7-10-24 - Trust Fund Babies

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

What would it be like to be a “trust fund baby,” to have wealth sufficient to buy anything I want, to receive a steady stream of income my whole life? Would it be freeing? Deadening? Enabling of dysfunction or generosity or both? I'll probably never know in the financial sense, but I’m told I am the recipient of a pretty huge trust fund spiritually, one that I can access any time I want:

In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

This inheritance, which gives us access to the power that made the heavens, that can heal the sick and revive the soul, is already ours; “we have obtained” it. Paul lays out some steps to taking hold of it:

• hearing the word of truth, the Good News of access to the love of God; 
• believing in Jesus Christ; 
• being sealed in the Holy Spirit as a pledge on the inheritance to come. 

“Marked with the seal” refers to the chrismation in baptism, that moment when the baptizand is anointed with oil. In the Episcopal rite, this is accompanied by the words, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”

In that moment, we receive the gift of the Spirit in our lives, the Spirit of Christ with whom we are united in baptism. All the riches in that trust fund become available to us – the faith to believe in what cannot be seen, the power to heal what seems hopeless, the grace to forgive the unforgivable, the capacity to love beyond our own ability. That sealing, Paul says, is a pledge, a down payment, on the fullness of life in the Spirit that we will know in eternity, which we begin to live into in this life.

The question for us is: will we draw on the funds already available to us, or leave that account sitting idle? There is no benefit to leaving it alone – unlike most bank accounts, this fund only grows as it is drawn on; it accrues interest by being used. It will never run out, and there is no limit to how many times we can withdraw from it. God’s power is not rationed or constrained – we can pray for bad colds as well as world peace, and never exhaust the power and love there for us.

For what would you like to draw on that trust fund? Where around you do you perceive the need for healing, hope, forgiveness, peace, grace and love? Go ahead – take it out. The fund will not diminish.

We have heard the truth of the Gospel. We are invited to believe and to be baptized. We have received the promised Holy Spirit, and been given the bank card to access the funds. The password is Maranatha, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

© 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.

10-8-21 - Inheritance

You can listen to this reflection here.

Reading the gospel story set for this Sunday, I’m struck by a verb the man uses in his question to Jesus. He asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Inheritances, by definition, are received, not earned. One can work at being disinherited, but usually we inherit by virtue of being in relationship to one who leaves a legacy, not by what we do.

Jesus offers the man a relationship. He tells him how to disencumber himself of resources that he’s relying on and truly free himself, and then to come and enter into the relationship and receive the gifts of discipleship. The man is unable to accept, and goes away grieving.

Those folks who have already taken Jesus up on that offer are flabbergasted at the conclusion Jesus draws from this encounter, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” “Then who can be saved?,” they ask, suddenly anxious about their own positions. Peter reminds Jesus of all they have left behind to be with him – and how does Jesus respond? By telling them about the blessings they will receive now and the inheritance to come:

Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

Taking on God-Life has pay-offs as well as challenges in this life – and in the fullness of eternity we reap further blessings.

Jesus tells us that the way to come into that fullness is to let go of our temporal sources of security and follow him. And if this seems impossible, as impossible as a camel squeezing through the eye of a needle (and no, there was no narrow gate in Jerusalem – Jesus is being hyperbolic to make a point, as this article suggests…), Jesus reminds us that it is indeed impossible for us, though not for God. This God who desires to spend eternity with us will draw us in as we allow ourselves to be tethered. We're the camels in this scenario!

Can we part with our fortunes more readily if we really trust the inheritance that will be ours when none of our things and bank accounts matter anymore? Paul tells us in Ephesians that legacy is already ours, present in the power of the Spirit working through us. The Spirit is the down-payment, and we can start spending right now.

And the thing about spending that capital? It makes us less attached to the kind in our bank accounts. The more Spirit-power we spend, the freer we get. That’s the legacy of relationship with Jesus, and it never ends.

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11-5-13 - Borrowing from the Future

In the 1st century referendum on resurrection, Jesus votes firmly in the “yes” camp. Speaking of “…those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead,” he says, “Indeed they cannot die any more, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.”

What does it mean to be “children of the resurrection?” How do we live, if we believe that our physical form will pass away, but somehow our essential self-ness will live on eternally? Does having an eternal destiny make any difference to the way we live here and how, how or if we vote today?

Many reject resurrection as fanciful wish-fulfillment, an inability to confront the finality of death. I can’t argue it – I’m just going on faith in a story (and man) whose power I have seen and felt. I am interested, though, in whether the eternal part of the equation makes a difference to my life now.

I think it does, if I am conscious of the power of resurrection at work in me now, already, not only at my physical death. Paul writes that those who believe receive the Spirit as a down payment on the inheritance that will one day be fully ours (Eph 1:13-14). When we call on the power of God’s Spirit in prayer, in healing, in bringing justice, in bearing truth, in lightening darkness – it is resurrection power we wield. When we invoke Christ, we are living into our resurrection selves here and now. “Same power that conquered the grave lives in me, lives in me,” goes one praise chorus I like to sing.

In more biblical language, here's Paul in Romans 8:1 - "And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.”

One of the best phrases I’ve heard for this is "borrowing from the future." We are baptized into a promise of resurrection life. That life is already ours by faith. Our challenge is to remember that that life runs through our veins as well as temporal life. Sickness and death don’t have the last word. Obstacles and character challenges don’t have the last word. That down payment is already in our account – and we've received the bank card and password. We can borrow from that future as much as we want – it'll never run out.

So what would you like to bring some resurrection power to bear on today? What personal or world problem? What personal challenge? Begin to see new life in it, or in you, or in another person. Begin to believe resurrection life into it.

Borrowing from the future doesn’t negate the present – it brings God's power to it. Today is election day. If we believe in forever, transforming the now matters very much. Go out and vote for the candidates you believe will best bring justice and peace to your community, and then work alongside them. They don’t have to know where your power comes from… unless you decide to tell.