don’t know, elected officials we hope have our interests at heart, online security, relationships, a whole web of systems and networks we hope will continue to work for us… Why not extend that degree of faith to the God whose Spirit is so often clearly discernible, if never visible?
What often makes it so difficult to trust in what we cannot see is what we do see – evidence of pain and sorrow and the persistence of evil in this world. In the moments when those “realities” overwhelm us, the content of our faith can look like a fairy story told to calm anxious children. That’s why faith is a muscle that must be exercised and practiced and tested. We never know what is around the next corner; we do know that God has been faithful and good throughout our lives, even in the times that were painful.
It comes down to this: our faith in what we cannot see needs to be stronger than our doubt in what we can. Our faith in what we cannot see needs to be stronger than our doubt in what we can. We believe, until faith gives way to sight.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Jesus told a story about a rich man who thought he could store up all his wealth, eat, drink and be merry, only to find that his number was up. At the end, Jesus sums it up in a moral – which it is highly tempting to apply to quite a few people in our national life: “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.”
What does it mean to be rich towards God? And why would we need to be rich towards the Maker of all worlds, the One who has everything? What does God need from us? Nothing… But God wants our love, our lives, our trust, our willingness to receive God’s gifts without trying to repay them. God desires our presence in relationship, to love and be loved.
The man in the parable thinks he can buy everything he needs. But when his life suddenly ends, he finds out that in his greed he’d lost out on the one commodity that lasts for an eternity – love. He’d invested in the wrong treasure.
When we’re concerned with storing up treasure for ourselves, that’s where our focus is. When we’re storing up treasure in heaven, that’s where our focus is. A God-ward focus inevitably leads our attention to the most vulnerable of God’s children, because God’s concerns become ours. Being rich toward God means blessing God’s beloveds.
Sometimes we do it backward, giving to people in need and just “checking in” with God on occasion. That’s well and good – but it means we’re always in control of the giving, and we’re not growing with God. Something amazing happens when we let God be the focus; then our giving to others feels just right, even when it’s more than we ever imagined we could give.
How might you make God more the focus your time, your energy, your emotional life? Where do you feel the Spirit nudging you to share your wealth? Everyone has to find their own way – all I can do is tell you that our destination is Love. And that is the one thing money just can’t buy.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind.
– U2,Walk On (All That You Can’t Leave Behind)
This song comes to mind as I reflect on Jesus’ parable of the rich man who is so focused on acquiring and storing his many assets. This fictional fellow thought he’d guaranteed his security – but think again!
“Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’”
Whose will they be? What will be left of our legacy after we’ve gone – whether it’s changing jobs, moving from a beloved community, or leaving the planet for good? What good will all the things we invest in, material and otherwise, do us when we’re dead? Perhaps a rich person's children will inherit, and sometimes carry on the good – and often they’ll turn out lazy and self-indulgent, expecting hand-outs. Can we secure our future and that of our descendants?
The invitation here, as always, is to put our trust in God, not in our financial security; and to live our lives on a daily basis, not in five-year increments. All the things we put our trust in can fail us – people, machinery, the very earth sometimes. We go through life assuming elevators will not snap their cables, or bridges collapse, or partners become unfaithful (or Supreme Court decisions be upended…). We’re pretty sure banks won’t fail – but every recession or precipitous drop in the markets reminds us that financial “security” isn’t always so secure. What will it take for us to truly put our weight on the provision and power and love of God?
Here’s a thought exercise: is there any possession or amount of money you would fail to offer if it would save the person you love the most in the whole world? If you needed to be emptied in order to receive the greatest gift, on what might you loosen your grip? That time will come when our grip is loosened for us and we will all part with our riches. What if we started to live in that kind of freedom while we’re still alive in this world? As that U2 song goes on to say,
Leave it behind
You've got to leave it behind
All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you feel
All this you can leave behind
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
