You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Are there sweeter words in the New Testament than these, “Come and have breakfast?” The disciples’ encounter with the risen Christ kept getting better and better. First, they made an enormous catch of fish. Then they realized Jesus himself was on the shore. And when they landed, they found another delightful surprise: When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.”
What an invitation after a sleepless, fish-less night. What a reversal of circumstances in just a short time. Why did Jesus wait until morning to help them out? Why does God allow us to endure waiting or suffering or not knowing? Could it be that it strengthens or softens us, or makes us readier to receive the gift when it comes? A mystery for another time.
What matters now is that the fish have swarmed, the nets have filled, the Lord has come, and these hot and hungry fisherman are invited to a feast, right there on the beach. And they're not passive guests – they are invited to help make the feast. Perhaps the most important words in this passage are “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” God provided the catch, allowed them to participate in gathering it, and then asked them to bring some to Jesus for the celebration. Jesus provided the bread; they were invited to offer some of the fish.
So it is in our lives – God provides the feast and invites us to participate in gathering it, and then to bring some of it together for the celebration. That's what we do in our offering in church, and our gathering at the eucharistic feast (of which the offering is the first part). That's our whole life in God – a life of participation in God’s mission in which the Spirit leads us to the fields, allows us to help gather the harvest, and then bring some of that harvest together to celebrate.
What are the “big catches,” or areas of abundance in your life? And where do you feel Jesus inviting you to breakfast? And what might you bring to that feast?
We don’t see a “mighty catch of fish” every day. But what if it’s there, unnoticed? Might we say, by faith, “Yes! The fish have swarmed, my nets have filled, the Lord is here, and I am invited to a feast, right here.” Then we might have to look around, all around, and ask, “Okay, where are the filled nets?” I bet each of us could name at least one area of life where our nets are filled. That’s a good start.
And then, “Where do I bring my fish? Where is the feast Jesus is inviting me to contribute to today?” We can trust that he has brought the Bread of Life, his own self. He invites us to bring some of our fish.
© 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 abundance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abundance. Show all posts
4-30-25 - Who Is That Guy?
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
We don’t always recognize God’s activity in our lives until after the fact – after an accident has been avoided, “coincidental” timing confirmed, an unexpected encounter opened into new opportunities. And we rarely experience God where we expect God to be. Jesus’ disciples certainly didn’t expect him to show up on a beach by the Sea of Tiberias. So they did not recognize him – until they saw his handiwork, which they had witnessed (in Luke’s account) at the beginning of their story with Jesus.
So they cast the net, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.
It amuses me that the naked Peter puts on clothes to jump into the water – it just wouldn’t do to greet his risen Lord and Savior in his birthday suit. And once they realize it is Jesus on the shore, all of them hurry to get there, though it must have taken a lot of muscle to pull those heavy nets. And then someone ignored the crucified and risen Lord in order to count the fish, for John records there were 153 of them (fishermen, like baseball fans, do love their stats…) John also mentions that, “though there were so many, the net was not torn,” perhaps to emphasize that God’s work is always to make things whole.
Because we don’t expect to see Jesus around and about in our lives, we don't always notice where he is. But we can learn to notice. Becoming attuned to where Jesus is, where the Holy Spirit is moving and shaking things up, is essential for those who want to be part of the Jesus movement. We are called to join him where he is already working, or to prepare the place where he wants to come next. We don’t have to do anything on our own. So we need to learn to recognize him, even before the “evidence” appears.
This is a habit of the heart we can cultivate as we do any other important activity or attitude. After a while, our spiritual sense becomes more acute, but at first we may have to work at it. Perhaps at the beginning of each day we can review our plans and pray about where we plan to join Jesus or want him to join us. And at the end of the day review where we’ve been, and write down where we realize in retrospect – or knew at the time – that he was present in some way.
How might he be present? He might have spoken through someone, or we might have found our attention drawn to something life-giving. We might have felt a peace or a holy urgency, or found ourselves compelled to draw near someone because of a gift they had or a need they manifested. Sometime we know he was there because he’s now gone, as happened to the disciples in Emmaus.
Notice. Name it. Write it down. Review it at the end of the week. In time, we will become so accustomed to Jesus being around, we won’t need miracles to get our attention.
© 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.
We don’t always recognize God’s activity in our lives until after the fact – after an accident has been avoided, “coincidental” timing confirmed, an unexpected encounter opened into new opportunities. And we rarely experience God where we expect God to be. Jesus’ disciples certainly didn’t expect him to show up on a beach by the Sea of Tiberias. So they did not recognize him – until they saw his handiwork, which they had witnessed (in Luke’s account) at the beginning of their story with Jesus.
So they cast the net, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.
It amuses me that the naked Peter puts on clothes to jump into the water – it just wouldn’t do to greet his risen Lord and Savior in his birthday suit. And once they realize it is Jesus on the shore, all of them hurry to get there, though it must have taken a lot of muscle to pull those heavy nets. And then someone ignored the crucified and risen Lord in order to count the fish, for John records there were 153 of them (fishermen, like baseball fans, do love their stats…) John also mentions that, “though there were so many, the net was not torn,” perhaps to emphasize that God’s work is always to make things whole.
Because we don’t expect to see Jesus around and about in our lives, we don't always notice where he is. But we can learn to notice. Becoming attuned to where Jesus is, where the Holy Spirit is moving and shaking things up, is essential for those who want to be part of the Jesus movement. We are called to join him where he is already working, or to prepare the place where he wants to come next. We don’t have to do anything on our own. So we need to learn to recognize him, even before the “evidence” appears.
This is a habit of the heart we can cultivate as we do any other important activity or attitude. After a while, our spiritual sense becomes more acute, but at first we may have to work at it. Perhaps at the beginning of each day we can review our plans and pray about where we plan to join Jesus or want him to join us. And at the end of the day review where we’ve been, and write down where we realize in retrospect – or knew at the time – that he was present in some way.
How might he be present? He might have spoken through someone, or we might have found our attention drawn to something life-giving. We might have felt a peace or a holy urgency, or found ourselves compelled to draw near someone because of a gift they had or a need they manifested. Sometime we know he was there because he’s now gone, as happened to the disciples in Emmaus.
Notice. Name it. Write it down. Review it at the end of the week. In time, we will become so accustomed to Jesus being around, we won’t need miracles to get our attention.
© 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.
2-5-25 - So Many Fish
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Abundance is abundant in the Gospels. We saw it a few weeks ago in the story of the water turned to wine; we see it this week with the miraculous catch of fish. Abundance is a core principle of God-Life, one of the ways God most often shows her hand – when there is unexpectedly enough, and even too much. That is what Simon Peter and his fisher-friends experienced on the lake that morning, when Jesus said, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.
I experienced abundance when I was heading to seminary at Yale and invited fellow congregants at my church to help me pay for it. I thought I might get a few hundred, maybe a thousand dollars to help defray the costs… and the money just kept rolling in, sometimes four figures at a time. In the end some $20,000 was given to support my theological education. Every time I expressed amazement, I could sense God laughing and saying, “See? Now do you believe me?”
If abundance is a principle of God’s realm on earth, why is there so much scarcity? In part, it’s because we’re more wired to see, to expect scarcity. We default to “not enough” – that’s what Jesus’ disciples saw when faced with the challenge of feeding a crowd of thousands. But God invites us to look beyond the “not enough” in front of us to the “what else?” all around us. God invites us to look beyond what we can see, period, and call God’s power to flow into situations of need.
Scarcity on a global level is due to human choices and to sin – greed, fear, and the damage to our planet which those forces wreak. The earth has the capacity to feed everyone on it, but some nations hoard food and water and play havoc with the environment. Most often the ruinous consequences like disease, famine and flooding fall upon the poorer nations. We can make better choices as people of prosperity – both because Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors, and from self-interest. Bono, the lead singer of U2, has written, “In the not-too-distant future, the rich world will invest in the education of the poor world, because it is our best protection against young minds being twisted by extremist ideologies - or growing up without any ideology at all, which could be worse. Nature abhors a vacuum; terrorism loves one.” We are still waiting for that day.
I have wandered far from our lakeshore and its boats sinking with the weight of such a large catch. That day in Galilee, the abundance was all from God. It was a sign to these fishermen in their own language that Jesus meant business, that this was what they could expect in a life in God – along with hardship and hunger. Over all, there would be enough, and often too much to handle.
This miraculous catch of fish was Jesus’ work. Yet it could not have been realized without the participation of the men on those boats. Abundance comes from God – and God always reveals it through people. Are you ready to haul in a boatload of fish?
© 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.
Abundance is abundant in the Gospels. We saw it a few weeks ago in the story of the water turned to wine; we see it this week with the miraculous catch of fish. Abundance is a core principle of God-Life, one of the ways God most often shows her hand – when there is unexpectedly enough, and even too much. That is what Simon Peter and his fisher-friends experienced on the lake that morning, when Jesus said, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.
I experienced abundance when I was heading to seminary at Yale and invited fellow congregants at my church to help me pay for it. I thought I might get a few hundred, maybe a thousand dollars to help defray the costs… and the money just kept rolling in, sometimes four figures at a time. In the end some $20,000 was given to support my theological education. Every time I expressed amazement, I could sense God laughing and saying, “See? Now do you believe me?”
If abundance is a principle of God’s realm on earth, why is there so much scarcity? In part, it’s because we’re more wired to see, to expect scarcity. We default to “not enough” – that’s what Jesus’ disciples saw when faced with the challenge of feeding a crowd of thousands. But God invites us to look beyond the “not enough” in front of us to the “what else?” all around us. God invites us to look beyond what we can see, period, and call God’s power to flow into situations of need.
Scarcity on a global level is due to human choices and to sin – greed, fear, and the damage to our planet which those forces wreak. The earth has the capacity to feed everyone on it, but some nations hoard food and water and play havoc with the environment. Most often the ruinous consequences like disease, famine and flooding fall upon the poorer nations. We can make better choices as people of prosperity – both because Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors, and from self-interest. Bono, the lead singer of U2, has written, “In the not-too-distant future, the rich world will invest in the education of the poor world, because it is our best protection against young minds being twisted by extremist ideologies - or growing up without any ideology at all, which could be worse. Nature abhors a vacuum; terrorism loves one.” We are still waiting for that day.
I have wandered far from our lakeshore and its boats sinking with the weight of such a large catch. That day in Galilee, the abundance was all from God. It was a sign to these fishermen in their own language that Jesus meant business, that this was what they could expect in a life in God – along with hardship and hunger. Over all, there would be enough, and often too much to handle.
This miraculous catch of fish was Jesus’ work. Yet it could not have been realized without the participation of the men on those boats. Abundance comes from God – and God always reveals it through people. Are you ready to haul in a boatload of fish?
© 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.
7-24-24 - More Than Enough
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
How do you feed 5,000 people with just five loaves of bread and two fish? Ask people to sit, and get started. Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.
As Luke tells the story, Jesus has people sit in groups of fifty, and the disciples distribute. It’s more manageable to feed 50 than 5,000, right? When a challenge feels overwhelming, we can break it down into pieces – much as the bread was broken. No one can eat a whole loaf without breaking it up; no one can feed a crowd without breaking it down.
Once the people were seated, they were fed. But how? There were only five loaves and two fish. As Andrew said, "But what are they among so many people?” What they were was plenty – people got as much of both bread and fish as they wanted. Jesus and his followers just kept giving them out, and there kept being enough. This story appears in all four gospels, and in no version does it say Jesus prayed and created a gigantic pile of food that was then distributed. He took what they had, blessed it and gave it out, and everyone had as much as they wanted – AND there were leftovers: When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.
Abundance is a principle of God’s realm. As Jesus demonstrated the Life of God, there was always more than enough – vats of water turned into wine, twelve baskets of food left after 5,000 people or more were fed to satisfaction. To people living under the cruel thumb of the occupying Romans, over-taxed to the point of starvation, Jesus said, “Trust in God’s way – it is the way of enough and to spare.”
We may not see abundance in every situation, but we should always expect it and look for it as we move in faith. Often we don’t experience abundance when we do not move in faith, but on our own steam. I have found that when I do expect it, I experience it more often. And when I expect “not enough,” that’s often what I find.
Many churches and people are locked into “not enough” thinking, oriented to scarcity. That’s a zero sum game that often leads us to squander the assets we’ve inherited without generating new resources, because who wants to give to an institution that sees itself as lacking? We shrink our missions budgets and pour money into aged, leaky buildings, while the world goes hungry for lack of the Bread of Life we have to share. How might we turn around, take the loaves and fishes we have, and get out there and start feeding people?
Where in your life do you experience abundance? And where does scarcity rule? How might we invite God to shift our expectations toward abundance in all areas? Sometimes that requires dealing with the losses and disappointments we’ve experienced. It takes a lot of courage to hope for more than enough. Yet I have found that when I do, that’s when the leftovers pile up.
© 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.
How do you feed 5,000 people with just five loaves of bread and two fish? Ask people to sit, and get started. Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.
As Luke tells the story, Jesus has people sit in groups of fifty, and the disciples distribute. It’s more manageable to feed 50 than 5,000, right? When a challenge feels overwhelming, we can break it down into pieces – much as the bread was broken. No one can eat a whole loaf without breaking it up; no one can feed a crowd without breaking it down.
Once the people were seated, they were fed. But how? There were only five loaves and two fish. As Andrew said, "But what are they among so many people?” What they were was plenty – people got as much of both bread and fish as they wanted. Jesus and his followers just kept giving them out, and there kept being enough. This story appears in all four gospels, and in no version does it say Jesus prayed and created a gigantic pile of food that was then distributed. He took what they had, blessed it and gave it out, and everyone had as much as they wanted – AND there were leftovers: When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.
Abundance is a principle of God’s realm. As Jesus demonstrated the Life of God, there was always more than enough – vats of water turned into wine, twelve baskets of food left after 5,000 people or more were fed to satisfaction. To people living under the cruel thumb of the occupying Romans, over-taxed to the point of starvation, Jesus said, “Trust in God’s way – it is the way of enough and to spare.”
We may not see abundance in every situation, but we should always expect it and look for it as we move in faith. Often we don’t experience abundance when we do not move in faith, but on our own steam. I have found that when I do expect it, I experience it more often. And when I expect “not enough,” that’s often what I find.
Many churches and people are locked into “not enough” thinking, oriented to scarcity. That’s a zero sum game that often leads us to squander the assets we’ve inherited without generating new resources, because who wants to give to an institution that sees itself as lacking? We shrink our missions budgets and pour money into aged, leaky buildings, while the world goes hungry for lack of the Bread of Life we have to share. How might we turn around, take the loaves and fishes we have, and get out there and start feeding people?
Where in your life do you experience abundance? And where does scarcity rule? How might we invite God to shift our expectations toward abundance in all areas? Sometimes that requires dealing with the losses and disappointments we’ve experienced. It takes a lot of courage to hope for more than enough. Yet I have found that when I do, that’s when the leftovers pile up.
© 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.
7-23-24 - Not Enough?
You can listen to this reflection here.
Jesus and his disciples have been around the Sea of Galilee, trying to get some alone time. But they keep being interrupted by crowds seeking Jesus’ healing and teaching. In this week’s passage, we find them sitting on a hill as yet another crowd approaches: Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples… When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do.
Why did Jesus feel responsible for feeding the crowd – did they look hungry? Did he want to keep them peaceful? Or is it just a set-up for the miracle about to be revealed? John implies the latter – Jesus already knows the answer, but wants to know what Philip will say. Philip has done the math: “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”
What are we to do when faced with a big need or a big challenge? Assess the cost. Jesus said that those who would follow him must “count the cost,” just as a builder setting out to erect a tower must project the expenses of materials and labor. So in ministry we need to estimate what any given mission will require. Philip does this, and concludes that the cost is greater than they could ever manage. I’ve heard more than one church leader do the same.
But assessing the cost is only one step. One also has to inventory the assets at hand. Andrew takes this step, asking around, doing some re-con: One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.” Andrew does his homework, but comes to the same conclusion as Philip: It’s not enough. "But what are they among so many people?”
For both Philip and Andrew, the size of the crowd overrides all other data. The magnitude of the need shuts down their ability to think creatively and act strategically. As another gospel tells this tale, the disciples actually suggest dismissing everybody before things get out of hand – the idea of feeding the crowd does not occur to them. It’s impossible.
What needs make you feel helpless? It may be a personal need for resources or a health challenge; it may be a national or global crisis. For me, the damage of climate change and the need to protect wildlife and wild places from the depredations of human industry and greed is the crisis about which I feel “there’s not enough.” We don’t have enough time or money or political will. How will help come, and in time?
When we only look at need and resources and make our assessments, we often forget the x factor: the power of God. Jesus knew God could feed that crowd through his disciples. He needed his followers to learn that lesson for themselves.
Today I invite you (and me) to sit with a situation that to you feels too big, too scary, too impossible. Then imagine what Jesus sees when he looks at that situation – try to see it through his eyes. Where are the resources? Where is the abundance? Where do you see God-energy at work? That's the place to go, to get our faith renewed, and start feeding.
© 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 and his disciples have been around the Sea of Galilee, trying to get some alone time. But they keep being interrupted by crowds seeking Jesus’ healing and teaching. In this week’s passage, we find them sitting on a hill as yet another crowd approaches: Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples… When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do.
Why did Jesus feel responsible for feeding the crowd – did they look hungry? Did he want to keep them peaceful? Or is it just a set-up for the miracle about to be revealed? John implies the latter – Jesus already knows the answer, but wants to know what Philip will say. Philip has done the math: “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”
What are we to do when faced with a big need or a big challenge? Assess the cost. Jesus said that those who would follow him must “count the cost,” just as a builder setting out to erect a tower must project the expenses of materials and labor. So in ministry we need to estimate what any given mission will require. Philip does this, and concludes that the cost is greater than they could ever manage. I’ve heard more than one church leader do the same.
But assessing the cost is only one step. One also has to inventory the assets at hand. Andrew takes this step, asking around, doing some re-con: One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.” Andrew does his homework, but comes to the same conclusion as Philip: It’s not enough. "But what are they among so many people?”
For both Philip and Andrew, the size of the crowd overrides all other data. The magnitude of the need shuts down their ability to think creatively and act strategically. As another gospel tells this tale, the disciples actually suggest dismissing everybody before things get out of hand – the idea of feeding the crowd does not occur to them. It’s impossible.
What needs make you feel helpless? It may be a personal need for resources or a health challenge; it may be a national or global crisis. For me, the damage of climate change and the need to protect wildlife and wild places from the depredations of human industry and greed is the crisis about which I feel “there’s not enough.” We don’t have enough time or money or political will. How will help come, and in time?
When we only look at need and resources and make our assessments, we often forget the x factor: the power of God. Jesus knew God could feed that crowd through his disciples. He needed his followers to learn that lesson for themselves.
Today I invite you (and me) to sit with a situation that to you feels too big, too scary, too impossible. Then imagine what Jesus sees when he looks at that situation – try to see it through his eyes. Where are the resources? Where is the abundance? Where do you see God-energy at work? That's the place to go, to get our faith renewed, and start feeding.
© 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.
9-22-23 - The Owner
You can listen to this reflection here.
This week we’ve been hearing how the different characters in Jesus’ story might have experienced the event. I thought we’d hear from the Landowner last – and I’m pretty sure the Landowner in this story is God. Parables are open to multiple interpretations, but it’s hard for me to conceive of this character as representing anyone but the Almighty. After all, it is God’s Kingdom that Jesus is trying to convey in his parables, a realm that cannot be depicted or even described except through story and symbol.
Does God come out to the marketplaces of this world and invite those who are willing to work in his vineyard? Does God keep at it, knowing there’s more than enough work for everyone? Does God go after even those whom no one else has wanted to hire, or those who got there late? Does God compensate everyone at the same rate, knowing there is no “more” or “less” when you dwell in abundance?
If this is who God is, we’re in good shape. We can be frustrated, not always able to fully comprehend the ways of God, but we are also in line for more blessings than we can fathom. Above all, this story Jesus told is about blessing, blessing beyond what make sense, blessing that doesn’t quit.
Around the year 400, St. John Chrysostom wrote a beautiful Easter Vigil sermon, drawing on this parable to convey that, no matter what kind of Lenten fast people have kept, no matter what sin, they are welcome at God’s table. I’d like to give him the last word this week, in an excerpt:
If any have toiled from the first hour, let them receive their due reward;
If any have come after the third hour, let him with gratitude join in the Feast!
And he that arrived after the sixth hour, let him not doubt;
This week we’ve been hearing how the different characters in Jesus’ story might have experienced the event. I thought we’d hear from the Landowner last – and I’m pretty sure the Landowner in this story is God. Parables are open to multiple interpretations, but it’s hard for me to conceive of this character as representing anyone but the Almighty. After all, it is God’s Kingdom that Jesus is trying to convey in his parables, a realm that cannot be depicted or even described except through story and symbol.
Does God come out to the marketplaces of this world and invite those who are willing to work in his vineyard? Does God keep at it, knowing there’s more than enough work for everyone? Does God go after even those whom no one else has wanted to hire, or those who got there late? Does God compensate everyone at the same rate, knowing there is no “more” or “less” when you dwell in abundance?
If this is who God is, we’re in good shape. We can be frustrated, not always able to fully comprehend the ways of God, but we are also in line for more blessings than we can fathom. Above all, this story Jesus told is about blessing, blessing beyond what make sense, blessing that doesn’t quit.
Around the year 400, St. John Chrysostom wrote a beautiful Easter Vigil sermon, drawing on this parable to convey that, no matter what kind of Lenten fast people have kept, no matter what sin, they are welcome at God’s table. I’d like to give him the last word this week, in an excerpt:
If any have toiled from the first hour, let them receive their due reward;
If any have come after the third hour, let him with gratitude join in the Feast!
And he that arrived after the sixth hour, let him not doubt;
for he too shall sustain no loss.
And if any delayed until the ninth hour, let him not hesitate; but let him come too.
And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour,
And if any delayed until the ninth hour, let him not hesitate; but let him come too.
And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour,
let him not be afraid by reason of his delay.
For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.
He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour,
For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.
He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour,
as well as to him that toiled from the first.
To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows.
He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor.
The deed He honors and the intention He commends.
Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord!
First and last alike receive your reward; rich and poor, rejoice together!
Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!
You that have kept the fast, and you that have not,
To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows.
He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor.
The deed He honors and the intention He commends.
Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord!
First and last alike receive your reward; rich and poor, rejoice together!
Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!
You that have kept the fast, and you that have not,
rejoice today for the Table is richly laden!
I pray you feast richly this weekend – it’s always Easter around God’s house, and the table is always richly laden.
I pray you feast richly this weekend – it’s always Easter around God’s house, and the table is always richly laden.
4-28-23 - The Abundant Community
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Abundance has its drawbacks, I reflect when allergies strike. The spring growth spurt that bedecks our streets in pink and purple and green also generates a super-abundance of pollen. When a whole community is living the abundant life, it generates as much growth as the flowers and trees. Jesus calls us to live abundantly, and Sunday’s reading from Acts about the early church gives us a glimpse (perhaps slightly idealized…) of just how beautiful and fruitful abundance can be in community:
Those who had been baptized devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.
It’s a simple recipe for the good life – and yet most Christ-followers find it impossible to live this way. This is a puzzle, and a shame, for observers outside the faith have pointed out how much more appealing Christianity would be if its followers were more Christ-like. (Mahatma Gandhi was perhaps the most noted, saying, “Oh, I don't reject Christ. I love Christ. It's just that so many of you Christians are so unlike Christ.” He is said to have continued with something like, “If Christians were more like Christ, all India would be Christian.”)
Yet even that early community didn’t stay focused on mutuality and abundance. We read in Acts that early on someone decided to withhold some of the proceeds of a land sale, and lied about it, which was the more community-breaking act. Conflict and scarcity raised their ugly heads.
So, should we abandon this as an impossible ideal? I hope not. All it takes is one person to recommit to living Jesus’ abundant life. Two is even better. They begin to influence others, who decide to reorder their lives, and on it goes. Sociologists have shown that human behavior is remarkably contagious. Greed, fear, and control are having a pretty good run, don’t you think? Might we regain some ground for love, faith and peace?
If you made the lists yesterday of things and people who steal your goodwill, peace, confidence, joy; and the people and places that help you gain those gifts, you have a blueprint for action. If you’re in a covenant relationship with someone else, hold each other accountable when the “scarcity thinking” starts to mess with your abundant joy. As our communities commit to live this way, increasing our capacity to trust that resources we need will be there when we need them; learning to stop and shift whenever we start to make a decision based on fear of scarcity – we will grow, in faith, in joy, and even in people.
Abundant life has a generative principle – abundance generates more abundance. That passage from Acts ends with this: “And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” If we mourn the scarcity of people in our pews, let’s take on the discipline of abundant living and abundant trusting. Few things are more attractive than someone living at peace and trusting in “enough.”
When all the energy in the tree is focused on pushing out buds, it bursts into flower. And when all the energy in our communities is focused on living into Jesus’ promise of Life in abundance, we’ll burst into flower too. That's nothin' to sneeze at...
Abundance has its drawbacks, I reflect when allergies strike. The spring growth spurt that bedecks our streets in pink and purple and green also generates a super-abundance of pollen. When a whole community is living the abundant life, it generates as much growth as the flowers and trees. Jesus calls us to live abundantly, and Sunday’s reading from Acts about the early church gives us a glimpse (perhaps slightly idealized…) of just how beautiful and fruitful abundance can be in community:
Those who had been baptized devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.
It’s a simple recipe for the good life – and yet most Christ-followers find it impossible to live this way. This is a puzzle, and a shame, for observers outside the faith have pointed out how much more appealing Christianity would be if its followers were more Christ-like. (Mahatma Gandhi was perhaps the most noted, saying, “Oh, I don't reject Christ. I love Christ. It's just that so many of you Christians are so unlike Christ.” He is said to have continued with something like, “If Christians were more like Christ, all India would be Christian.”)
Yet even that early community didn’t stay focused on mutuality and abundance. We read in Acts that early on someone decided to withhold some of the proceeds of a land sale, and lied about it, which was the more community-breaking act. Conflict and scarcity raised their ugly heads.
So, should we abandon this as an impossible ideal? I hope not. All it takes is one person to recommit to living Jesus’ abundant life. Two is even better. They begin to influence others, who decide to reorder their lives, and on it goes. Sociologists have shown that human behavior is remarkably contagious. Greed, fear, and control are having a pretty good run, don’t you think? Might we regain some ground for love, faith and peace?
If you made the lists yesterday of things and people who steal your goodwill, peace, confidence, joy; and the people and places that help you gain those gifts, you have a blueprint for action. If you’re in a covenant relationship with someone else, hold each other accountable when the “scarcity thinking” starts to mess with your abundant joy. As our communities commit to live this way, increasing our capacity to trust that resources we need will be there when we need them; learning to stop and shift whenever we start to make a decision based on fear of scarcity – we will grow, in faith, in joy, and even in people.
Abundant life has a generative principle – abundance generates more abundance. That passage from Acts ends with this: “And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” If we mourn the scarcity of people in our pews, let’s take on the discipline of abundant living and abundant trusting. Few things are more attractive than someone living at peace and trusting in “enough.”
When all the energy in the tree is focused on pushing out buds, it bursts into flower. And when all the energy in our communities is focused on living into Jesus’ promise of Life in abundance, we’ll burst into flower too. That's nothin' to sneeze at...
4-27-23 - The Abundant Life
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Want a simple principle to guide life choices? Discern which option leads to more life, and which is likely to drain life away. When energy and time are finite, we need to invest in people and activities we find life-giving, and which give life to others, rather than ones which run us down, involve unnecessary criticism or lead to toxic thinking or behavior. It's not always that simple, of course, and might involve some rewiring. Yet that is the kind of transformation the Holy Spirit works as we make room for God’s life in us.
Jesus draws a contrast between life-giving and death-dealing in this week’s passage: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy,” he says. “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
“The thief” might be anything or anyone who stunts our life or brings oppression, be it emotional, political, spiritual, economic, or any other kind. Jesus was painting the religious leaders with that brush, and of course the Roman occupiers. He probably also meant our spiritual adversary, the devil, intent on drawing people away from trusting the love of God. We know what death-dealing looks and feels like.
The abundant life is harder to describe, since life is hard to quantify – but we know it when we’re living it. It consists not so much in an abundance of things or time or even love, as in our awareness of richness, our being tuned to abundance. The abundant life is a balanced life, where we are renewed as we pour ourselves out for others. It is a life of laughter and insight and rich conversations, of wonder and play. It is life that we live here and now, and it does not end with death. That, Jesus says, is why he came – that we might have life, and have it in abundance.
What are the “thieves” who steal your good will, peace, confidence, joy? Make a list of all the culprits. It might include people you love; surfacing that can give you incentive to work on those relationships. This exercise is not without complications!
In what places do you find the most life? List those too. Do you get to put enough of your time and energy into those things? Can you find a way to invest more? Any investment advisor will tell us to put our resources into things with a good yield, what Jesus called “fruitfulness.” Are we investing wisely with our time and gifts and love?
When our hearts are tuned to abundance, we find feasts large and small. We make feasts for others at the drop of a hat. We trust that resources will be there when needed, and usually find they are. We move with the wind of the Spirit in our sails, and when we’re becalmed, we rest in it. We feel our feelings fully, even the less happy ones. We forgive ourselves and others easily. We love ourselves and others.
The abundant life is not where I began, and it’s still a place I need guidance to navigate. As the Holy Spirit remakes me, in union with my spirit, I’m learning to dwell there more and more. I hope you are too.
Want a simple principle to guide life choices? Discern which option leads to more life, and which is likely to drain life away. When energy and time are finite, we need to invest in people and activities we find life-giving, and which give life to others, rather than ones which run us down, involve unnecessary criticism or lead to toxic thinking or behavior. It's not always that simple, of course, and might involve some rewiring. Yet that is the kind of transformation the Holy Spirit works as we make room for God’s life in us.
Jesus draws a contrast between life-giving and death-dealing in this week’s passage: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy,” he says. “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
“The thief” might be anything or anyone who stunts our life or brings oppression, be it emotional, political, spiritual, economic, or any other kind. Jesus was painting the religious leaders with that brush, and of course the Roman occupiers. He probably also meant our spiritual adversary, the devil, intent on drawing people away from trusting the love of God. We know what death-dealing looks and feels like.
The abundant life is harder to describe, since life is hard to quantify – but we know it when we’re living it. It consists not so much in an abundance of things or time or even love, as in our awareness of richness, our being tuned to abundance. The abundant life is a balanced life, where we are renewed as we pour ourselves out for others. It is a life of laughter and insight and rich conversations, of wonder and play. It is life that we live here and now, and it does not end with death. That, Jesus says, is why he came – that we might have life, and have it in abundance.
What are the “thieves” who steal your good will, peace, confidence, joy? Make a list of all the culprits. It might include people you love; surfacing that can give you incentive to work on those relationships. This exercise is not without complications!
In what places do you find the most life? List those too. Do you get to put enough of your time and energy into those things? Can you find a way to invest more? Any investment advisor will tell us to put our resources into things with a good yield, what Jesus called “fruitfulness.” Are we investing wisely with our time and gifts and love?
When our hearts are tuned to abundance, we find feasts large and small. We make feasts for others at the drop of a hat. We trust that resources will be there when needed, and usually find they are. We move with the wind of the Spirit in our sails, and when we’re becalmed, we rest in it. We feel our feelings fully, even the less happy ones. We forgive ourselves and others easily. We love ourselves and others.
The abundant life is not where I began, and it’s still a place I need guidance to navigate. As the Holy Spirit remakes me, in union with my spirit, I’m learning to dwell there more and more. I hope you are too.
4-13-23 - Out To Sea
You can listen to this reflection here.
This Easter week we are exploring the Gospel appointed for each day - today it's John 21:1-14. Today, we’re in a fishing boat with Peter and six other of Jesus’ disciples, two unnamed. (John takes care to mention the exact number of fish caught in the nets – someone counted them? – but can’t be bothered to find out the names of two of the crew?). These disciples must have fled Jerusalem for the safer home turf in Galilee, and Peter figures he may as well do what he knows, now that everything he thought he learned since leaving his fishing boat has been turned upside-down.
As happened when Jesus first called him away from his nets (Luke 5:1-11), Peter and the crew fish all night and catch nothing. In the morning they’re ready to call it a day, but someone on the shore suggests they throw their nets over to the right. Though that’s pretty much what Jesus had done three years earlier, they don’t recognize the guy as Jesus – not until their nets become so full they’re ready to burst. Then they know who he is, though perhaps he looks different. (“Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord.”) Peter, who has been fishing in the buff? throws on some clothes to jump into the water and get to Jesus as fast as he can. That’s love – when you can’t wait to reach the other.
Then Jesus utters my favorite words in the whole Bible: “Come and have breakfast.” He’s got a fire going and some bread, and he invites them to add fish from their catch – his catch, which he has allowed to become their catch; that’s how God’s abundance works in our lives. He blesses the bread and the fish – and thankfully doesn’t say, “Do this in remembrance of me,” or our Sunday mornings would be a lot messier. He shows them that feasting is a sign of God’s kingdom, and that no goodbye is really final in that realm.
Where has Jesus provided you with a feast lately?
Where are you seeing abundance in these trying times?
To what feasts, or ministries, do you feel Jesus inviting you to bring “your catch?”
Here is the verse of “Was That You?” that goes with this story. (Whole song is here).
A bunch of us were fishing, just out doing what we knew.
The blues are all we’re catching, but what else we gonna do?
At dawn some guy calls from the shore, “Over there, you’ll find some fish.”
As nets start bursting from the haul, we meet our deeper wish:
Was that you, with abundance when I never see enough?
Was that you, showing what strength is, when all I know is being tough?
Was that you forgiving more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, watching out for me.
This Easter week we are exploring the Gospel appointed for each day - today it's John 21:1-14. Today, we’re in a fishing boat with Peter and six other of Jesus’ disciples, two unnamed. (John takes care to mention the exact number of fish caught in the nets – someone counted them? – but can’t be bothered to find out the names of two of the crew?). These disciples must have fled Jerusalem for the safer home turf in Galilee, and Peter figures he may as well do what he knows, now that everything he thought he learned since leaving his fishing boat has been turned upside-down.
As happened when Jesus first called him away from his nets (Luke 5:1-11), Peter and the crew fish all night and catch nothing. In the morning they’re ready to call it a day, but someone on the shore suggests they throw their nets over to the right. Though that’s pretty much what Jesus had done three years earlier, they don’t recognize the guy as Jesus – not until their nets become so full they’re ready to burst. Then they know who he is, though perhaps he looks different. (“Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord.”) Peter, who has been fishing in the buff? throws on some clothes to jump into the water and get to Jesus as fast as he can. That’s love – when you can’t wait to reach the other.
Then Jesus utters my favorite words in the whole Bible: “Come and have breakfast.” He’s got a fire going and some bread, and he invites them to add fish from their catch – his catch, which he has allowed to become their catch; that’s how God’s abundance works in our lives. He blesses the bread and the fish – and thankfully doesn’t say, “Do this in remembrance of me,” or our Sunday mornings would be a lot messier. He shows them that feasting is a sign of God’s kingdom, and that no goodbye is really final in that realm.
Where has Jesus provided you with a feast lately?
Where are you seeing abundance in these trying times?
To what feasts, or ministries, do you feel Jesus inviting you to bring “your catch?”
Here is the verse of “Was That You?” that goes with this story. (Whole song is here).
A bunch of us were fishing, just out doing what we knew.
The blues are all we’re catching, but what else we gonna do?
At dawn some guy calls from the shore, “Over there, you’ll find some fish.”
As nets start bursting from the haul, we meet our deeper wish:
Was that you, with abundance when I never see enough?
Was that you, showing what strength is, when all I know is being tough?
Was that you forgiving more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, watching out for me.
3-7-23- Always Replenished
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
A tired woman comes to a well at the peak of the day’s heat, repeating a chore that no doubt has shaped her days for some time. It is her job to fetch water for the household. It’s not so bad going, but carrying the heavy jars back to town is a burden she’d gladly give up.
A man is there, a Jew, a rabbi from the look of him. She doubts she need fear him, but wishes he were not there to disturb her solitude. Jews are so condescending to her people, as though they weren’t just another branch on the same tree. She nods at him and sets about lowering her jar. He speaks, “Give me a drink.”
She answers, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" His answer is puzzling, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink’, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
She is in no mood for riddles. Does he not know the holiness of this well, its history? “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?”
He is more mysterious still: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” What could this mean?
A spring of water in us, gushing. Here is an image of abundance, of movement, of life. If you’ve ever been mesmerized by the rushing water in a brook or river, or stared at a waterfall or waves crashing, receding, returning, crashing again, you know how powerful a representation this is of not running out. And Jesus locates this gushing spring not outside of us but inside, where we always have access. This spring is God’s life, renewing us.
What have you been “going to the well” for your whole life, that you most wish to never run out of? If your answer is something material – food, money – it’s good to name it. If it’s emotional – love, affirmation, attention – it’s important to be aware of what motivates you. God guarantees no provision in those areas. But spiritual commodities, like peace, healing, forgiveness, love – those all come with God’s living water in us, and they are always being replenished.
Today in prayer you might image that river of God-life flowing through you, dislodging all the debris of sin and hurt, and bearing it away, renewing and refreshing everything in its path. You might reflect on areas in which you feel empty or dry, and invite the river to flow to those places. If you feel a need of healing, invite the river to flow into that area. If you’re burdened by anxiety about the world or other people, invite the river to flow through those places, a visual prayer.
As we become more practiced at accessing the living water inside us, the spiritual gifts it brings may just make us more content about those material and emotional areas we worry about. After all, this living water is the river of God, which Jesus likens to the Holy Spirit. Our mouths may thirst, our stomachs may hunger – yet with this spring in us, our spirits need never go dry.
A tired woman comes to a well at the peak of the day’s heat, repeating a chore that no doubt has shaped her days for some time. It is her job to fetch water for the household. It’s not so bad going, but carrying the heavy jars back to town is a burden she’d gladly give up.
A man is there, a Jew, a rabbi from the look of him. She doubts she need fear him, but wishes he were not there to disturb her solitude. Jews are so condescending to her people, as though they weren’t just another branch on the same tree. She nods at him and sets about lowering her jar. He speaks, “Give me a drink.”
She answers, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" His answer is puzzling, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink’, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
She is in no mood for riddles. Does he not know the holiness of this well, its history? “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?”
He is more mysterious still: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” What could this mean?
A spring of water in us, gushing. Here is an image of abundance, of movement, of life. If you’ve ever been mesmerized by the rushing water in a brook or river, or stared at a waterfall or waves crashing, receding, returning, crashing again, you know how powerful a representation this is of not running out. And Jesus locates this gushing spring not outside of us but inside, where we always have access. This spring is God’s life, renewing us.
What have you been “going to the well” for your whole life, that you most wish to never run out of? If your answer is something material – food, money – it’s good to name it. If it’s emotional – love, affirmation, attention – it’s important to be aware of what motivates you. God guarantees no provision in those areas. But spiritual commodities, like peace, healing, forgiveness, love – those all come with God’s living water in us, and they are always being replenished.
Today in prayer you might image that river of God-life flowing through you, dislodging all the debris of sin and hurt, and bearing it away, renewing and refreshing everything in its path. You might reflect on areas in which you feel empty or dry, and invite the river to flow to those places. If you feel a need of healing, invite the river to flow into that area. If you’re burdened by anxiety about the world or other people, invite the river to flow through those places, a visual prayer.
As we become more practiced at accessing the living water inside us, the spiritual gifts it brings may just make us more content about those material and emotional areas we worry about. After all, this living water is the river of God, which Jesus likens to the Holy Spirit. Our mouths may thirst, our stomachs may hunger – yet with this spring in us, our spirits need never go dry.
7-26-22 - Greed
You can listen to this reflection here.
In our gospel story for Sunday, Jesus is approached by a man whose brother has received their father’s full inheritance and isn’t inclined to share it. And just as he refused to get pulled into a sibling conflict with Martha and Mary, Jesus displays clear boundaries here. He’s not as interested in whether or not the younger brother gets his share of the legacy as he is in his priorities and the health of his soul:
But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”
What if that verse were plastered all over the financial centers of the world, and tony residential neighborhoods, and on shopping sites? Why, the world economy might come crashing down upon itself. (But wait, doesn’t it often seem close to doing that anyway?) How many people do you know who live as though accumulating possessions and securing their financial future is exactly what life consists of?
I’ll hold the judgment, for I make more than I need and am invested in securing my future too. Looking around, I am keenly aware of the abundance of my possessions. Sure, I give away a fair amount, but that’s not the point. The point is where our deepest priorities lie. How much of our time and energy go into acquiring things and keeping track of what we have? What would we let go of if someone we loved needed it? How much money would we part with? How many possessions? How simply are we willing to live?
These questions are intertwined, for living simply can be a choice we make because we realize someone else needs our stuff more than we do, or because we want to lower our overhead in order to release more funds to people who need them. We get to the point where we’re willing to part with our stuff not only for people whom we love, but for people we don’t even know.
It comes down to what questions we’re asking of ourselves: How much do I need to feel secure, or how much can I release to feel free? Am I living by fear or living by faith? Greed and faith cannot occupy the same space. As much room as we give to one, the less there is for the other.
Or, as I once read in an interview with the actor John Heard, “When you’re living by fear, you’re always looking for security. When you’re living by faith, you’re always looking for freedom.” It is for freedom God has made us free.
In our gospel story for Sunday, Jesus is approached by a man whose brother has received their father’s full inheritance and isn’t inclined to share it. And just as he refused to get pulled into a sibling conflict with Martha and Mary, Jesus displays clear boundaries here. He’s not as interested in whether or not the younger brother gets his share of the legacy as he is in his priorities and the health of his soul:
But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”
What if that verse were plastered all over the financial centers of the world, and tony residential neighborhoods, and on shopping sites? Why, the world economy might come crashing down upon itself. (But wait, doesn’t it often seem close to doing that anyway?) How many people do you know who live as though accumulating possessions and securing their financial future is exactly what life consists of?
I’ll hold the judgment, for I make more than I need and am invested in securing my future too. Looking around, I am keenly aware of the abundance of my possessions. Sure, I give away a fair amount, but that’s not the point. The point is where our deepest priorities lie. How much of our time and energy go into acquiring things and keeping track of what we have? What would we let go of if someone we loved needed it? How much money would we part with? How many possessions? How simply are we willing to live?
These questions are intertwined, for living simply can be a choice we make because we realize someone else needs our stuff more than we do, or because we want to lower our overhead in order to release more funds to people who need them. We get to the point where we’re willing to part with our stuff not only for people whom we love, but for people we don’t even know.
It comes down to what questions we’re asking of ourselves: How much do I need to feel secure, or how much can I release to feel free? Am I living by fear or living by faith? Greed and faith cannot occupy the same space. As much room as we give to one, the less there is for the other.
Or, as I once read in an interview with the actor John Heard, “When you’re living by fear, you’re always looking for security. When you’re living by faith, you’re always looking for freedom.” It is for freedom God has made us free.
4-28-22 - Bring Some of Your Catch
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Are there sweeter words in the New Testament than these, “Come and have breakfast?” The disciples’ encounter with the risen Christ kept getting better and better. First, they made an enormous catch of fish. Then they realized Jesus himself was on the shore. And when they landed, they found another delightful surprise:
When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.”
What an invitation after a sleepless, fish-less night. What a reversal of circumstances in just a short time. Why did Jesus wait until morning to help them out? Why does God allow us to endure waiting or suffering or not knowing? Could it be that it strengthens or softens us, or makes us readier to receive the gift when it comes? A mystery for another time.
What matters now is that the fish have swarmed, the nets have filled, the Lord has come, and these hot and hungry fisherman are invited to a feast, right there on the beach. And they're not only passive guests – they are invited to help make the feast. Perhaps the most important words in this passage are “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” God provided the catch, allowed them to participate in gathering it, and then asked them to bring some to Jesus for the celebration. Jesus provided the bread; they were invited to offer some of the fish.
So it is in our lives – God provides the feast and invites us to participate in gathering it, and then to bring some of it together for the celebration. That's what our weekly offering is, and our gathering at the eucharistic feast (of which the offering is the first part). That's our whole life in God – a life of participation in God’s mission in which the Spirit leads us to the fields, allows us to help gather the harvest, and then to bring some of that harvest together to celebrate.
What are the “big catches,” or areas of abundance in your life? And where do you feel Jesus inviting you to breakfast? And what might you bring to that feast?
We don’t see a “mighty catch of fish” every day. But what if it’s there, unnoticed? Might we say, by faith, “Yes! The fish have swarmed, my nets have filled, the Lord is here, and I am invited to a feast, right here.” Then we might have to look around, all around, and ask, “Okay, where are the filled nets?” I bet each of us could name at least one area of life where our nets are filled. That’s a good start.
And then, “Where do I bring my fish? Where is the feast Jesus is inviting me to contribute to today?” We can trust that he has brought the Bread of Life, his own self. He invites us to bring some of our fish.
Are there sweeter words in the New Testament than these, “Come and have breakfast?” The disciples’ encounter with the risen Christ kept getting better and better. First, they made an enormous catch of fish. Then they realized Jesus himself was on the shore. And when they landed, they found another delightful surprise:
When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.”
What an invitation after a sleepless, fish-less night. What a reversal of circumstances in just a short time. Why did Jesus wait until morning to help them out? Why does God allow us to endure waiting or suffering or not knowing? Could it be that it strengthens or softens us, or makes us readier to receive the gift when it comes? A mystery for another time.
What matters now is that the fish have swarmed, the nets have filled, the Lord has come, and these hot and hungry fisherman are invited to a feast, right there on the beach. And they're not only passive guests – they are invited to help make the feast. Perhaps the most important words in this passage are “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” God provided the catch, allowed them to participate in gathering it, and then asked them to bring some to Jesus for the celebration. Jesus provided the bread; they were invited to offer some of the fish.
So it is in our lives – God provides the feast and invites us to participate in gathering it, and then to bring some of it together for the celebration. That's what our weekly offering is, and our gathering at the eucharistic feast (of which the offering is the first part). That's our whole life in God – a life of participation in God’s mission in which the Spirit leads us to the fields, allows us to help gather the harvest, and then to bring some of that harvest together to celebrate.
What are the “big catches,” or areas of abundance in your life? And where do you feel Jesus inviting you to breakfast? And what might you bring to that feast?
We don’t see a “mighty catch of fish” every day. But what if it’s there, unnoticed? Might we say, by faith, “Yes! The fish have swarmed, my nets have filled, the Lord is here, and I am invited to a feast, right here.” Then we might have to look around, all around, and ask, “Okay, where are the filled nets?” I bet each of us could name at least one area of life where our nets are filled. That’s a good start.
And then, “Where do I bring my fish? Where is the feast Jesus is inviting me to contribute to today?” We can trust that he has brought the Bread of Life, his own self. He invites us to bring some of our fish.
4-27-22 - Who Is That Guy?
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
We don’t always recognize God’s activity in our lives until after the fact – after an accident has been avoided, “coincidental” timing confirmed, an unexpected encounter opened into new opportunities. And we rarely experience God where we expect God to be. Jesus’ disciples certainly didn’t expect him to show up on a beach by the Sea of Tiberias. So they didn’t recognize him – until they saw his handiwork, which they had witnessed (in Luke’s account) at the beginning of their story with Jesus.
So they cast the net, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.
It's amusing that the naked Peter puts on clothes to jump into the water – it just wouldn’t do to greet his risen Lord and Savior in his birthday suit. And once they realize it is Jesus on the shore, all of them hurry to get there, though it must have taken a lot of muscle to pull those heavy nets. And then someone ignored the crucified and risen Lord in order to count the fish, for John records there were 153 of them (fishermen, like baseball fans, do love their stats…) John also mentions that, “though there were so many, the net was not torn,” perhaps to emphasize that God’s work is always to make things whole.
Because we don’t expect to see Jesus around and about in our lives, we don't always notice where he is. But we can learn to notice. Becoming attuned to where Jesus is, where the Holy Spirit is moving and shaking things up, is essential for those who want to be part of the Jesus movement. We are called to join him where he is already working, or to prepare the place where he wants to come next. We don’t have to do anything on our own. So we need to learn to recognize him, even before the “evidence” appears.
This is a habit of the heart we can cultivate as we do any other important activity or attitude. After a while, our spiritual sense becomes more acute, but at first we may have to work at it. Perhaps at the beginning of each day we can review our plans and pray about where we plan to join Jesus or want him to join us. And at the end of the day review where we’ve been, and write down where we realize in retrospect – or knew at the time – that he was present in some way.
How might he be present? He might have spoken through someone or we might have found our attention drawn to something life-giving. We might have felt a peace or a holy urgency, or found ourselves compelled to draw near someone because of a gift they had or a need they manifested. Sometime we know he was there because he’s now gone, as happened to the disciples in Emmaus.
Notice. Name it. Write it down. Review it at the end of the week. In time, we will become so accustomed to Jesus being around, we won’t need miracles to get our attention.
We don’t always recognize God’s activity in our lives until after the fact – after an accident has been avoided, “coincidental” timing confirmed, an unexpected encounter opened into new opportunities. And we rarely experience God where we expect God to be. Jesus’ disciples certainly didn’t expect him to show up on a beach by the Sea of Tiberias. So they didn’t recognize him – until they saw his handiwork, which they had witnessed (in Luke’s account) at the beginning of their story with Jesus.
So they cast the net, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.
It's amusing that the naked Peter puts on clothes to jump into the water – it just wouldn’t do to greet his risen Lord and Savior in his birthday suit. And once they realize it is Jesus on the shore, all of them hurry to get there, though it must have taken a lot of muscle to pull those heavy nets. And then someone ignored the crucified and risen Lord in order to count the fish, for John records there were 153 of them (fishermen, like baseball fans, do love their stats…) John also mentions that, “though there were so many, the net was not torn,” perhaps to emphasize that God’s work is always to make things whole.
Because we don’t expect to see Jesus around and about in our lives, we don't always notice where he is. But we can learn to notice. Becoming attuned to where Jesus is, where the Holy Spirit is moving and shaking things up, is essential for those who want to be part of the Jesus movement. We are called to join him where he is already working, or to prepare the place where he wants to come next. We don’t have to do anything on our own. So we need to learn to recognize him, even before the “evidence” appears.
This is a habit of the heart we can cultivate as we do any other important activity or attitude. After a while, our spiritual sense becomes more acute, but at first we may have to work at it. Perhaps at the beginning of each day we can review our plans and pray about where we plan to join Jesus or want him to join us. And at the end of the day review where we’ve been, and write down where we realize in retrospect – or knew at the time – that he was present in some way.
How might he be present? He might have spoken through someone or we might have found our attention drawn to something life-giving. We might have felt a peace or a holy urgency, or found ourselves compelled to draw near someone because of a gift they had or a need they manifested. Sometime we know he was there because he’s now gone, as happened to the disciples in Emmaus.
Notice. Name it. Write it down. Review it at the end of the week. In time, we will become so accustomed to Jesus being around, we won’t need miracles to get our attention.
2-2-22 - So Many Fish
You can listen to this reflection here.
Abundance is abundant in the Gospels. We see it in last week's story of the water turned to wine; we see it this week with the miraculous catch of fish. Abundance is a core principle of God-Life, one of the ways God most often shows her hand – when there is unexpectedly enough, and even too much. That is what Simon Peter and his fisher-friends experienced on the lake that morning, when Jesus said,
“Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.
I experienced this abundance when I was heading to Yale Divinity School and invited fellow congregants at my church to help me pay for it. I thought I might get a few hundred, maybe a thousand dollars to help defray the costs… and the money just kept rolling in, sometimes four figures at a time. In the end some $20,000 was given to support my theological education. Every time I expressed amazement, I could sense God laughing and saying, “See? Now do you believe me?”
If abundance is a principle of God’s realm on earth, why is there so much scarcity? In part, it’s because we’re more wired to see, to expect scarcity than we are abundance. We default to “not enough” – that’s what Jesus’ disciples saw when faced with the challenge of feeding a crowd of thousands. But God invites us to look beyond the “not enough” in front of us to the “what else?” all around us. God invites us to look beyond what we can see, period, and call God’s power to flow into situations of need.
Scarcity on a global level is due to human choices and to sin – greed, fear, and the damage to our planet which those forces wreak. The earth has the capacity to feed everyone on it, but some nations hoard food and water and play havoc with the environment. Most often the ruinous consequences like disease, famine and flooding fall upon the poorer nations. We can make better choices as people of prosperity – both because Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors, and from self-interest. Bono, the lead singer of U2, has written, “In the not-too-distant future, the rich world will invest in the education of the poor world, because it is our best protection against young minds being twisted by extremist ideologies - or growing up without any ideology at all, which could be worse. Nature abhors a vacuum; terrorism loves one.” We are still waiting for that day.
I have wandered far from our lakeshore and its boats sinking with the weight of such a large catch. That day in Galilee, the abundance was all from God. It was a sign to these fishermen in their own language that Jesus meant business, that this was what they could expect in a life in God – along with hardship and hunger. Over all, there would be enough, and often too much to handle.
This miraculous catch of fish was Jesus’ work. Yet it could not have been realized without the participation of the men on those boats. Abundance comes from God – and God always reveals it through people. Are you ready to catch a boatload of fish?
Abundance is abundant in the Gospels. We see it in last week's story of the water turned to wine; we see it this week with the miraculous catch of fish. Abundance is a core principle of God-Life, one of the ways God most often shows her hand – when there is unexpectedly enough, and even too much. That is what Simon Peter and his fisher-friends experienced on the lake that morning, when Jesus said,
“Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.
I experienced this abundance when I was heading to Yale Divinity School and invited fellow congregants at my church to help me pay for it. I thought I might get a few hundred, maybe a thousand dollars to help defray the costs… and the money just kept rolling in, sometimes four figures at a time. In the end some $20,000 was given to support my theological education. Every time I expressed amazement, I could sense God laughing and saying, “See? Now do you believe me?”
If abundance is a principle of God’s realm on earth, why is there so much scarcity? In part, it’s because we’re more wired to see, to expect scarcity than we are abundance. We default to “not enough” – that’s what Jesus’ disciples saw when faced with the challenge of feeding a crowd of thousands. But God invites us to look beyond the “not enough” in front of us to the “what else?” all around us. God invites us to look beyond what we can see, period, and call God’s power to flow into situations of need.
Scarcity on a global level is due to human choices and to sin – greed, fear, and the damage to our planet which those forces wreak. The earth has the capacity to feed everyone on it, but some nations hoard food and water and play havoc with the environment. Most often the ruinous consequences like disease, famine and flooding fall upon the poorer nations. We can make better choices as people of prosperity – both because Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors, and from self-interest. Bono, the lead singer of U2, has written, “In the not-too-distant future, the rich world will invest in the education of the poor world, because it is our best protection against young minds being twisted by extremist ideologies - or growing up without any ideology at all, which could be worse. Nature abhors a vacuum; terrorism loves one.” We are still waiting for that day.
I have wandered far from our lakeshore and its boats sinking with the weight of such a large catch. That day in Galilee, the abundance was all from God. It was a sign to these fishermen in their own language that Jesus meant business, that this was what they could expect in a life in God – along with hardship and hunger. Over all, there would be enough, and often too much to handle.
This miraculous catch of fish was Jesus’ work. Yet it could not have been realized without the participation of the men on those boats. Abundance comes from God – and God always reveals it through people. Are you ready to catch a boatload of fish?
1-13-22 - To the Brim
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Sometimes I wonder if God shakes his God-head at the tiny scope of my prayers. “Please, let me be on time!” “Heal this muscle ache.” “What shall I preach Sunday?” The Maker of Heaven and Earth invites us to pray for earthquakes to subside and wars to cease, and most of us don’t even dare to pray about cancer and injustice. Do we think God is finished doing the big things, or we're only worth the small stuff?
If we based our prayer life on what we read in the gospels, we’d pray about big things all the time, because we see big responses – abundance beyond measure, even beyond need. Twelve baskets of leftovers, and here, Jesus’ first public miracle, more wine of greatest excellence than the whole town of Cana could get through:
Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.
Did Jesus use those jars because of their size? Or because of their purpose, for ritual baths? Are we to make a link between purification and the wine that is to be manifest in these vessels? Those who go in for a more allegorical approach to biblical interpretation would say every detail, especially in the Fourth Gospel, is fair game. Today, let’s just focus on the size and capacity of these jars. Jesus wasn’t making only a little bit of table wine; he was crafting vats of the finest vintage. Because that’s how God rolls.
“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap," Jesus says later, exhorting his followers to generosity. (Luke 6:38). The Realm of God is not a place of just enough, though sometimes “just enough” is our experience. That experience can dampen our expectation of God’s radical abundant provision.
We need to recall those times when we’ve experienced more than enough, when the jars were filled to the brim, when the gift was completely out of proportion to our sense of deserving or ability to respond in kind. Remembering those times can help us raise our expectations of God’s power and love. Another thing that does that for me is reading healing books. Those stories of God’s power transforming situations, sometimes against all natural hope, inspire me to greater boldness in my prayers, and bolder prayers lead to bolder participation in God’s mission.
The next time you feel the pinch of scarcity – or even just the fear of it – call to mind a large stone water jar, filled to the brim with water, a little sloshing over. And then realize it’s not water at all, but thousands of dollars worth of wine, all for the taking and sharing.
And then realize God wants to fill us to the brim with Life, transforming our dross into grace for the world. Are we vessels with enough capacity? There’s a prayer…
Sometimes I wonder if God shakes his God-head at the tiny scope of my prayers. “Please, let me be on time!” “Heal this muscle ache.” “What shall I preach Sunday?” The Maker of Heaven and Earth invites us to pray for earthquakes to subside and wars to cease, and most of us don’t even dare to pray about cancer and injustice. Do we think God is finished doing the big things, or we're only worth the small stuff?
If we based our prayer life on what we read in the gospels, we’d pray about big things all the time, because we see big responses – abundance beyond measure, even beyond need. Twelve baskets of leftovers, and here, Jesus’ first public miracle, more wine of greatest excellence than the whole town of Cana could get through:
Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.
Did Jesus use those jars because of their size? Or because of their purpose, for ritual baths? Are we to make a link between purification and the wine that is to be manifest in these vessels? Those who go in for a more allegorical approach to biblical interpretation would say every detail, especially in the Fourth Gospel, is fair game. Today, let’s just focus on the size and capacity of these jars. Jesus wasn’t making only a little bit of table wine; he was crafting vats of the finest vintage. Because that’s how God rolls.
“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap," Jesus says later, exhorting his followers to generosity. (Luke 6:38). The Realm of God is not a place of just enough, though sometimes “just enough” is our experience. That experience can dampen our expectation of God’s radical abundant provision.
We need to recall those times when we’ve experienced more than enough, when the jars were filled to the brim, when the gift was completely out of proportion to our sense of deserving or ability to respond in kind. Remembering those times can help us raise our expectations of God’s power and love. Another thing that does that for me is reading healing books. Those stories of God’s power transforming situations, sometimes against all natural hope, inspire me to greater boldness in my prayers, and bolder prayers lead to bolder participation in God’s mission.
The next time you feel the pinch of scarcity – or even just the fear of it – call to mind a large stone water jar, filled to the brim with water, a little sloshing over. And then realize it’s not water at all, but thousands of dollars worth of wine, all for the taking and sharing.
And then realize God wants to fill us to the brim with Life, transforming our dross into grace for the world. Are we vessels with enough capacity? There’s a prayer…
1-12-22 - Follow Instructions
You can listen to this reflection here.
In addition to its other charms, this story of the wedding feast and the wine gives us a glimpse into Jesus’ relationship with his mother. He had no problem saying “no” to her when she nudged him to use his super-powers to address the wine shortage – and she had no problem ignoring his “no.”
When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you."
Despite his demurral, Jesus does enlist the servants, and somehow storage jars filled with water become vats of finest wine. His instructions to the servants are two-fold: Fill the giant jars with water, and then draw some off and take it to the chief steward. Jesus works the miracle, but it is accomplished through ordinary servants who followed his instructions, as daft as they may have seemed.
When God is up to something in this world, something big and transformational, it is generally done through people like us. And the bigger the “something,” often the whackier the instructions seem. Quit your job. Sell your house. Leave your country. Call that person. Join that movement. Raise thousands of dollars. Give away thousands of dollars.
Maybe God is always asking outrageous things of us, and we just aren’t getting the message. Or maybe these things happen rarely. I do know that the instructions usually come one at a time. We have to do the first thing before we find out what the next is. Fill the jars, all the jars. All the jars? With that much water? That’s crazy? But we have to do that before we get the next instruction: draw some off. And it’s only after the chief steward has tasted that we know just what a crazy thing God has just done.
Can you recall a time you felt prompted by the Spirit to do something odd, bold, even controversial? Did you do it? What happened? Are you receiving such promptings in your life now? What instruction are you being given?
God’s instructions to me haven’t been that wild – the most extreme I can think of were “Take on a boatload of debt to attend seminary” (and that was never the message; the message was just so clear I didn’t think twice about the debt…) and “Go to this little place called Charles County, Maryland and pastor two churches there. And then wait, and see if I don’t bless your socks off.”
If you draw a blank when asked that question, you might try asking God straight out: “Where do you want me to further your plans today? What purpose can I help fulfill?” Then pay attention and see what develops – and while you’re waiting, enjoy the party!
In addition to its other charms, this story of the wedding feast and the wine gives us a glimpse into Jesus’ relationship with his mother. He had no problem saying “no” to her when she nudged him to use his super-powers to address the wine shortage – and she had no problem ignoring his “no.”
When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you."
Despite his demurral, Jesus does enlist the servants, and somehow storage jars filled with water become vats of finest wine. His instructions to the servants are two-fold: Fill the giant jars with water, and then draw some off and take it to the chief steward. Jesus works the miracle, but it is accomplished through ordinary servants who followed his instructions, as daft as they may have seemed.
When God is up to something in this world, something big and transformational, it is generally done through people like us. And the bigger the “something,” often the whackier the instructions seem. Quit your job. Sell your house. Leave your country. Call that person. Join that movement. Raise thousands of dollars. Give away thousands of dollars.
Maybe God is always asking outrageous things of us, and we just aren’t getting the message. Or maybe these things happen rarely. I do know that the instructions usually come one at a time. We have to do the first thing before we find out what the next is. Fill the jars, all the jars. All the jars? With that much water? That’s crazy? But we have to do that before we get the next instruction: draw some off. And it’s only after the chief steward has tasted that we know just what a crazy thing God has just done.
Can you recall a time you felt prompted by the Spirit to do something odd, bold, even controversial? Did you do it? What happened? Are you receiving such promptings in your life now? What instruction are you being given?
God’s instructions to me haven’t been that wild – the most extreme I can think of were “Take on a boatload of debt to attend seminary” (and that was never the message; the message was just so clear I didn’t think twice about the debt…) and “Go to this little place called Charles County, Maryland and pastor two churches there. And then wait, and see if I don’t bless your socks off.”
If you draw a blank when asked that question, you might try asking God straight out: “Where do you want me to further your plans today? What purpose can I help fulfill?” Then pay attention and see what develops – and while you’re waiting, enjoy the party!
1-11-22 - When the Wine Runs Out
You can listen to this reflection here.
An Episcopal Church, running out of wine? It could never be. Yet I’ll never forget the Easter Sunday at a New York parish when the Altar Guild failed to put out enough communion wine. Alerted to this crisis while distributing communion, the Curate, who lived onsite, ran up to his apartment and fetched several bottles of Rioja, and no one was the wiser. Except that those seated in the back half of the 1000-seat sanctuary thought, not unlike the steward in this week’s story, “Wow – they really get the good stuff out at Easter.”
Jesus had no intention of coming to the rescue when his hosts ran out of wine. But the story wasn't over: When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.”
I love the way it says, “When the wine ran out,” as though it were a given that the wine would run out. And that is often our experience in life, that the good things don’t last, grand romance fades into the ordinary, abundance dwindles to “just enough,” or sometimes not enough at all. Yet the record of the New Testament – and much of the Hebrew Bible too – is that this is never the end of the story. Things run out, and somehow more is found. Oil and flour, wine and water, bread and fish, time and energy - even life.
Our invitation, in those moments when it seems the wine has run out, is to widen the lens and see where in the picture abundance might be found. Instead of getting paralyzed with fear or forlorn with despair, we can ask God to show us where provision is. We can pray for an infusion of hope, which fuels our creativity and openness to new ways of thinking. And we can share our concerns with people around us, and learn their perspective on the matter.
One message of this funny story about Jesus at the wedding feast is that nothing is impossible where God is concerned. We don’t always know how things are transformed, but the effect is that there is enough and more than enough. In my experience, the more we trust in that, the more often we see it manifest.
Wine may run out, but God’s grace never does. And more often than not it turns out that someone has a stash of good Spanish red nearby.
An Episcopal Church, running out of wine? It could never be. Yet I’ll never forget the Easter Sunday at a New York parish when the Altar Guild failed to put out enough communion wine. Alerted to this crisis while distributing communion, the Curate, who lived onsite, ran up to his apartment and fetched several bottles of Rioja, and no one was the wiser. Except that those seated in the back half of the 1000-seat sanctuary thought, not unlike the steward in this week’s story, “Wow – they really get the good stuff out at Easter.”
Jesus had no intention of coming to the rescue when his hosts ran out of wine. But the story wasn't over: When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.”
I love the way it says, “When the wine ran out,” as though it were a given that the wine would run out. And that is often our experience in life, that the good things don’t last, grand romance fades into the ordinary, abundance dwindles to “just enough,” or sometimes not enough at all. Yet the record of the New Testament – and much of the Hebrew Bible too – is that this is never the end of the story. Things run out, and somehow more is found. Oil and flour, wine and water, bread and fish, time and energy - even life.
Our invitation, in those moments when it seems the wine has run out, is to widen the lens and see where in the picture abundance might be found. Instead of getting paralyzed with fear or forlorn with despair, we can ask God to show us where provision is. We can pray for an infusion of hope, which fuels our creativity and openness to new ways of thinking. And we can share our concerns with people around us, and learn their perspective on the matter.
One message of this funny story about Jesus at the wedding feast is that nothing is impossible where God is concerned. We don’t always know how things are transformed, but the effect is that there is enough and more than enough. In my experience, the more we trust in that, the more often we see it manifest.
Wine may run out, but God’s grace never does. And more often than not it turns out that someone has a stash of good Spanish red nearby.
7-28-21 - The Bread That Gives Life
You can listen to this reflection here.
I love bread. I love bread so much, I gave it up for Lent one year. If my metabolism allowed, I would start every day with a basket of French rolls, butter and jam, and work bread into lunch and dinner too. (But I’d soon look like a French roll.) Bread is the staff of life, but not the Life Jesus invites us into.
In this week’s story, the people looking for Jesus want bread from heaven, and they think Jesus might just have access. But they want a guarantee before they trust him. So when he says they are to believe in him as sent by God, they reply, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
You’d think the miracle of the loaves and fishes would have been sign enough, but they wanted God to do what God had done before. It’s often our tendency, when we’ve been blessed, to look for blessing in the last place we found it, and in the same form. In my experience, God rarely goes back over the same ground. The trajectory of the Life of God is forward, to new life.
So Jesus tells them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
They were more interested in the temporal bread than the eternal. In fairness, having enough to eat is an urgent matter for an occupied, oppressed, over-taxed populace. Yet feeding the hungry was not what Jesus was up to. He told his followers to do that. He came to nourish souls starved for the presence of the Living God. He came to invite everyone to God’s banqueting table, and to clear the obstacles that kept people away. His priority was to proclaim the reign of God in which generosity and justice flourish so broadly, everyone will be welcome at the table and fed in abundance.
We too are called to proclaim the bread that gives life. It's great that so many churches are involved in the sharing of food with those who hunger; that is part of the Gospel life. Yet the invitation to us as Christ followers is to be as much or more involved in sharing Jesus, who called himself the Bread of Life – introducing people to Jesus as we know him, feeding thirsty spirits and broken hearts, inviting people to feast on him in Word and sacrament. Who can you think of who is hungry for the bread of Life? How might you offer it to that person?
That is the bread we will feast on in eternity. It will never run out, and it will never make us fat, only full.
I love bread. I love bread so much, I gave it up for Lent one year. If my metabolism allowed, I would start every day with a basket of French rolls, butter and jam, and work bread into lunch and dinner too. (But I’d soon look like a French roll.) Bread is the staff of life, but not the Life Jesus invites us into.
In this week’s story, the people looking for Jesus want bread from heaven, and they think Jesus might just have access. But they want a guarantee before they trust him. So when he says they are to believe in him as sent by God, they reply, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
You’d think the miracle of the loaves and fishes would have been sign enough, but they wanted God to do what God had done before. It’s often our tendency, when we’ve been blessed, to look for blessing in the last place we found it, and in the same form. In my experience, God rarely goes back over the same ground. The trajectory of the Life of God is forward, to new life.
So Jesus tells them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
They were more interested in the temporal bread than the eternal. In fairness, having enough to eat is an urgent matter for an occupied, oppressed, over-taxed populace. Yet feeding the hungry was not what Jesus was up to. He told his followers to do that. He came to nourish souls starved for the presence of the Living God. He came to invite everyone to God’s banqueting table, and to clear the obstacles that kept people away. His priority was to proclaim the reign of God in which generosity and justice flourish so broadly, everyone will be welcome at the table and fed in abundance.
We too are called to proclaim the bread that gives life. It's great that so many churches are involved in the sharing of food with those who hunger; that is part of the Gospel life. Yet the invitation to us as Christ followers is to be as much or more involved in sharing Jesus, who called himself the Bread of Life – introducing people to Jesus as we know him, feeding thirsty spirits and broken hearts, inviting people to feast on him in Word and sacrament. Who can you think of who is hungry for the bread of Life? How might you offer it to that person?
That is the bread we will feast on in eternity. It will never run out, and it will never make us fat, only full.
7-21-21 - More Than Enough
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
How do you feed 5,000 people with just five loaves of bread and two fish? Ask people to sit, and get started. Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.
As Luke tells the story, Jesus has people sit in groups of fifty, and the disciples distribute. It’s more manageable to feed 50 than 5,000, right? When a challenge feels overwhelming, we can break it down into pieces – much as the bread was broken. No one can eat a whole loaf without breaking it up; no one can feed a crowd without breaking it down.
Once the people were seated, they were fed. But how? There were only five loaves and two fish. As Andrew said, "But what are they among so many people?” What they were was plenty – we’re told people got as much of both bread and fish as they wanted. Jesus and his followers just kept giving them out, and there kept being enough. This story appears in all four gospels, and in no version does it say Jesus prayed and created a gigantic pile of food that was then distributed. No, he took what they had, blessed it and gave it out, and everyone had as much as they wanted – AND there were leftovers:
When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.
Abundance is a principle of God’s realm. As Jesus demonstrated the Life of God, there was always more than enough – vats of water turned into wine, twelve baskets of food left after 5,000 people or more were fed to satisfaction. To people living under the cruel thumb of the occupying Romans, over-taxed to the point of starvation, Jesus said, “Trust in God’s way – it is the way of enough and to spare.”
We may not see abundance in every situation, but we should always expect it and look for it as we move in faith. Usually when we don’t experience abundance it’s because we didn’t move in faith, but rather on our own steam. And I have found that when I do expect it, I experience it more often. And when I expect “not enough,” that’s often what I find.
Many churches and people are locked into “not enough” thinking, oriented to scarcity. That’s a zero sum game that often leads us to squander the assets we’ve inherited without generating new resources, because who wants to give to an institution that sees itself as lacking? We shrink our missions budgets and pour money into aged, leaky buildings, while the world goes hungry for lack of the Bread of Life we have to share. How might we turn around, take the loaves and fishes we have, and get out there and start feeding people?
Where in your life do you experience abundance? And where does scarcity rule?
How might we invite God to shift our expectations toward abundance in all areas? Sometimes that requires dealing with the very real losses and disappointments we’ve experienced. It takes a lot of courage to hope for more than enough. Yet I have found that when I do, that’s when the leftovers pile up.
How do you feed 5,000 people with just five loaves of bread and two fish? Ask people to sit, and get started. Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.
As Luke tells the story, Jesus has people sit in groups of fifty, and the disciples distribute. It’s more manageable to feed 50 than 5,000, right? When a challenge feels overwhelming, we can break it down into pieces – much as the bread was broken. No one can eat a whole loaf without breaking it up; no one can feed a crowd without breaking it down.
Once the people were seated, they were fed. But how? There were only five loaves and two fish. As Andrew said, "But what are they among so many people?” What they were was plenty – we’re told people got as much of both bread and fish as they wanted. Jesus and his followers just kept giving them out, and there kept being enough. This story appears in all four gospels, and in no version does it say Jesus prayed and created a gigantic pile of food that was then distributed. No, he took what they had, blessed it and gave it out, and everyone had as much as they wanted – AND there were leftovers:
When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.
Abundance is a principle of God’s realm. As Jesus demonstrated the Life of God, there was always more than enough – vats of water turned into wine, twelve baskets of food left after 5,000 people or more were fed to satisfaction. To people living under the cruel thumb of the occupying Romans, over-taxed to the point of starvation, Jesus said, “Trust in God’s way – it is the way of enough and to spare.”
We may not see abundance in every situation, but we should always expect it and look for it as we move in faith. Usually when we don’t experience abundance it’s because we didn’t move in faith, but rather on our own steam. And I have found that when I do expect it, I experience it more often. And when I expect “not enough,” that’s often what I find.
Many churches and people are locked into “not enough” thinking, oriented to scarcity. That’s a zero sum game that often leads us to squander the assets we’ve inherited without generating new resources, because who wants to give to an institution that sees itself as lacking? We shrink our missions budgets and pour money into aged, leaky buildings, while the world goes hungry for lack of the Bread of Life we have to share. How might we turn around, take the loaves and fishes we have, and get out there and start feeding people?
Where in your life do you experience abundance? And where does scarcity rule?
How might we invite God to shift our expectations toward abundance in all areas? Sometimes that requires dealing with the very real losses and disappointments we’ve experienced. It takes a lot of courage to hope for more than enough. Yet I have found that when I do, that’s when the leftovers pile up.
7-20-21 - Not Enough?
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Jesus and his disciples have been around the Sea of Galilee, trying to get some alone time. But they keep being interrupted by crowds seeking Jesus’ healing and teaching. In this week’s passage, we find them sitting on a hill as yet another crowd approaches: Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples… When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do.
Why did Jesus feel responsible for feeding the crowd – did they look hungry? Did he want to keep them peaceful? Or is it just a set-up for the miracle about to be revealed? John implies the latter – Jesus already knows the answer, but wants to know what Philip will say. Philip has done the math:
Jesus and his disciples have been around the Sea of Galilee, trying to get some alone time. But they keep being interrupted by crowds seeking Jesus’ healing and teaching. In this week’s passage, we find them sitting on a hill as yet another crowd approaches: Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples… When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do.
Why did Jesus feel responsible for feeding the crowd – did they look hungry? Did he want to keep them peaceful? Or is it just a set-up for the miracle about to be revealed? John implies the latter – Jesus already knows the answer, but wants to know what Philip will say. Philip has done the math:
“Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”
What are we to do when faced with a big need or a big challenge? Assess the cost. Jesus said that those who would follow him must “count the cost,” just as a builder setting out to erect a tower must project the expenses of materials and labor. So in ministry we need to estimate what any given mission will require. Philip does this, and concludes that the cost is greater than they could ever manage. I’ve heard more than one church leader do the same.
But assessing the cost is only one step. One also has to inventory the assets at hand. Andrew takes this step, asking around, doing some re-con: One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Andrew does his homework, but comes to the same conclusion as Philip: It’s not enough.
For both Philip and Andrew, the size of the crowd overrides all other data. The magnitude of the need shuts down their ability to think creatively and act strategically. As another gospel tells this tale, the disciples actually suggest dismissing everybody before things get out of hand – the idea of feeding the crowd does not occur to them. It’s impossible.
What needs make you feel helpless? It may be a personal need for resources or a health challenge; it may be a national or global crisis. For me, the damage of climate change and the need to protect wildlife and wild places from the depredations of human industry and greed is the crisis about which I feel “there’s not enough.” We don’t have enough time or money or political will. How will help come, and in time?
When we only look at need and resources and make our assessments, we often forget the x factor: the power of God. Jesus knew God could feed that crowd through his disciples. He needed his followers to learn that lesson for themselves.
Today I invite you (and me) to sit with a situation that to you feels too big, too scary, too impossible. Then imagine what Jesus sees when he looks at that situation – try to see it through his eyes. Where are the resources? Where is the abundance? Where do you see God-energy at work? That's the place to go, to get our faith renewed, and start feeding.
What are we to do when faced with a big need or a big challenge? Assess the cost. Jesus said that those who would follow him must “count the cost,” just as a builder setting out to erect a tower must project the expenses of materials and labor. So in ministry we need to estimate what any given mission will require. Philip does this, and concludes that the cost is greater than they could ever manage. I’ve heard more than one church leader do the same.
But assessing the cost is only one step. One also has to inventory the assets at hand. Andrew takes this step, asking around, doing some re-con: One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Andrew does his homework, but comes to the same conclusion as Philip: It’s not enough.
For both Philip and Andrew, the size of the crowd overrides all other data. The magnitude of the need shuts down their ability to think creatively and act strategically. As another gospel tells this tale, the disciples actually suggest dismissing everybody before things get out of hand – the idea of feeding the crowd does not occur to them. It’s impossible.
What needs make you feel helpless? It may be a personal need for resources or a health challenge; it may be a national or global crisis. For me, the damage of climate change and the need to protect wildlife and wild places from the depredations of human industry and greed is the crisis about which I feel “there’s not enough.” We don’t have enough time or money or political will. How will help come, and in time?
When we only look at need and resources and make our assessments, we often forget the x factor: the power of God. Jesus knew God could feed that crowd through his disciples. He needed his followers to learn that lesson for themselves.
Today I invite you (and me) to sit with a situation that to you feels too big, too scary, too impossible. Then imagine what Jesus sees when he looks at that situation – try to see it through his eyes. Where are the resources? Where is the abundance? Where do you see God-energy at work? That's the place to go, to get our faith renewed, and start feeding.
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