12-29-23 - Word Embodied

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here. 

What good are words if they’re never put into action?
What good is a God you cannot see?

I rejoice in worshipping a God who made herself visible. God may have hoped humanity would understand his nearness and feel his love through messages and messengers, but in the fullness of time God entered human life in a radical way, specifically and particularly. That is the heart of this week’s good news for me:

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

That word “dwelt” can be rendered “abided with” or, most literally “pitched tent among.” The story of God, so far away, so holy, so “other,” moving into our neighborhood and settling down so that we can draw near – that’s a story that never gets old. I feel frustrated in how to convey it as Good News to a people for whom it has become hum-drum, and to others for whom “God” is entirely irrelevant, but I believe it is the heart of the gift Christians have for the world.

I know it’s hard for us to “see” that Word made flesh in our time, risen and ascended into heaven as he is, but through his Spirit we are able to know him in relationship, we can see him in other people. I will continue to seek to get inside that mystery and discover the “Word made flesh” who wants to know me and be known by me.

As Madeleine L’Engle wrote in her poem, “First Coming” (printed in full in the note I sent Christmas Day):

He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here.  Here are the bible readings Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

12-26-23 - Love In the Abstract

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here. 

How do you take your theology? Straight up or with a twist? Abstract or concrete? Philosophy or narrative? The gospels are flexible enough to incorporate many learning styles.

On Christmas Eve, we are steeped in story, personal and intimate, sweeping and glorious, each element a rich vein of symbol and language to convey how much God loves us. And then, on the first Sunday after Christmas, we make a sharp turn to the prologue of the Gospel of John, which is as abstract as a love story could possibly get.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Right off the bat, we are invited to suspend our literal mindedness (“how can something be with God and be God?”) and enter a swirl of words that convey a truth. What does “Word” mean? Most likely “logos,” translated as “word,” means something closer to “mind” or the “primal thought” of God. Does that make it more or less confusing?

That first paragraph tells the whole story – of what was before we were, of creation, of life and light, and light overcoming darkness. In theological language, we see the doctrines of God, Creation, Incarnation, Salvation – all in a few short lines.

But on Boxing Day, who is thinking about theological doctrines? Some of us are cleaning up, putting out bags of torn Christmas wrap. We may be enjoying another day with family and friends, or just resting from the frenzy. I hope no one is taking down Christmas decorations, as we have a full ten days more of Christmas to celebrate. (That siren you hear is the liturgical police ready to pull you over….)

If you take some devotional time today, you might read over the passage several times, slowly, and see where you get snagged. If something is confusing, take note. If something is pleasing, read that part again. What is the overall sense you come away with? What is the heart of the passage?

However it is that you best comprehend the story of God’s amazing love and desire to be close to you, I hope you are both shaken and stirred.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here.  Here are the bible readings Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

10-4-23 - The Son

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here. 

Many religious traditions revere figures who received a revelation which inspired that expression of spiritual life. Some have prophets, some gurus, some gods or goddesses, some martyrs. The Christian tradition goes further, claiming that, in addition to prophetic and angelic messengers, God sent his own son to reveal his truth and to set people free from the consequences of sin and death.

If an important person sends her daughter or son to represent her, it carries more weight than if an aide or staffer shows up. A daughter or son is more like that person, bearing her very DNA. The claim that Jesus of Nazareth was not only a good and holy man chosen by God as Messiah, but actually the incarnated son of God is a pretty big claim.

Why does it matter that we consider Jesus the fully human, fully divine Son of God? Jesus' incarnation is a gift for many reasons, an indication of how far God was willing to go to bridge the chasm to humankind. But perhaps it is in his sacrifice on the cross that the son-ship of Jesus matters most. As the sacrifice to end the whole bloody system of sacrifice, God offers the ultimate victim. As a friend once said, trying to explain the Cross – “You can’t get a bigger sacrificial victim than the Son of God.”

We can discuss another day whether Jesus had to die and how his sacrifice set us free… traditional Christian understanding says he did and it does; we must each find our way into that mystery. Today, let’s explore a smaller mystery – that in this parable, this very Son of God tells a story about a fictional son who will be beaten and killed by those charged with nurturing the harvest with which they’d been entrusted. Once again, Jesus is predicting his own death – and charging his listeners with murder. If they hadn’t already wanted to kill him, now they surely did.

In Jesus’ story, the wicked tenants seize the son, throw him out of the vineyard and kill him. Jesus was himself cast out by the temple leadership who could not swallow his claims of divinity – or his growing influence. They told themselves they were just getting rid of yet another troublemaker, not the Son of God. And yet Jesus’ son-ship remained a fact they had to deal with – even more after his death.

How does Jesus’ “son-ship” affect your faith? Do you feel closer to God through knowing Jesus, however imperfectly we may know him in this life?

These are questions worth exploring as we live into a relationship with God through the Son whom we meet in Yeshua of Nazareth. They are worth exploring in prayer – we can say simply, “Jesus, I want to know God more fully. Let me see you," and see what unfolds.

How does knowing Jesus help us draw nearer the mystery of God? Jesus told his followers that if they’d seen him, they’d seen the Father. The best way to find out is to invite the Holy Spirit to dwell with us. It is the Spirit who brings us the presence of Christ, every time.

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.

12-28-22 - Use Your Words

You can listen to this reflection here. Today's gospel reading is here. 

“Use your words.” I never thought to compare the God who rules the universe with a pre-verbal toddler, struggling to make herself understood, but that comes to mind as I think about the holy mystery at the heart of Christmas:

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth…

Why was the Incarnation of God’s Son necessary? In part, because of a communications breakdown. Because humankind could not understand the language in which God was communicating. We could not understand who God was. God had to use his Word – and give that Word flesh and send that Word to “pitch tent” among us and sojourn with us for a time, so that he could make God known to us.

No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

Jesus himself is worthy of our interest and attention and devotion. But if we forget that all that love and power and mercy and holiness and desire for justice was revealing to us who God is, we miss more than half the point. Jesus was simply demonstrating how things work in the realm of God, the Life of God. He was showing us God, making God known.

At Christmas, we celebrate God made known in the most vulnerable of states – and yet powerful enough to command the attendance of kings and angels. And, I hope, compelling enough to command our attention and love, in this 12-day season when we celebrate his wondrous birth. Christmas is just getting started.

God used his Word to make God’s love known. I pray that today, and every day, we will use our words to make God’s love known to one another, and to a world thirsty for meaning and connection.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are here. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

12-24-21 - Use Your Words

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here. 

“Use your words.” I never thought to compare the God who rules the universe with a pre-verbal toddler, struggling to make herself understood, but that’s what comes to mind as I think about the holy mystery at the heart of Christmas:

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth…

Why was the Incarnation of God’s Son necessary? In part, because of a communications breakdown. Because humankind could not understand the language in which God was communicating. We could not understand who God was. God had to use his Word – and give that Word flesh, and send that Word to “pitch tent” among us and sojourn with us for a time, so that he could make God known to us.

No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

Jesus himself is worthy of our interest and attention and devotion. But we miss more than half the point if we forget that all that love and power and mercy and holiness and desire for justice was revealing to us who God is. In demonstrating how things work in the realm of God, the Life of God, Jesus was showing us God, making God known.

Tonight we celebrate God made known in the most vulnerable of states – and yet powerful enough to command the attendance of kings and angels. And, I hope, compelling enough to command our attention and love, on this day when we celebrate his wondrous birth. Christmas has just begun.

A blessed Eve of the Feast of the Incarnation to you. God has used his Word to make God’s love known. I pray that today, and every day, we will use our words to make God’s love known to one another.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are  here. Water Daily is now a podcast!  Subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

12-3-21 - Another Song of Zechariah

Today we turn from Sunday's gospel to the story of two elders whom God invited into our story of Incarnation, Zechariah and Elizabeth, the aged parents of John the Baptist. This imagined monologue is based on Luke 1:5-25, 57-66. You can listen to this reflection here.

…the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

I didn’t hear much after “Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son.” She would what? We would have what? How? Why now? Why not… The questions filled me, knocking each other out of the way, jostling for attention. I will have a son? Elizabeth will bear a son? I am to have a small child in the house, to teach and raise? I am to have a namesake?

Ah no, I remember that much from what followed. He is to be called John. The angel, or whatever he was, said a lot of other things about this child yet to be, almost like someone already knew him quite well. An ascetic, he would be. A leader. A prophet. A holy man.

I only asked one thing – you wouldn’t have thought it so bad. “How will I know? I’m old, and Elizabeth is long past childbearing, not that that we were ever able to conceive.” How I can I now conceive the inconceivable?

“I said so,” said Gabriel, like that should be enough. “God sent me. You think an angel is going to show up in front of you and tell you something imaginary?” And for my temerity in asking a logical question, he made me mute. He took my speech. He took my language, my precious words, my ability to express, to convince, to curse, to bless.

Or did he give me something? The time, the space, the silence, to digest the crazy promise, the mission my son, my child, my already-beloved will have?

Time and space to try to grasp the promise of salvation, of a savior – for I know my son is to be connected to one who will deliver humanity, all the world, even the cosmos…

Time and space to contemplate being the father of one who will speak for God, a teacher, a path-maker, going before the coming savior, making hearts ready to receive that new life.

Time and space to absorb mercy, mercy I have never felt I needed, as a good and upright man from a priestly line. Mercy not only for me, but for all who sit in shadows and hopelessness.

Mercy not only for sin; mercy that brings new life into being, as the dawn brings forth a new day…  Mercy that makes whole.

Have I been made silent to receive that gift of peace?

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are here. Water Daily is now a podcast! Subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.