You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
The first time I went on retreat, I immersed myself in prayer, scripture, worship and the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux. His passion for God was so fervent, at one point I remember praying, “Oh Lord, set my heart on fire with love for you!” Right away a response came in my mind: “Do you know what you’re asking? My fire burns away everything that is not of me, everything.” I thought of all those references to God as a refiner’s fire, a consuming fire, and I felt I was being offered a choice – the “high road” of full commitment to the way of Jesus, or the lower, slower way of mixed motives and divided devotions. I chose the slower, messier way. And you?
The hard teachings we’ve been wrestling with this week concern this choice. Jesus tells those who would follow his way that they must walk away from the claims of this world, family and money. “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” James in his epistle says even more starkly, “Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.”
Did Jesus really mean we should hate this life we’ve been given? The passage from Deuteronomy appointed for this Sunday urges us to “Choose life.” “…today I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him…”
Jesus invites us to choose the life that is the most real, the most true, the most eternal; the God-life, visible to the eyes of faith, not the mere world-life apparent to our physical senses. “I have come that they may have life, and have it in abundance,” he says. (John 10:10). He invites us to leave behind all that distracts us from receiving the abundance of love, joy, peace, grace, forgiveness, healing – and ministry – that God offers us.
I chose the slow road, the “middle way.” I may still be on it, but over the years, as my commitment has sharpened, I perceive that this is also a kingdom path. The God Jesus revealed meets us on any road we’re on, any time we turn away from the emptiness allegiance to the world brings us. This Father in heaven rushes out to greet his children as we come back to ourselves and back to our true home.
Jesus’ invitation is to follow him, to start consciously walking the road with Him every day. As we do that, He will point out sights we may not have noticed before. He may introduce us to people who live closer to the edge; might nudge us to give to this organization or that ministry. We might find ourselves making friends in parts of town we never saw before.
Who have you met on the road? When have you experienced the Father’s greeting? When have you experienced the Holy Spirit guiding you, protecting you, strengthening you? Write down those stories – other people might want to hear them.
The original name for Christ followers was “The People of the Way.” If we’re on the road with Jesus, guided by the Holy Spirit, we will end up where God wants us.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Showing posts with label commitment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label commitment. Show all posts
6-24-22 - Don't Look Back
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Jesus was in a tough mood the day he was vetting would-be disciples. Not only did he tell folks not to run home to bury their dead ; he didn’t even want them going back to say goodbye before they threw in their lot with him: Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Okay – I get that our life as agents of God’s Realm of power and love may need to come before our other commitments – but do we have to throw away our other relationships completely? Just abandon our families and friends?
As with everything else in the Scripture, we have to hold this statement in tension with the other things Jesus is recorded as having said and done. I pray there is more than one pattern of becoming a disciple. And if we take ourselves off the “judgment hook” this statement can generate, we’ll be better placed to find the good news in what Jesus said. We all recognize the tendency to want to look back; where do we find life in not giving in to that impulse?
For me, it comes back to this: the life of God is always forward, always ahead of us on the road. What has been is real and important and shapes where we are now, but we do not need to look back at the last place we encountered God. We are to trust that those encounters will multiply as we follow Jesus – as we spend time with him in prayer; learn from him in scripture; work with him in apostolic action. The more we move forward, the less we need to look back.
And what about those goodbyes? Don’t they need to be said? Perhaps – and maybe we are invited to trust that we will encounter those beloveds again in different ways. Maybe we don’t need to spend a lot of energy on goodbyes, because in God’s economy we remain connected in spirit to those whom we love, even if we’re not with them in body.
Earlier this week we heard from the Shirelles and U2. Today, let’s give the last word to Peter Tosh and Mick Jagger (also frighteningly young in this video) doing “Don’t Look Back.” This song is NOT about following Jesus, but let’s just focus on the chorus, on the walking and not looking back part. God will take care of what’s behind us as we look forward.
So if you just put your hand in mine, We’re gonna leave all our troubles behind;
We gonna walk and don’t look back!
Jesus was in a tough mood the day he was vetting would-be disciples. Not only did he tell folks not to run home to bury their dead ; he didn’t even want them going back to say goodbye before they threw in their lot with him: Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Okay – I get that our life as agents of God’s Realm of power and love may need to come before our other commitments – but do we have to throw away our other relationships completely? Just abandon our families and friends?
As with everything else in the Scripture, we have to hold this statement in tension with the other things Jesus is recorded as having said and done. I pray there is more than one pattern of becoming a disciple. And if we take ourselves off the “judgment hook” this statement can generate, we’ll be better placed to find the good news in what Jesus said. We all recognize the tendency to want to look back; where do we find life in not giving in to that impulse?
For me, it comes back to this: the life of God is always forward, always ahead of us on the road. What has been is real and important and shapes where we are now, but we do not need to look back at the last place we encountered God. We are to trust that those encounters will multiply as we follow Jesus – as we spend time with him in prayer; learn from him in scripture; work with him in apostolic action. The more we move forward, the less we need to look back.
And what about those goodbyes? Don’t they need to be said? Perhaps – and maybe we are invited to trust that we will encounter those beloveds again in different ways. Maybe we don’t need to spend a lot of energy on goodbyes, because in God’s economy we remain connected in spirit to those whom we love, even if we’re not with them in body.
Earlier this week we heard from the Shirelles and U2. Today, let’s give the last word to Peter Tosh and Mick Jagger (also frighteningly young in this video) doing “Don’t Look Back.” This song is NOT about following Jesus, but let’s just focus on the chorus, on the walking and not looking back part. God will take care of what’s behind us as we look forward.
So if you just put your hand in mine, We’re gonna leave all our troubles behind;
We gonna walk and don’t look back!
6-23-22 - The Walking Living
You can listen to this reflection here.
Oh, man! We missed by one week having this gospel reading fall on Father’s Day. What fun preachers might have had dealing with Jesus’ words about wasting our time burying our fathers: To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
Sound a bit harsh? Isn’t it normal, a way of honoring your father and your mother, to give them a proper funeral? What kind of child would say, “Sorry – too busy,” to such a life moment? Well, maybe Jesus would answer, “The kind of child who sees himself first as a child of God. The kind of child who knows she is my follower first, and puts every other relationship second.” Does this sound like a cult? No doubt some of the families of those who left everything to follow Jesus did think they’d joined a cult. No one knew this “cult” would last 2,000 years and turn the world upside down.
What did Jesus mean by “Let the dead bury their own dead?” He meant that those who have been born anew in the Spirit are the living, and those who operate only out of their human, natural, “fleshly” life are as good as dead. (Perhaps he would also suggest that the energy and resources we put into tending and laying to rest the bodies of our loved ones after they have ceased to inhabit them is a misplaced priority for those who are called to proclaim life…)
Jesus was always redefining family values. Over and over he taught that the company of those who believe in him is the first family for his followers. Our primary job as followers of Christ is to proclaim the kingdom of God – the realm of God-Life. In the course of doing that we live in relationships with the people around us, including our families of origin, but we are not to value them more highly than we do our families of faith. And when our biological families distract from our discipleship, or worse become active obstacles to following in the Way of Jesus, we are to put Jesus first.
What reaction does this remark of Jesus’ provoke in you? Would it make you want to turn away and not follow him? Where might we see the life in his invitation to put our families of faith first?
It’s not all or nothing – at least I hope not. As we claim the Life of God already given to us we become not the walking dead but the walking living. And as we get about the business of proclaiming that Life of God unleashed in this world, and as we experience that Life, our priorities will be quite naturally reordered. Love is love.
Oh, man! We missed by one week having this gospel reading fall on Father’s Day. What fun preachers might have had dealing with Jesus’ words about wasting our time burying our fathers: To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
Sound a bit harsh? Isn’t it normal, a way of honoring your father and your mother, to give them a proper funeral? What kind of child would say, “Sorry – too busy,” to such a life moment? Well, maybe Jesus would answer, “The kind of child who sees himself first as a child of God. The kind of child who knows she is my follower first, and puts every other relationship second.” Does this sound like a cult? No doubt some of the families of those who left everything to follow Jesus did think they’d joined a cult. No one knew this “cult” would last 2,000 years and turn the world upside down.
What did Jesus mean by “Let the dead bury their own dead?” He meant that those who have been born anew in the Spirit are the living, and those who operate only out of their human, natural, “fleshly” life are as good as dead. (Perhaps he would also suggest that the energy and resources we put into tending and laying to rest the bodies of our loved ones after they have ceased to inhabit them is a misplaced priority for those who are called to proclaim life…)
Jesus was always redefining family values. Over and over he taught that the company of those who believe in him is the first family for his followers. Our primary job as followers of Christ is to proclaim the kingdom of God – the realm of God-Life. In the course of doing that we live in relationships with the people around us, including our families of origin, but we are not to value them more highly than we do our families of faith. And when our biological families distract from our discipleship, or worse become active obstacles to following in the Way of Jesus, we are to put Jesus first.
What reaction does this remark of Jesus’ provoke in you? Would it make you want to turn away and not follow him? Where might we see the life in his invitation to put our families of faith first?
It’s not all or nothing – at least I hope not. As we claim the Life of God already given to us we become not the walking dead but the walking living. And as we get about the business of proclaiming that Life of God unleashed in this world, and as we experience that Life, our priorities will be quite naturally reordered. Love is love.
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