You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
If someone with a chronic disability became instantly healed during a worship service in my church, I would be thrilled and amazed. Not so much the leader of the synagogue in which Jesus healed the woman crippled for eighteen years: When Jesus laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.”
It’s interesting that he addresses the crowd rather than Jesus directly. Is he genuinely concerned about a spiritual matter, or trying to get back the attention that has pivoted to his famous guest preacher? Or is he so frightened by this show of power that he can only retreat into the rules and regulations on which he has built his religion? Whatever his motives, he seems spectacularly unable to see the Life unfolding right in front of him.
This is a classic case of being correct and still wildly wrong. This leader is right that the Sabbath, ordained by God as a day set apart for worship, rest and recreation, is to be honored. He is completely wrong in defining healing as dishonoring “work.” As Jesus points out, we continue to care for and feed our families and animals on the Sabbath – because the Sabbath was made to celebrate life. Anything that increases life and expands our experience of God-Life is a suitable Sabbath activity. The passage from Isaiah appointed for Sunday defines“trampling the sabbath” as “pursuing your own interests.” Giving life, health, freedom, joy, peace, love to others honors God, and therefore honors God’s holy day.
The Sabbath is one of God’s greatest gifts to us, and we ignore it at our own peril – and often our ill health. When each day of the week looks the same as any other, we don’t recharge or relax in a meaningful way. The toxins of stress build up and poison our interactions with the world and those closest to us. Our ability to be creative and to see solutions to problems grows stunted. We need the Sabbath, and the world needs it – and I dare say God needs us refreshed and ready for participating in God’s mission.
Every day is a good day for healing. Every day is a good day to set the captives free. Every day is a good day to release the power of God to bring Life into the world. Where do you need to see that Life released 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.
Showing posts with label Sabbath. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sabbath. Show all posts
5-31-24 - Sabbath Law/Sabbath Blessing
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
It is God’s greatest invitation that is also one of the “Big Ten” commandments. It was inaugurated at the dawn of creation. It is essential to our maintaining our health, our sanity, our society, even our work animals. And most Jesus followers routinely ignore the invitation and flout the commandment. Why do we so resist the gift of Sabbath blessing?
Of the many ways that “My ways are not your ways, nor my thoughts your thoughts,” says the Lord, Sabbath is among the most counter-intuitive. The lure of the completed to-do list is powerful, though we know its tail keeps growing no matter how many tasks we tick off the top. The notion that if we just keep working we will get more done seems to make logical sense, despite the wisdom of mystics and neuro-scientists. We understand the need for rest, for sleep, for “down-time,” for fields to go fallow, but the drive to push forward often overrides that deeper knowledge.
And there can be fear in our resistance to taking a period of time with no work – fear of feelings that might come up if we’re not distracted with tasks and data; fear of feeling alone; fear of feeling unworthy because we’re not “producing,” have nothing to show for our day. I can feel that way even after a day of meetings and pastoral care, which are very much my “work” but don’t leave a visible product.
For a few seasons in my life, I have kept Sabbath – maintained a day each week with no productive work, nothing that would be on a to-do list. No email, no computer – unless I felt inspired to some creative writing. No housework unless I wanted to be creative in the kitchen or indulge my gift of hospitality by crafting a lovely meal to be shared with people I love. I even saw a pay-off – I was so much clearer, more energized, creative and ready to work the next day. My Sabbath, when I take one, is a Friday, my day off. I suppose I would do even better to take a sabbath Monday in addition to my day off, but that seems profligate.
And there lies probably the deepest issue: Perhaps we don’t feel we deserve a day of rest, because no one has told us, or we don’t really believe, that the God who made us; who wired us to need a day of rest; who loves us with an extravagant love that is so profligate, he allowed his own Son to live among us and die for us; that this God wants joy and love for us far beyond anything we might produce or achieve. God made us royalty, not beasts of burden (and never forget that beasts of burden also need at least a day off…). Why don’t we take God at his word, obey his commandment to rest, take his invitation to rest, and see what happens?
It is summertime. If ever we were to experiment with the holy practice of Sabbath-keeping, it would be in this season when some even get extra time off each week. Choose a day of the week when you do not have many obligations.
If you consider cooking drudgery, try to make some things ahead or eat out.
Sleep in, enjoy your morning routines without hurry.
Do whatever you feel like, but nothing that would be on your to-do list.
Nap if you feel like it, take a walk, do something artistic. Play.
Enjoy time with people you love, if you can.
Does that seem too great a challenge? Consider the domestic housecat. It neither toils nor spins (except when chasing its own tail…); it accomplishes nothing, builds nothing, produces nothing (beyond the occasional hairball). And yet no creature on earth is more beloved than most pet cats. Their owners lavish time and attention, food and toys upon them, delighting in their little rituals and antics. If this is how much we love something who “achieves” so little, imagine how much God wants to see us enjoying this life and world God has created for us. At least one day each week.
© 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.
It is God’s greatest invitation that is also one of the “Big Ten” commandments. It was inaugurated at the dawn of creation. It is essential to our maintaining our health, our sanity, our society, even our work animals. And most Jesus followers routinely ignore the invitation and flout the commandment. Why do we so resist the gift of Sabbath blessing?
Of the many ways that “My ways are not your ways, nor my thoughts your thoughts,” says the Lord, Sabbath is among the most counter-intuitive. The lure of the completed to-do list is powerful, though we know its tail keeps growing no matter how many tasks we tick off the top. The notion that if we just keep working we will get more done seems to make logical sense, despite the wisdom of mystics and neuro-scientists. We understand the need for rest, for sleep, for “down-time,” for fields to go fallow, but the drive to push forward often overrides that deeper knowledge.
And there can be fear in our resistance to taking a period of time with no work – fear of feelings that might come up if we’re not distracted with tasks and data; fear of feeling alone; fear of feeling unworthy because we’re not “producing,” have nothing to show for our day. I can feel that way even after a day of meetings and pastoral care, which are very much my “work” but don’t leave a visible product.
For a few seasons in my life, I have kept Sabbath – maintained a day each week with no productive work, nothing that would be on a to-do list. No email, no computer – unless I felt inspired to some creative writing. No housework unless I wanted to be creative in the kitchen or indulge my gift of hospitality by crafting a lovely meal to be shared with people I love. I even saw a pay-off – I was so much clearer, more energized, creative and ready to work the next day. My Sabbath, when I take one, is a Friday, my day off. I suppose I would do even better to take a sabbath Monday in addition to my day off, but that seems profligate.
And there lies probably the deepest issue: Perhaps we don’t feel we deserve a day of rest, because no one has told us, or we don’t really believe, that the God who made us; who wired us to need a day of rest; who loves us with an extravagant love that is so profligate, he allowed his own Son to live among us and die for us; that this God wants joy and love for us far beyond anything we might produce or achieve. God made us royalty, not beasts of burden (and never forget that beasts of burden also need at least a day off…). Why don’t we take God at his word, obey his commandment to rest, take his invitation to rest, and see what happens?
It is summertime. If ever we were to experiment with the holy practice of Sabbath-keeping, it would be in this season when some even get extra time off each week. Choose a day of the week when you do not have many obligations.
If you consider cooking drudgery, try to make some things ahead or eat out.
Sleep in, enjoy your morning routines without hurry.
Do whatever you feel like, but nothing that would be on your to-do list.
Nap if you feel like it, take a walk, do something artistic. Play.
Enjoy time with people you love, if you can.
Does that seem too great a challenge? Consider the domestic housecat. It neither toils nor spins (except when chasing its own tail…); it accomplishes nothing, builds nothing, produces nothing (beyond the occasional hairball). And yet no creature on earth is more beloved than most pet cats. Their owners lavish time and attention, food and toys upon them, delighting in their little rituals and antics. If this is how much we love something who “achieves” so little, imagine how much God wants to see us enjoying this life and world God has created for us. At least one day each week.
© 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.
5-29-24 Holy Bread
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
What a thing to get in trouble for – picking grain on the Sabbath. Snacking, really: "One sabbath he was going through the cornfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain."
The Pharisees, always watching for a reason to question Jesus’ bona fides as a holy person, ask why his disciples are breaking the law by doing “work” on the Sabbath. Jesus replies with an example of “situational ethics”: "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions."
Jesus makes two bold rhetorical moves here. First, he evokes a story of the great King David, from whose line the Messiah was to come. Who could argue with King David's choices? And the story is about David and his men raiding the sacramental bread in the temple of God – a much more serious breach than picking off a few heads of grain on the sabbath, yet one for which David seemingly faced no punishment. Feeding the hungry overrides than the letter of the law.
The Pharisees, like all people given to legalism and self-righteousness, liked to interpret the Law in black and white. “This is what it says; obey it, or else.” Jesus asserted that the Law was to serve humankind, not inhibit normal human actions and interactions. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” He was not tossing out the Law; he was grounding its interpretation in love, recognizing that it cannot be applied blindly in all circumstances.
In citing this example, implicitly comparing the holy bread of the Presence with heads of grain in a field, Jesus also broadens the scope of what might be deemed holy. Those heads of grain become sacramental bread to feed Jesus’ followers because Jesus is there. Perhaps we need not make quite so strong a distinction between Sacrament and sacramental. Yes, the elements we bless at eucharist are invested with particular holiness, as we believe Christ is truly present in them in a mysterious way when his Church is gathered for worship.
Yet Christ’s presence also infuses the bread we break at our tables and desks, as we remember he is with us. Christ’s presence infuses the wheat as it grows, as we bless our fields. Christ’s presence infuses the preparation in factories and kitchens, as we invoke his holiness in those places. To live a sacramental life is to be mindful of Christ’s presence in everything and everyone as we move through the day. The Celtic church had such an awareness, and has left us beautiful prayers of blessing over brooms and hearths, cooking pots and garden patches. Here is one for today:
A New day
As I wake from sleep, rouse me,
As I wash, cleanse me,
As I dress, gird me with your power,
As I eat, energize me,
As I journey, protect me,
As I relax, calm me,
As I sleep, surround me.
What ordinary sacraments might God be inviting you to participate in today? What eucharistic feasts? What baptismal blessings of new life? Pray for the grace to see and hear and touch and taste God today.
© 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 a thing to get in trouble for – picking grain on the Sabbath. Snacking, really: "One sabbath he was going through the cornfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain."
The Pharisees, always watching for a reason to question Jesus’ bona fides as a holy person, ask why his disciples are breaking the law by doing “work” on the Sabbath. Jesus replies with an example of “situational ethics”: "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions."
Jesus makes two bold rhetorical moves here. First, he evokes a story of the great King David, from whose line the Messiah was to come. Who could argue with King David's choices? And the story is about David and his men raiding the sacramental bread in the temple of God – a much more serious breach than picking off a few heads of grain on the sabbath, yet one for which David seemingly faced no punishment. Feeding the hungry overrides than the letter of the law.
The Pharisees, like all people given to legalism and self-righteousness, liked to interpret the Law in black and white. “This is what it says; obey it, or else.” Jesus asserted that the Law was to serve humankind, not inhibit normal human actions and interactions. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” He was not tossing out the Law; he was grounding its interpretation in love, recognizing that it cannot be applied blindly in all circumstances.
In citing this example, implicitly comparing the holy bread of the Presence with heads of grain in a field, Jesus also broadens the scope of what might be deemed holy. Those heads of grain become sacramental bread to feed Jesus’ followers because Jesus is there. Perhaps we need not make quite so strong a distinction between Sacrament and sacramental. Yes, the elements we bless at eucharist are invested with particular holiness, as we believe Christ is truly present in them in a mysterious way when his Church is gathered for worship.
Yet Christ’s presence also infuses the bread we break at our tables and desks, as we remember he is with us. Christ’s presence infuses the wheat as it grows, as we bless our fields. Christ’s presence infuses the preparation in factories and kitchens, as we invoke his holiness in those places. To live a sacramental life is to be mindful of Christ’s presence in everything and everyone as we move through the day. The Celtic church had such an awareness, and has left us beautiful prayers of blessing over brooms and hearths, cooking pots and garden patches. Here is one for today:
A New day
As I wake from sleep, rouse me,
As I wash, cleanse me,
As I dress, gird me with your power,
As I eat, energize me,
As I journey, protect me,
As I relax, calm me,
As I sleep, surround me.
What ordinary sacraments might God be inviting you to participate in today? What eucharistic feasts? What baptismal blessings of new life? Pray for the grace to see and hear and touch and taste God today.
© 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.
5-27-24 - Above the Law
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
The passage from Mark we will hear next Sunday tells two stories. In both of them Jesus does something on the Sabbath day that the Pharisees consider against God’s law. In the first story, he defends his disciples snacking on the Sabbath as they walk through a grain field. In the second, he heals a man in the synagogue on the Sabbath – his detractors call that “work.” We’ll take up each story in turn, but today let’s look at the way Jesus defends his actions. He says, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day had so elevated the Law of Moses and the rules and regulations to which that Law had given rise, it was as though they worshipped the rules more than God. Jesus had a deep respect for the Law, but constantly set it into the broader context of God’s love. And here he unequivocally asserts that people matter more to God than the rules meant to keep the people blessed.
In our time there are many who claim to follow Jesus, but make an idol of the Law, even literally making statues of the Ten Commandments. Every time we worship the rules above the God who made them we depart from the Jesus Way. Indeed, it is harder to follow our Lord than to follow the rules. Jesus continually poured himself out for those around him; he did not stand aloof and point fingers. Jesus continually ascribed value to people the “righteous ones” discarded as being too broken, too blemished, too poor, too sinful, too foreign. That’s why his message was Good News – he was living out God’s mission to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness.
This reading invites us to examine our own relationship to “the rules.” Where do we draw lines that condemn more than they bless? Are there particular rules or laws you are drawn to? Particular “rule-breakers” you despise? Ask God to reveal the love at the heart of his law.
Episcopalians are particularly good at rules about worship. Worship tools like the lectionary were made for worshippers, not worshippers for the lectionary. Same with the texts of the prayer book, the hymns of the 18th and 19th centuries we still sing, and whether we stand or sit or kneel. If it brings us closer to God, great. If it keeps us at a distance, or worse, makes it harder for others to draw near to God, reevaluate it. Let love rule.
© 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 passage from Mark we will hear next Sunday tells two stories. In both of them Jesus does something on the Sabbath day that the Pharisees consider against God’s law. In the first story, he defends his disciples snacking on the Sabbath as they walk through a grain field. In the second, he heals a man in the synagogue on the Sabbath – his detractors call that “work.” We’ll take up each story in turn, but today let’s look at the way Jesus defends his actions. He says, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day had so elevated the Law of Moses and the rules and regulations to which that Law had given rise, it was as though they worshipped the rules more than God. Jesus had a deep respect for the Law, but constantly set it into the broader context of God’s love. And here he unequivocally asserts that people matter more to God than the rules meant to keep the people blessed.
In our time there are many who claim to follow Jesus, but make an idol of the Law, even literally making statues of the Ten Commandments. Every time we worship the rules above the God who made them we depart from the Jesus Way. Indeed, it is harder to follow our Lord than to follow the rules. Jesus continually poured himself out for those around him; he did not stand aloof and point fingers. Jesus continually ascribed value to people the “righteous ones” discarded as being too broken, too blemished, too poor, too sinful, too foreign. That’s why his message was Good News – he was living out God’s mission to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness.
This reading invites us to examine our own relationship to “the rules.” Where do we draw lines that condemn more than they bless? Are there particular rules or laws you are drawn to? Particular “rule-breakers” you despise? Ask God to reveal the love at the heart of his law.
Episcopalians are particularly good at rules about worship. Worship tools like the lectionary were made for worshippers, not worshippers for the lectionary. Same with the texts of the prayer book, the hymns of the 18th and 19th centuries we still sing, and whether we stand or sit or kneel. If it brings us closer to God, great. If it keeps us at a distance, or worse, makes it harder for others to draw near to God, reevaluate it. Let love rule.
© 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.
8-18-22 - Honoring the Sabbath
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
If someone with a chronic disability became instantly healed during a worship service in my church, I would be thrilled and amazed. Not so much the leader of the synagogue in which Jesus healed the woman crippled for eighteen years:
When Jesus laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.”
It’s interesting that he addresses the crowd rather than Jesus directly. Is he genuinely concerned about a spiritual matter, or trying to get back the attention that has pivoted to his famous guest preacher? Or is he so frightened by this show of power that he can only retreat into the rules and regulations on which he has built his religion? Whatever his motives, he seems spectacularly unable to see the Life unfolding right in front of him.
This is a classic case of being correct and still wildly wrong. This leader is right that the Sabbath, ordained by God as a day set apart for worship, rest and recreation, is to be honored. He is completely wrong in defining healing as dishonoring “work.” As Jesus points out, we continue to care for and feed our families and animals on the Sabbath – because the Sabbath was made to celebrate life. Anything that increases life and expands our experience of God-Life is a suitable Sabbath activity. The passage from Isaiah appointed for Sunday defines “trampling the sabbath” as “pursuing your own interests.” Giving life, health, freedom, joy, peace, love to others honors God, and therefore honors God’s holy day.
The Sabbath is one of God’s greatest gifts to us, and we ignore it at our own peril – and often our ill health. When each day of the week looks the same as any other, we don’t recharge or relax in a meaningful way. The toxins of stress build up and poison our interactions with the world and those closest to us. Our ability to be creative and to see solutions to problems grows stunted. We need the Sabbath, and the world needs it – and I dare say God needs us refreshed and ready for participating in God’s mission.
Every day is a good day for healing. Every day is a good day to set the captives free. Every day is a good day to release the power of God to bring Life into the world. Where do you need to see that Life released today?
If someone with a chronic disability became instantly healed during a worship service in my church, I would be thrilled and amazed. Not so much the leader of the synagogue in which Jesus healed the woman crippled for eighteen years:
When Jesus laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.”
It’s interesting that he addresses the crowd rather than Jesus directly. Is he genuinely concerned about a spiritual matter, or trying to get back the attention that has pivoted to his famous guest preacher? Or is he so frightened by this show of power that he can only retreat into the rules and regulations on which he has built his religion? Whatever his motives, he seems spectacularly unable to see the Life unfolding right in front of him.
This is a classic case of being correct and still wildly wrong. This leader is right that the Sabbath, ordained by God as a day set apart for worship, rest and recreation, is to be honored. He is completely wrong in defining healing as dishonoring “work.” As Jesus points out, we continue to care for and feed our families and animals on the Sabbath – because the Sabbath was made to celebrate life. Anything that increases life and expands our experience of God-Life is a suitable Sabbath activity. The passage from Isaiah appointed for Sunday defines “trampling the sabbath” as “pursuing your own interests.” Giving life, health, freedom, joy, peace, love to others honors God, and therefore honors God’s holy day.
The Sabbath is one of God’s greatest gifts to us, and we ignore it at our own peril – and often our ill health. When each day of the week looks the same as any other, we don’t recharge or relax in a meaningful way. The toxins of stress build up and poison our interactions with the world and those closest to us. Our ability to be creative and to see solutions to problems grows stunted. We need the Sabbath, and the world needs it – and I dare say God needs us refreshed and ready for participating in God’s mission.
Every day is a good day for healing. Every day is a good day to set the captives free. Every day is a good day to release the power of God to bring Life into the world. Where do you need to see that Life released today?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)