You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Our Sunday lectionary doesn't let us linger on Easter morning; by next Sunday we’ve jumped to the evening. So today we will look at next week's Gospel, and the rest of the week explore the Gospel appointed for each day in Easter Week, various encounters Jesus’ followers had with his resurrected self.
By the time we meet Jesus’ disciples huddled in that upper room Easter night, they’ve had a very long, strange, dislocating day. It began before daybreak, when some women hurried to the tomb to do for Jesus’ body what Sabbath laws forbade them to do on Friday; a day that went from sad to joyful and bizarre as they were met at that now-empty tomb by an angel (or two) announcing that Jesus was risen. And then, there he was, right there on the road in front of the women, saying, “Tell my brothers to meet me in Galilee,” a travel bulletin which has always struck me as a bit prosaic from someone who’s just been to Death and back…
Yet Jesus’ disciples have not gone to Galilee but are holed up in that room – perhaps the one where they’d celebrated the Passover a few nights earlier, a lifetime ago: When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
“Peace be with you.” I can imagine many emotions those men and women probably experienced that day, and none of them involve peace. Here they are, trying to process the cosmic developments they’ve witnessed, while hiding in a locked room because the threat to their lives has just intensified. And here is Jesus, just suddenly there, despite the doors shut and locked? “Peace be with you?”
But Jesus doesn’t only say, “Peace.” He can impart peace. This is the man whom they saw still a violent storm, and calm a violent man. This is the friend they watched endure ridicule and torture and betrayal and a horrible death. When Jesus says, “Peace,” he has the power to generate it. It worked on them – soon they are rejoicing.
And then he breathes upon them, imparting the Holy Spirit and authorizing them to release or to retain sins, to bind or to set free. Jesus’ mission was to set humanity free. Now he sends us to participate in that mission, and he breathes upon us his Holy Spirit. Take a deep breath in…. hold it, let it expand in you…. Feel the life of God fill you. And then exhale, breathing God’s forgiving love out upon someone (maybe yourself..). Then do it again.
Jesus invites us to rejoice too, even in the pain and disruption of global crises. Jesus is still risen! He still speaks peace to us, and as we let his presence live in us, we can feel that peace spreading through our minds and bodies and spirits. This is one way we know we have received God’s Spirit. This is one way Easter becomes real for us.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. 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 peace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts
12-24-25 - The Perfect Christmas
You can listen to this reflection here. The gospel reading for Christmas is here.
Do you labor under the illusion of the “perfect Christmas?” All shopping/wrapping/ baking/decorating done, family gathered in harmonious conviviality, Santa having delivered everything everybody wanted and more? The pastor’s version is all that PLUS all bulletins finished/pageant rehearsed/ special music ready, and the Spirit having delivered to you a brief but brilliant, life-transforming word to share with those gathered in the church for one chaotic hour – perhaps the only one that year.
Every year I swear I will be oh-so calm and serene and oh-so ready for Christmas Eve that even I will have a spiritual encounter with God. Who am I kidding? If Luke’s story has any historical accuracy, the Holy Night we celebrate was a mess, its protagonists exhausted, scared, lonely, anxious, no doubt cranky. And at least one was in agonizing pain, delivering her first child in a stable, with only her betrothed to help her – and he more helpless than she.
Mary and Joseph didn’t want to be in Bethlehem, especially not when her delivery was so imminent. They were there at the behest of a cruel tyrant seeking to squeeze more taxes out of a conquered people. Luke is so specific about the people in power at that time – Caesar Augustus, Quirinius; and the towns Mary and Joseph traveled from and to – Nazareth in Galilee, Bethlehem in Judea. His specificity reminds us that the gift of God in flesh, Emmanuel, God-with-us was not general and vague, but personal, bounded in human time, space and history. And emotion.
Jesus didn’t come into this world on an eiderdown comforter. He came into a mess, a chaotic night in which a young couple desperately sought accommodation in a strange city, finally accepting the offer of space with household livestock as the birth pangs became more urgent. He came into a political and religious mess, to a people exhausted by generations of oppression at the hands of successive occupying empires.
And he comes into our mess. If we’re feeling harried, that Amazon order still unplaced, Christmas cards not yet embarked upon, arguing with our spouse or children or both – don’t think you’re not in the Christmas spirit. You’re ONE with the Christmas spirit, the original one.
Where are you today? What feels most urgent? Is it something life-giving or spirit-dampening? Name the feelings attached to the urgency or stress. Naming feelings frees us to usher them away, their work of making us pay attention done.
Invite Jesus to be with you in what you’re feeling. As we accept his presence in our turmoil, we may become readier to identify with what he experienced as a newborn – complete vulnerability, confusion, cold.
And if you’re actually ready and serene, glory to God in the highest, and peace to God’s people on earth! That’s the Christmas spirit too. Get out and share that calm with someone harried. Getting to Bethlehem can be a stressful slog, and a journey full of pain and expectation. All of the above. We’re right where we’re supposed to be.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Christmas Day. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Do you labor under the illusion of the “perfect Christmas?” All shopping/wrapping/ baking/decorating done, family gathered in harmonious conviviality, Santa having delivered everything everybody wanted and more? The pastor’s version is all that PLUS all bulletins finished/pageant rehearsed/ special music ready, and the Spirit having delivered to you a brief but brilliant, life-transforming word to share with those gathered in the church for one chaotic hour – perhaps the only one that year.
Every year I swear I will be oh-so calm and serene and oh-so ready for Christmas Eve that even I will have a spiritual encounter with God. Who am I kidding? If Luke’s story has any historical accuracy, the Holy Night we celebrate was a mess, its protagonists exhausted, scared, lonely, anxious, no doubt cranky. And at least one was in agonizing pain, delivering her first child in a stable, with only her betrothed to help her – and he more helpless than she.
Mary and Joseph didn’t want to be in Bethlehem, especially not when her delivery was so imminent. They were there at the behest of a cruel tyrant seeking to squeeze more taxes out of a conquered people. Luke is so specific about the people in power at that time – Caesar Augustus, Quirinius; and the towns Mary and Joseph traveled from and to – Nazareth in Galilee, Bethlehem in Judea. His specificity reminds us that the gift of God in flesh, Emmanuel, God-with-us was not general and vague, but personal, bounded in human time, space and history. And emotion.
Jesus didn’t come into this world on an eiderdown comforter. He came into a mess, a chaotic night in which a young couple desperately sought accommodation in a strange city, finally accepting the offer of space with household livestock as the birth pangs became more urgent. He came into a political and religious mess, to a people exhausted by generations of oppression at the hands of successive occupying empires.
And he comes into our mess. If we’re feeling harried, that Amazon order still unplaced, Christmas cards not yet embarked upon, arguing with our spouse or children or both – don’t think you’re not in the Christmas spirit. You’re ONE with the Christmas spirit, the original one.
Where are you today? What feels most urgent? Is it something life-giving or spirit-dampening? Name the feelings attached to the urgency or stress. Naming feelings frees us to usher them away, their work of making us pay attention done.
Invite Jesus to be with you in what you’re feeling. As we accept his presence in our turmoil, we may become readier to identify with what he experienced as a newborn – complete vulnerability, confusion, cold.
And if you’re actually ready and serene, glory to God in the highest, and peace to God’s people on earth! That’s the Christmas spirit too. Get out and share that calm with someone harried. Getting to Bethlehem can be a stressful slog, and a journey full of pain and expectation. All of the above. We’re right where we’re supposed to be.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Christmas Day. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
11-14-25 - An End To Violence
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's reading from the Hebrew Bible is here.
The portion of Isaiah we’re looking at depicts different visions of peace and security. It goes beyond human life to show peace reigning in the natural world, with an image dubbed “The Peaceable Kingdom.” “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox…”
In this vision, predator-prey relationships are completely overturned; in fact, there are no predators. Carnivores have become vegetarians – a return to life in the Garden of Eden, in which plants and trees provided all the food that was needed, in which there was no killing to eat, no killing to settle scores. All that came outside the Garden, after the first man and woman were expelled. "They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain," says the LORD. No one will hurt. No one will be hurt.
Every time I'm on a highway, I pass the carcasses of deer and other animals slain by humans moving too quickly to get somewhere that seems more important than the world around them. It is an awful counter-narrative to Isaiah’s. Oh, I realize that in part deer are vulnerable because predator-prey relationships have been overturned in other, less positive ways in our world; as wolves and other predators have been decimated, their natural prey have to go further for food, wandering onto our roadways. And I know that the natural order can also be fierce and dangerous. But my spirit takes a hit whenever I see a dead animal. I immediately pray for its spirit to be running free with Jesus.
So this image is powerful for me. It proclaims: “The order we call natural has been undone and remade by God.” I want the lamb and the wolf to hang out together – I love wolves, I love lambs. I want the lion to like eating ox food, not oxen. And yes, I want people to stop slaughtering animals and one another. Call me hopelessly naïve. I find this vision compelling – even more so in this week when we mark Veterans or Remembrance Day, as we remember the sacrifice of so many men and women and families in the human way of conflict we call “natural.”
What we do as people of faith is to call into being what is not yet. In Romans 4:17, Paul refers to God as the one “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” If it already exists in the mind of God, it already is; what we do when we pray is invite it to be made known in the here and now. So God puts out this vision in Isaiah of a restored creation with peace and security for every living creature – we add our faith to it, and it will be. Sooner or later…Transformation happens.
I want to add my faith to this beautiful vision. What visions do you want to call into being? Where are your prayers leading you today?
Earlier in Isaiah, the prophet sketches this vision also, with a different ending: “The lion shall lie down with the lamb… and a little child shall lead them.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
© 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.
The portion of Isaiah we’re looking at depicts different visions of peace and security. It goes beyond human life to show peace reigning in the natural world, with an image dubbed “The Peaceable Kingdom.” “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox…”
In this vision, predator-prey relationships are completely overturned; in fact, there are no predators. Carnivores have become vegetarians – a return to life in the Garden of Eden, in which plants and trees provided all the food that was needed, in which there was no killing to eat, no killing to settle scores. All that came outside the Garden, after the first man and woman were expelled. "They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain," says the LORD. No one will hurt. No one will be hurt.
Every time I'm on a highway, I pass the carcasses of deer and other animals slain by humans moving too quickly to get somewhere that seems more important than the world around them. It is an awful counter-narrative to Isaiah’s. Oh, I realize that in part deer are vulnerable because predator-prey relationships have been overturned in other, less positive ways in our world; as wolves and other predators have been decimated, their natural prey have to go further for food, wandering onto our roadways. And I know that the natural order can also be fierce and dangerous. But my spirit takes a hit whenever I see a dead animal. I immediately pray for its spirit to be running free with Jesus.
So this image is powerful for me. It proclaims: “The order we call natural has been undone and remade by God.” I want the lamb and the wolf to hang out together – I love wolves, I love lambs. I want the lion to like eating ox food, not oxen. And yes, I want people to stop slaughtering animals and one another. Call me hopelessly naïve. I find this vision compelling – even more so in this week when we mark Veterans or Remembrance Day, as we remember the sacrifice of so many men and women and families in the human way of conflict we call “natural.”
What we do as people of faith is to call into being what is not yet. In Romans 4:17, Paul refers to God as the one “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” If it already exists in the mind of God, it already is; what we do when we pray is invite it to be made known in the here and now. So God puts out this vision in Isaiah of a restored creation with peace and security for every living creature – we add our faith to it, and it will be. Sooner or later…Transformation happens.
I want to add my faith to this beautiful vision. What visions do you want to call into being? Where are your prayers leading you today?
Earlier in Isaiah, the prophet sketches this vision also, with a different ending: “The lion shall lie down with the lamb… and a little child shall lead them.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
© 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.
11-13-25 - New Heavens/New Earth
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's reading from the Hebrew Bible is here.
For the rest of this week we will focus on one of the readings from the Hebrew Bible set for Sunday, a beautiful prophecy in Isaiah, in which God announces: “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth.” This promise is timely.
Many Christians express their faith and hope in God’s justice by working to ensure equality for all members of our society – people of all colors, genders, levels of wealth, sexual orientations, countries of origin, religious traditions. They see this as is a way of harnessing the power of heaven, to participate with God in bringing about that new earth. Isaiah gives voice to this yearning for peace and security which should be the birthright of every man, woman and child – and animal – on this planet. He articulates beautifully the hope of a restored creation living in harmony: I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime...
I think of families grieving the death of elders or infants who did not have access to affordable healthcare; women and girls who see protection for women being stripped away and now feel less secure; people of color watching the resurgence of unabashed white supremacy, afraid for their children; men and women who have lost children and spouses, brothers and uncles to ever increasing levels of gun violence – the sound of weeping never quite dies away.
I think of the promise of security and work and rest depicted in this prophecy: They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat…
This is true peace, when each person can live in safety in her own home, bringing up his children to thrive in trust. This is the world God says he is bringing into being. This is the promise we are invited to participate in making real. And that work is still before us. Perhaps the challenge is greater now, but the work remains, and we do not do it alone.
For the rest of this week we will focus on one of the readings from the Hebrew Bible set for Sunday, a beautiful prophecy in Isaiah, in which God announces: “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth.” This promise is timely.
Many Christians express their faith and hope in God’s justice by working to ensure equality for all members of our society – people of all colors, genders, levels of wealth, sexual orientations, countries of origin, religious traditions. They see this as is a way of harnessing the power of heaven, to participate with God in bringing about that new earth. Isaiah gives voice to this yearning for peace and security which should be the birthright of every man, woman and child – and animal – on this planet. He articulates beautifully the hope of a restored creation living in harmony: I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime...
I think of families grieving the death of elders or infants who did not have access to affordable healthcare; women and girls who see protection for women being stripped away and now feel less secure; people of color watching the resurgence of unabashed white supremacy, afraid for their children; men and women who have lost children and spouses, brothers and uncles to ever increasing levels of gun violence – the sound of weeping never quite dies away.
I think of the promise of security and work and rest depicted in this prophecy: They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat…
This is true peace, when each person can live in safety in her own home, bringing up his children to thrive in trust. This is the world God says he is bringing into being. This is the promise we are invited to participate in making real. And that work is still before us. Perhaps the challenge is greater now, but the work remains, and we do not do it alone.
- What do you long for when you think of God making new heavens and a new earth?
- What aspect of life in this world do you feel called to help renew?
- Where do you want to put your energies?
Start by praying about that area, and imagining yourself making a difference, in the power of the Spirit. What do you see yourself doing or saying? Keep inviting God into it. I know I will keep working and praying for peace on our streets and honor in the halls of power. “They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.”
I believe in the power of love to transform and convert the most evil heart. I have to, despite evidence to the contrary. The evidence is not more powerful than the power and the promise of God. God is creating the new heavens and the new earth – and we are here at the beginning. Every day.
© 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.
I believe in the power of love to transform and convert the most evil heart. I have to, despite evidence to the contrary. The evidence is not more powerful than the power and the promise of God. God is creating the new heavens and the new earth – and we are here at the beginning. Every day.
© 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.
11-4-25 - Blessing Our Enemies
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Conflict saps our energy. Sustained conflict can drain our spirits dry. Many of us live with high levels of vitriol on our social media feeds and airwaves. Even those who have pared their lists of friends or followers to the like-minded cannot escape the chasms of division that grow ever deeper.
“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt."
The Way that Jesus invited people to walk was, and is, unnatural for human beings. It is natural to protect yourself and those whom you love, to punish or retaliate when attacked, to hold on to your stuff and decide when and to whom you are going to give your shirt. Yet followers of Christ are called to the super-natural. We are asked to give beyond our natural capacity – and so to ever expand our capacity for giving until we have no more “mine,” just “yours, God.”
What happens when we love someone who hates us, who desires harm for us? We bless them, and thus bless ourselves. We make a space for love where there didn’t appear to be any. We trust that someone will be touched and transformed by that love – maybe the self-declared enemy, or an observer, or we ourselves, even as we risk injury or death in the physical realm.
What happens when we pray for someone who abuses us? This is painful ground, and it cannot be rushed. When we can come to that place, though, we make space for freedom – in our own spirits, in our interactions. We might even create space for perpetrators to come to repentance and healing even if we have no further relationship with them.
But are we really to let someone hit us twice? Are we not to defend ourselves? Of all Jesus’ hard sayings, perhaps this has been most often twisted against victims of violence. I do not believe Jesus is talking about relationships here; he is talking to peacemakers and protesters and makers of justice. If in those contexts we refuse to engage in violence, we model the peace we are proclaiming. We subvert the aggressors and strengthen others to stand against injustice.
And when we give our shirt to one who steals our coat, we proclaim our confidence in God’s provision, and we say to that one “You are worth more than my possessions. And you are better than this.” Will that person listen? That’s not up to us. Our call is to bear witness.
Can I live like this? I don’t know. I appreciate diving deeper into a text I rarely examine, to remember that God has given us more than we deserve and forgiven us more than we can ever comprehend. And I know that with God all things are possible, even living this Way of Love.
© 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.
Conflict saps our energy. Sustained conflict can drain our spirits dry. Many of us live with high levels of vitriol on our social media feeds and airwaves. Even those who have pared their lists of friends or followers to the like-minded cannot escape the chasms of division that grow ever deeper.
“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt."
The Way that Jesus invited people to walk was, and is, unnatural for human beings. It is natural to protect yourself and those whom you love, to punish or retaliate when attacked, to hold on to your stuff and decide when and to whom you are going to give your shirt. Yet followers of Christ are called to the super-natural. We are asked to give beyond our natural capacity – and so to ever expand our capacity for giving until we have no more “mine,” just “yours, God.”
What happens when we love someone who hates us, who desires harm for us? We bless them, and thus bless ourselves. We make a space for love where there didn’t appear to be any. We trust that someone will be touched and transformed by that love – maybe the self-declared enemy, or an observer, or we ourselves, even as we risk injury or death in the physical realm.
What happens when we pray for someone who abuses us? This is painful ground, and it cannot be rushed. When we can come to that place, though, we make space for freedom – in our own spirits, in our interactions. We might even create space for perpetrators to come to repentance and healing even if we have no further relationship with them.
But are we really to let someone hit us twice? Are we not to defend ourselves? Of all Jesus’ hard sayings, perhaps this has been most often twisted against victims of violence. I do not believe Jesus is talking about relationships here; he is talking to peacemakers and protesters and makers of justice. If in those contexts we refuse to engage in violence, we model the peace we are proclaiming. We subvert the aggressors and strengthen others to stand against injustice.
And when we give our shirt to one who steals our coat, we proclaim our confidence in God’s provision, and we say to that one “You are worth more than my possessions. And you are better than this.” Will that person listen? That’s not up to us. Our call is to bear witness.
Can I live like this? I don’t know. I appreciate diving deeper into a text I rarely examine, to remember that God has given us more than we deserve and forgiven us more than we can ever comprehend. And I know that with God all things are possible, even living this Way of Love.
© 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.
5-23-25 - Healing of the Nations
You can listen to this reflection here.
We move now from the healing of persons to the healing of the nations; from the pool of healing in our Gospel story to the healing river mentioned in the end of Revelation: Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
What a beautiful picture of the new heavens and the new earth, picking up on the vision of a restoring river in Ezekiel 47, which also had fruit trees on each bank, their leaves for healing. In the new vision the healing has been broadened to the healing of the nations.
We move now from the healing of persons to the healing of the nations; from the pool of healing in our Gospel story to the healing river mentioned in the end of Revelation: Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
What a beautiful picture of the new heavens and the new earth, picking up on the vision of a restoring river in Ezekiel 47, which also had fruit trees on each bank, their leaves for healing. In the new vision the healing has been broadened to the healing of the nations.
This resonates with a theme in our reading from Acts as well: ...Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.
Does the healing power of Christ extend to nations? There is only one way to find out. Perhaps we feel feeble in our prayers for peace and an end to brutal invasion, terror and starvation, oppression and exploitation, because the needs are so vast, the pain so entrenched. It is hard to see dramatic outcomes to such prayers. The bigger the wound, the more complex the condition, the longer it can take to heal it – but our prayers do not go unheard. Maybe through our prayers we strengthen peace-makers. Maybe our prayers influence people in authority, or grass-roots activists. Maybe circumstances change. We don’t know – we only know that the healing stream that flows through and around us is intended for the whole world.
Maybe each day we should comb the news for one name in a conflict-ridden area, one name that leaps out at us, and make it our task to pray for that person to be fully blessed.
When Paul and his companions acted on his vision and traveled to Macedonia, they found a river there, by which there was a place of prayer. And there they met a woman named Lydia, who was brought to faith in Jesus Christ through Paul’s words, and she and her whole household were baptized. No one would have expected that – but strangers now became family in faith. Who knows what fruit came of that encounter – generations of Christ-followers, perhaps.
We don’t know where the healing stream is to flow, but It is up to us to be water-carriers, bearing that water of life to every place and person in need of it. In the end, all nations will be healed, and God will reign.
© 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.
Does the healing power of Christ extend to nations? There is only one way to find out. Perhaps we feel feeble in our prayers for peace and an end to brutal invasion, terror and starvation, oppression and exploitation, because the needs are so vast, the pain so entrenched. It is hard to see dramatic outcomes to such prayers. The bigger the wound, the more complex the condition, the longer it can take to heal it – but our prayers do not go unheard. Maybe through our prayers we strengthen peace-makers. Maybe our prayers influence people in authority, or grass-roots activists. Maybe circumstances change. We don’t know – we only know that the healing stream that flows through and around us is intended for the whole world.
Maybe each day we should comb the news for one name in a conflict-ridden area, one name that leaps out at us, and make it our task to pray for that person to be fully blessed.
When Paul and his companions acted on his vision and traveled to Macedonia, they found a river there, by which there was a place of prayer. And there they met a woman named Lydia, who was brought to faith in Jesus Christ through Paul’s words, and she and her whole household were baptized. No one would have expected that – but strangers now became family in faith. Who knows what fruit came of that encounter – generations of Christ-followers, perhaps.
We don’t know where the healing stream is to flow, but It is up to us to be water-carriers, bearing that water of life to every place and person in need of it. In the end, all nations will be healed, and God will reign.
© 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.
3-20-25 - Fertilizer
You can listen to this reflection here.
The landowner in the story Jesus told about the unfruitful fig tree makes a very harsh assessment about this tree: It is wasting the soil. The response of his gardener is to deal not with the tree, but with the soil: "So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"
This gardener is a believer in second chances, in improving the conditions in which something (or someone…) can thrive. He does not blame the tree; he does not think it is squandering the very soil in which it sits. He thinks the soil needs some improvement, some aerating, so water and carbon can get to the roots of the tree. And he thinks it needs fertilizing, to add nutrients and catalyze growth.
I am not a biologist, but I am fascinated by the efficiency of eco-systems, whether within the human body or in the natural world. The way limbs and leaves fall and decay, generating nutrients which help bring about new growth in the next season is but one example of organic economy. Nothing is wasted – even waste products.
The same can be true of our lives. In what ways has the “manure” generated in your life functioned to fertilize new growth? Often we don’t want to look at our emotional waste – it’s ugly and smelly and dark, like the biological kind. We’d rather flush it away. But what if we invited God to help us use that matter for growth? What if we asked what use that failed relationship or thwarted professional venture or even trauma could possibly be for our future fruitfulness?
Here I’m venturing into icky territory, but I am fascinated by the uses which medicine is finding for human waste. The careful reintroduction of “cleaned” excrement back into someone’s system can restore the balance of gut biomes, resolve ailments like C.diff and celiac disease, and possibly even cure conditions such as MS. (Here is a compelling and easy to read New Yorker article from a few years back about medical uses of excrement.) I think there is a spiritual analogy here.
This is one purpose for repentance – not to wallow in our “manure,” but to bring into the light things of which we are not proud, to bring healing and redemption into our wounds or failures – and just maybe render them useful to us in the future. Left alone, they just accumulate and decay, building up noxious gases in our psyches. But when we aerate our soil, inviting in light and air, that which seems most useless can become the ground of new growth. We can do this in therapy, in the confessional, or both.
This is true of societal detritus as well as personal. Our attempts to flush away cultural sins such as racism and chronic poverty have not brought healing. We need to reckon with the effects, address the horrors, feel the feelings if we hope to move through the trauma to a new way of being. This is the approach Restorative Justice takes – it can break cycles of vengeance and lead to freedom and new relationships. Maybe learning how to repurpose our waste – compost our failures – can result in the fruit of justice and peace.
© 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.
The landowner in the story Jesus told about the unfruitful fig tree makes a very harsh assessment about this tree: It is wasting the soil. The response of his gardener is to deal not with the tree, but with the soil: "So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"
This gardener is a believer in second chances, in improving the conditions in which something (or someone…) can thrive. He does not blame the tree; he does not think it is squandering the very soil in which it sits. He thinks the soil needs some improvement, some aerating, so water and carbon can get to the roots of the tree. And he thinks it needs fertilizing, to add nutrients and catalyze growth.
I am not a biologist, but I am fascinated by the efficiency of eco-systems, whether within the human body or in the natural world. The way limbs and leaves fall and decay, generating nutrients which help bring about new growth in the next season is but one example of organic economy. Nothing is wasted – even waste products.
The same can be true of our lives. In what ways has the “manure” generated in your life functioned to fertilize new growth? Often we don’t want to look at our emotional waste – it’s ugly and smelly and dark, like the biological kind. We’d rather flush it away. But what if we invited God to help us use that matter for growth? What if we asked what use that failed relationship or thwarted professional venture or even trauma could possibly be for our future fruitfulness?
Here I’m venturing into icky territory, but I am fascinated by the uses which medicine is finding for human waste. The careful reintroduction of “cleaned” excrement back into someone’s system can restore the balance of gut biomes, resolve ailments like C.diff and celiac disease, and possibly even cure conditions such as MS. (Here is a compelling and easy to read New Yorker article from a few years back about medical uses of excrement.) I think there is a spiritual analogy here.
This is one purpose for repentance – not to wallow in our “manure,” but to bring into the light things of which we are not proud, to bring healing and redemption into our wounds or failures – and just maybe render them useful to us in the future. Left alone, they just accumulate and decay, building up noxious gases in our psyches. But when we aerate our soil, inviting in light and air, that which seems most useless can become the ground of new growth. We can do this in therapy, in the confessional, or both.
This is true of societal detritus as well as personal. Our attempts to flush away cultural sins such as racism and chronic poverty have not brought healing. We need to reckon with the effects, address the horrors, feel the feelings if we hope to move through the trauma to a new way of being. This is the approach Restorative Justice takes – it can break cycles of vengeance and lead to freedom and new relationships. Maybe learning how to repurpose our waste – compost our failures – can result in the fruit of justice and peace.
© 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.
6-20-24 - Calm
You can listen to this reflection here.
Sometimes it seems like God can take an awfully long time to swing into action. Maybe that’s because things that seem insurmountable to us are just a matter of a word for God, and what strikes us as nail-bitingly late is right on time for the Creator of the universe.
In this week’s gospel story, when the disciples find themselves imperiled in a sudden squall on the Sea of Galilee, and they discover Jesus in the stern, blithely sleeping through all the excitement, they wake him up, saying, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ Jesus does not get up and join the hysteria. He just calmly exercises his authority over creation: He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.
One word from Jesus, and it all died down. No more wind, no more waves, no more panicked heartbeats. In fact, we’re told, there was a dead calm. It went not back to normal, but to a complete calm. Jesus did not have to pray in a dramatic fashion, whip up a frenzy of faith, plead with the heavens – he just calmly spoke peace to the elements, and his word had the power to calm, to make things so still it could only have been by his action – Jesus doesn’t do things by halves.
But why did he wait so long? Well – was it so long? Didn’t Jesus act as soon as he was asked? The better question might be, why did the disciples take so long to ask for help? Why do we so often get ourselves into a state, deep into a difficult situation before we think to ask Jesus for help?
Reading the news can put me into spasms of anxiety and outright fear. Each time I remember to invite Christ’s peace to fill me and overwhelm the fear; every time I invoke the perfect love that casts out fear, I come into calm. Sometimes I remind another to do that, and others remind me, and pray for me. Christian community is a wonderful gift that way.
Peacefulness and calm are markers of God-Life. Not that the Spirit is some kind of spiritual Prozac, evening everything out – Jesus certainly displayed emotions like righteous anger, grief, praise. But storminess is not the way of God. A Lord who can rebuke the wind and command the sea is a Lord who can still our spirits, as we ask, and as we allow.
Maybe the reason it sometimes takes us so long to feel his peace is because our spirits, with all their freedom, are not yet as responsive to Jesus’ command as are the winds and waves.
© 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.
Sometimes it seems like God can take an awfully long time to swing into action. Maybe that’s because things that seem insurmountable to us are just a matter of a word for God, and what strikes us as nail-bitingly late is right on time for the Creator of the universe.
In this week’s gospel story, when the disciples find themselves imperiled in a sudden squall on the Sea of Galilee, and they discover Jesus in the stern, blithely sleeping through all the excitement, they wake him up, saying, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ Jesus does not get up and join the hysteria. He just calmly exercises his authority over creation: He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.
One word from Jesus, and it all died down. No more wind, no more waves, no more panicked heartbeats. In fact, we’re told, there was a dead calm. It went not back to normal, but to a complete calm. Jesus did not have to pray in a dramatic fashion, whip up a frenzy of faith, plead with the heavens – he just calmly spoke peace to the elements, and his word had the power to calm, to make things so still it could only have been by his action – Jesus doesn’t do things by halves.
But why did he wait so long? Well – was it so long? Didn’t Jesus act as soon as he was asked? The better question might be, why did the disciples take so long to ask for help? Why do we so often get ourselves into a state, deep into a difficult situation before we think to ask Jesus for help?
Reading the news can put me into spasms of anxiety and outright fear. Each time I remember to invite Christ’s peace to fill me and overwhelm the fear; every time I invoke the perfect love that casts out fear, I come into calm. Sometimes I remind another to do that, and others remind me, and pray for me. Christian community is a wonderful gift that way.
Peacefulness and calm are markers of God-Life. Not that the Spirit is some kind of spiritual Prozac, evening everything out – Jesus certainly displayed emotions like righteous anger, grief, praise. But storminess is not the way of God. A Lord who can rebuke the wind and command the sea is a Lord who can still our spirits, as we ask, and as we allow.
Maybe the reason it sometimes takes us so long to feel his peace is because our spirits, with all their freedom, are not yet as responsive to Jesus’ command as are the winds and waves.
© 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.
7-6-23 - Come Unto Me
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Were sweeter words ever found in Scripture for a harried people? “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
To be a disciple means taking on the discipline of a master, doing whatever he or she tells you to do. The Pharisees and teachers of the law demanded much of their followers, to keep the Law of Moses perfectly in every particular. Nuances of love, mercy and relationship often fell by the wayside. The burdens of these demands were heavy indeed, and never satisfactorily met - except by the Teachers, of course.
We can say the same of the demands our culture places upon us – to be more productive, more successful, more financially secure, more fashionable, attractive, sweet-smelling, popular… you name it. The new law is no less onerous than the old. And so Jesus’ invitation is alive for us as well.
We take on a yoke when we take on Christ’s life, as oxen are fitted with an apparatus so they can pull a cart. We offer our obedience to him and take on the ministry of being his apostles, his witnesses – proclaiming the Good News, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, freeing the captives. Like his original disciples, we may be called to give up things or people we find precious for rewards only known later.
But Jesus says his yoke is easy, and his burden is light. Unlike the burden of the Law-bound, his is the yoke of freedom in God. Unlike the arrogant Teachers, he is gentle and humble in heart; he was never ashamed to eat with obvious sinners and people on the margins.
Do you want to find rest for your soul? In many of us, our soul feels restless, especially in a culture that does not privilege space for the spiritual. Have you experienced knowing Jesus as restful or stressful? If stressful, we might take a look at what part of his message we’re focusing on. What can you do today to find rest for your soul?
Whether you are in the midst of work stress, or easing into a summer vacation, I suggest you start with some “soul rest” time in Jesus’ presence. Hand off your burdens and take on his promise of peace. And then spread it around.
Were sweeter words ever found in Scripture for a harried people? “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
To be a disciple means taking on the discipline of a master, doing whatever he or she tells you to do. The Pharisees and teachers of the law demanded much of their followers, to keep the Law of Moses perfectly in every particular. Nuances of love, mercy and relationship often fell by the wayside. The burdens of these demands were heavy indeed, and never satisfactorily met - except by the Teachers, of course.
We can say the same of the demands our culture places upon us – to be more productive, more successful, more financially secure, more fashionable, attractive, sweet-smelling, popular… you name it. The new law is no less onerous than the old. And so Jesus’ invitation is alive for us as well.
We take on a yoke when we take on Christ’s life, as oxen are fitted with an apparatus so they can pull a cart. We offer our obedience to him and take on the ministry of being his apostles, his witnesses – proclaiming the Good News, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, freeing the captives. Like his original disciples, we may be called to give up things or people we find precious for rewards only known later.
But Jesus says his yoke is easy, and his burden is light. Unlike the burden of the Law-bound, his is the yoke of freedom in God. Unlike the arrogant Teachers, he is gentle and humble in heart; he was never ashamed to eat with obvious sinners and people on the margins.
Do you want to find rest for your soul? In many of us, our soul feels restless, especially in a culture that does not privilege space for the spiritual. Have you experienced knowing Jesus as restful or stressful? If stressful, we might take a look at what part of his message we’re focusing on. What can you do today to find rest for your soul?
Whether you are in the midst of work stress, or easing into a summer vacation, I suggest you start with some “soul rest” time in Jesus’ presence. Hand off your burdens and take on his promise of peace. And then spread it around.
6-22-23 - Jesus' Sword
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
I wonder if Jesus knew how much carnage would be wrought in his name because of these words attributed to the Prince of Peace, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
Would he have said them? Did he say them? By the time Matthew wrote his account of Jesus’ life, these words would have passed through quite a few reporters. Maybe they got skewed? How I wish they had never been written down.
So much blood has been shed between Christians and Jews, Christians and Muslims, Christians and indigenous peoples, Christians and other Christians. There have been crusades and counter-crusades, attacks and massacres, reprisals and counter-reprisals. Rivers of blood have flowed as corrupt politicians hungry for land, oil, power, vengeance and money have joined with zealots to cloak their murderous agendas in religious language. There is enough violent rhetoric in the scriptures of many religions, including our own, to fuel endless bloodshed.
And Jesus isn’t even talking about conflict between enemies but in families. He goes on to say, “For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.” What?
I believe Jesus was saying that conflict would be an inevitable consequence of following him in his mission. Jesus came to wield God’s love against the evils of this world, injustice and oppression, corruption and complacency. That doesn’t make for a peaceful life. Those whose mission is peace often provoke conflict and die violently.
Notice, Jesus did not say, “I have come not to bring peace, but violence.” He said "not peace but a sword." Look at some of the other ways “sword” is used in the New Testament: The sword of the Spirit is one of the defensive weapons we take up against the devil. In Hebrews we read that the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, “…dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow …” That is surgically sharp!
The sword Jesus refers to can be a sword of discernment, distinguishing good from evil, what will bless us and make us effective as disciples from what will harm us and make us complacent and weak. He is saying there is evil in the world, and his followers need to be ready to distinguish the Kingdom of Light from the realm of darkness. That does divide families sometimes.
Jesus demands our fidelity over all other claims. The priorities of this world – family, wealth, convenience, distraction – do not make us effective disciples. Jesus is just calling it. We can be fuzzy, or we can be clear. Jesus came not to bring peace but reality and radical freedom to move in God’s Spirit.
Have you ever had to make a choice to disassociate from people or practices that were destructive for you? Do you face such dilemmas in your life now?
Might we ask for the Spirit's help to marry “mission clarity” with our calling to be peacemakers?
Jesus paid the ultimate price for his mission, at least in worldly terms. In eternal terms, he was just getting started.
I wonder if Jesus knew how much carnage would be wrought in his name because of these words attributed to the Prince of Peace, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
Would he have said them? Did he say them? By the time Matthew wrote his account of Jesus’ life, these words would have passed through quite a few reporters. Maybe they got skewed? How I wish they had never been written down.
So much blood has been shed between Christians and Jews, Christians and Muslims, Christians and indigenous peoples, Christians and other Christians. There have been crusades and counter-crusades, attacks and massacres, reprisals and counter-reprisals. Rivers of blood have flowed as corrupt politicians hungry for land, oil, power, vengeance and money have joined with zealots to cloak their murderous agendas in religious language. There is enough violent rhetoric in the scriptures of many religions, including our own, to fuel endless bloodshed.
And Jesus isn’t even talking about conflict between enemies but in families. He goes on to say, “For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.” What?
I believe Jesus was saying that conflict would be an inevitable consequence of following him in his mission. Jesus came to wield God’s love against the evils of this world, injustice and oppression, corruption and complacency. That doesn’t make for a peaceful life. Those whose mission is peace often provoke conflict and die violently.
Notice, Jesus did not say, “I have come not to bring peace, but violence.” He said "not peace but a sword." Look at some of the other ways “sword” is used in the New Testament: The sword of the Spirit is one of the defensive weapons we take up against the devil. In Hebrews we read that the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, “…dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow …” That is surgically sharp!
The sword Jesus refers to can be a sword of discernment, distinguishing good from evil, what will bless us and make us effective as disciples from what will harm us and make us complacent and weak. He is saying there is evil in the world, and his followers need to be ready to distinguish the Kingdom of Light from the realm of darkness. That does divide families sometimes.
Jesus demands our fidelity over all other claims. The priorities of this world – family, wealth, convenience, distraction – do not make us effective disciples. Jesus is just calling it. We can be fuzzy, or we can be clear. Jesus came not to bring peace but reality and radical freedom to move in God’s Spirit.
Have you ever had to make a choice to disassociate from people or practices that were destructive for you? Do you face such dilemmas in your life now?
Might we ask for the Spirit's help to marry “mission clarity” with our calling to be peacemakers?
Jesus paid the ultimate price for his mission, at least in worldly terms. In eternal terms, he was just getting started.
5-16-23 - Jesus' Unanswered Prayer
You can listen to this reflection here.
How many people have stepped away from God because a prayer they desired with all their heart was not answered? If we’re going to put our trust in a being we cannot see, hear or touch, whom we can only imagine based on reports of others and our own subjective experience, hadn’t that all-powerful being at least deliver the goods? And it seems that God does not always deliver the goods we want.
We might do well to remember that even Jesus, the incarnate, sinless Son of God, who dwelt in God’s holy presence since before time began and dwells there for eternity, had unanswered prayers. There is one in this Sunday’s gospel. Jesus prayed, “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”
In case you hadn’t noticed, the church that is meant to be Christ’s One Body in the world is as divided as it has ever been. Most people on one side or another of its many divides would say that those on the other sides distort or misinterpret Jesus’ legacy. Many would offer excellent support for their position. Unfortunately, unity rarely trumps the human need to be right.
So, did Jesus pray a dumb prayer? Why has it not been answered in a way that matched the deep desire of his heart? Why has love been so hard a road, even for the followers of the Lord of Love, the Prince of Peace?
I think it is because we remain human. Not even the unlimited power of God can prevail against a human will that is not yielded to God. That is the way God set it up. God’s power is unlimited – except where God has chosen to limit it. If we have free will, the will to choose God or not-God, then God has voluntarily bound God’s own hand. If our prayers depend on the will of another person to choose one way or another, their efficacy will depend on how much that person is open to the influence of the Holy Spirit.
What prayers of yours have felt fruitless? Are you trying to pray around someone rather than for them?
This prayer of Jesus that his followers would be one, protected from the corrosion and dis-ease that division cause, can only be answered in our choosing differently. When we invite God to bring our wills for his church into alignment with his will, we might begin to seek reconciliation with others who claim to follow Christ. And seeking reconciliation is not the same thing as seeking agreement. Too often we start by trying to resolve differences rather than by building relationships.
How might we work toward the fruit that Jesus prayed for, that fruit of unity and love by which he said the world would know his followers? Is there someone who believes differently than you to whom you might offer relationship?
In the fullness of God's time, Jesus’ prayer has already been answered. Its completion will become more visible in this world as we align ourselves with that prayer and live into it. Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. Where true love is, God is there.
How many people have stepped away from God because a prayer they desired with all their heart was not answered? If we’re going to put our trust in a being we cannot see, hear or touch, whom we can only imagine based on reports of others and our own subjective experience, hadn’t that all-powerful being at least deliver the goods? And it seems that God does not always deliver the goods we want.
We might do well to remember that even Jesus, the incarnate, sinless Son of God, who dwelt in God’s holy presence since before time began and dwells there for eternity, had unanswered prayers. There is one in this Sunday’s gospel. Jesus prayed, “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”
In case you hadn’t noticed, the church that is meant to be Christ’s One Body in the world is as divided as it has ever been. Most people on one side or another of its many divides would say that those on the other sides distort or misinterpret Jesus’ legacy. Many would offer excellent support for their position. Unfortunately, unity rarely trumps the human need to be right.
So, did Jesus pray a dumb prayer? Why has it not been answered in a way that matched the deep desire of his heart? Why has love been so hard a road, even for the followers of the Lord of Love, the Prince of Peace?
I think it is because we remain human. Not even the unlimited power of God can prevail against a human will that is not yielded to God. That is the way God set it up. God’s power is unlimited – except where God has chosen to limit it. If we have free will, the will to choose God or not-God, then God has voluntarily bound God’s own hand. If our prayers depend on the will of another person to choose one way or another, their efficacy will depend on how much that person is open to the influence of the Holy Spirit.
What prayers of yours have felt fruitless? Are you trying to pray around someone rather than for them?
This prayer of Jesus that his followers would be one, protected from the corrosion and dis-ease that division cause, can only be answered in our choosing differently. When we invite God to bring our wills for his church into alignment with his will, we might begin to seek reconciliation with others who claim to follow Christ. And seeking reconciliation is not the same thing as seeking agreement. Too often we start by trying to resolve differences rather than by building relationships.
How might we work toward the fruit that Jesus prayed for, that fruit of unity and love by which he said the world would know his followers? Is there someone who believes differently than you to whom you might offer relationship?
In the fullness of God's time, Jesus’ prayer has already been answered. Its completion will become more visible in this world as we align ourselves with that prayer and live into it. Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. Where true love is, God is there.
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.
4-15-23 - Peace Be With You
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
By the time we meet Jesus’ disciples huddled in that upper room on Easter night, they’ve had a very long, strange, dislocating day. It began before daybreak, when some women hurried to the tomb to do for Jesus’ body what Sabbath laws forbade them to do when he died; a day that went from sad to joyful and bizarre as they were met at that now-empty tomb by an angel (or two) announcing that Jesus was risen. And then, there he was, right there on the road in front of the women, saying, “Tell my brothers to meet me in Galilee,” a travel order which has always struck me as a bit prosaic from someone who’s just been to Death and back…
Yet Jesus’ disciples have not gone to Galilee but are holed up in that room – perhaps the one where they’d celebrated the Passover a few nights earlier, a lifetime ago:
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
“Peace be with you.” I can imagine many emotions those men and women probably experienced that day, and none of them involve peace. Here they are, trying to process the cosmic developments they’ve witnessed, while hiding in a locked room because the threat to their lives has just intensified. And here is Jesus, just suddenly there, despite the doors shut and locked? “Peace be with you?”
But Jesus doesn’t only say, “Peace” – he can impart peace. This is the man whom they saw still a violent storm, and calm a violent man. This is the friend they watched endure ridicule and torture and betrayal and a horrible death. When Jesus says, “Peace,” he has the power to generate it. It works on them – soon they are rejoicing.
And then he breathes upon them, imparting the Holy Spirit and authorizing them to release or to retain sins, to bind or to set free. Jesus’ mission was to set humanity free. Now he sends us to participate in that mission, and he breathes upon us his Holy Spirit. Take a deep breath in…. hold it, let it expand in you…. Feel the life of God fill you. And then exhale, breathing God’s forgiving love out upon someone (maybe yourself..). Then do it again.
Jesus invites us to rejoice too, even in the pain and disruption of all that troubles us and this world. Jesus is still risen! He still speaks peace to us, and as we let his presence live in us, we can feel that peace spread through our minds and bodies and spirits. This is one way we know we have received God’s Spirit. This is one way Easter becomes real for us.
By the time we meet Jesus’ disciples huddled in that upper room on Easter night, they’ve had a very long, strange, dislocating day. It began before daybreak, when some women hurried to the tomb to do for Jesus’ body what Sabbath laws forbade them to do when he died; a day that went from sad to joyful and bizarre as they were met at that now-empty tomb by an angel (or two) announcing that Jesus was risen. And then, there he was, right there on the road in front of the women, saying, “Tell my brothers to meet me in Galilee,” a travel order which has always struck me as a bit prosaic from someone who’s just been to Death and back…
Yet Jesus’ disciples have not gone to Galilee but are holed up in that room – perhaps the one where they’d celebrated the Passover a few nights earlier, a lifetime ago:
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
“Peace be with you.” I can imagine many emotions those men and women probably experienced that day, and none of them involve peace. Here they are, trying to process the cosmic developments they’ve witnessed, while hiding in a locked room because the threat to their lives has just intensified. And here is Jesus, just suddenly there, despite the doors shut and locked? “Peace be with you?”
But Jesus doesn’t only say, “Peace” – he can impart peace. This is the man whom they saw still a violent storm, and calm a violent man. This is the friend they watched endure ridicule and torture and betrayal and a horrible death. When Jesus says, “Peace,” he has the power to generate it. It works on them – soon they are rejoicing.
And then he breathes upon them, imparting the Holy Spirit and authorizing them to release or to retain sins, to bind or to set free. Jesus’ mission was to set humanity free. Now he sends us to participate in that mission, and he breathes upon us his Holy Spirit. Take a deep breath in…. hold it, let it expand in you…. Feel the life of God fill you. And then exhale, breathing God’s forgiving love out upon someone (maybe yourself..). Then do it again.
Jesus invites us to rejoice too, even in the pain and disruption of all that troubles us and this world. Jesus is still risen! He still speaks peace to us, and as we let his presence live in us, we can feel that peace spread through our minds and bodies and spirits. This is one way we know we have received God’s Spirit. This is one way Easter becomes real for us.
7-14-22 - Distracted Living
You can listen to this reflection here.
It’s that repeating of the name that hooks me, a master-stroke of narrative reporting by Luke. Maybe it’s simply the way he heard the story (from Martha herself?). As Martha of Bethany stresses out over her hosting chores, asking Jesus to make her sister get up and help her rather than sit there listening to him teach, Jesus addresses her calmly and directly: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Of all the weapons the Enemy of Human Nature uses to divert us from God, worry is among the most effective and frequently deployed. When we are worried, we are by definition distracted, focusing on what worries us rather than on the God who blesses. Martha can no longer remember why she invited Jesus to her home, why she wants to offer a lovely meal. All the joy and generosity of giving is lost in her annoyance and anxiety. She’s no longer available for relationship with Jesus, or with her sister Mary – she can only try to control and manipulate them. That ever happen to you?
I once invited a man I was interested in to a dinner party, and then spent the entire evening in the kitchen stressing myself out to present an impressive meal, overhearing all the great conversation among the wonderful guests I’d invited, never making myself present or available for the relationship I hoped for. Talk about distracted.
Imagine there are three boxes drawn on the pavement, as though for hopscotch. You are in the center box. Your worries are in the one on the left, and God is in the one on the right. If you turn to focus on what worries you, that’s all you can see. God is behind you, still able to bless, but you can't engage. If you turn the other way (and the Greek word for repentance, metanoia, means to turn fully around) you are now facing God and where are your worries? They are behind you. They’re still there, and God can see them, yet you are now focused on the source of solutions and answers. In fact, as we focus on God, we are better able to imagine solutions ourselves.
Focusing on what worries us is like distracted driving; taking our eyes off Jesus is like taking our eyes off the road. We may not crash, but our risk and anxiety levels increase, and we’re a danger to others. Think about what “many things” are worrying and distracting you. Now, hear Jesus say your name, not once, but twice, gently calling you back to yourself – and himself. Hear his words: “There is need of only one thing.” He is the one thing. He is all we need.
It’s that repeating of the name that hooks me, a master-stroke of narrative reporting by Luke. Maybe it’s simply the way he heard the story (from Martha herself?). As Martha of Bethany stresses out over her hosting chores, asking Jesus to make her sister get up and help her rather than sit there listening to him teach, Jesus addresses her calmly and directly: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Of all the weapons the Enemy of Human Nature uses to divert us from God, worry is among the most effective and frequently deployed. When we are worried, we are by definition distracted, focusing on what worries us rather than on the God who blesses. Martha can no longer remember why she invited Jesus to her home, why she wants to offer a lovely meal. All the joy and generosity of giving is lost in her annoyance and anxiety. She’s no longer available for relationship with Jesus, or with her sister Mary – she can only try to control and manipulate them. That ever happen to you?
I once invited a man I was interested in to a dinner party, and then spent the entire evening in the kitchen stressing myself out to present an impressive meal, overhearing all the great conversation among the wonderful guests I’d invited, never making myself present or available for the relationship I hoped for. Talk about distracted.
Imagine there are three boxes drawn on the pavement, as though for hopscotch. You are in the center box. Your worries are in the one on the left, and God is in the one on the right. If you turn to focus on what worries you, that’s all you can see. God is behind you, still able to bless, but you can't engage. If you turn the other way (and the Greek word for repentance, metanoia, means to turn fully around) you are now facing God and where are your worries? They are behind you. They’re still there, and God can see them, yet you are now focused on the source of solutions and answers. In fact, as we focus on God, we are better able to imagine solutions ourselves.
Focusing on what worries us is like distracted driving; taking our eyes off Jesus is like taking our eyes off the road. We may not crash, but our risk and anxiety levels increase, and we’re a danger to others. Think about what “many things” are worrying and distracting you. Now, hear Jesus say your name, not once, but twice, gently calling you back to yourself – and himself. Hear his words: “There is need of only one thing.” He is the one thing. He is all we need.
6-29-22 - Boomerang Peace
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
I tend to think of peace as a static thing; I associate it with stillness, stability, rootedness. The way Jesus describes peace, though, it is dynamic, bouncing from person to person, house to house, community to community. This peace sounds downright restless: “Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.”
What is the peace of God? It is power and purpose and presence. Different from ordinary human peace, the peace of God is strong as iron, filling us unexpectedly, able to keep us rooted in times of anxiety or conflict. As I have grown in faith, I’ve often been surprised by the peace I’ve experienced; sometimes I just can’t find the anxiety I expect to be there. The peace of God is pure gift – Paul says it is a gift that comes when we make our petitions known to God with thanksgiving. (Philippians 4).
Jesus goes even further, speaking of peace as a force that can be directed to another person. The idea of saying, “Peace to you,” or “Peace to this house” when we encounter another person, and really meaning it – speaking it as a command to heavenly powers – could be world-changing. What if, instead of “Hello” we said, “Peace” – which, after all, is what the greeting “Shalom” or “Salaam” means. And what if, as we were saying it, we prayed that God would fill that person with the peace we feel? “Peace” to institutions we deal with. "Peace" to Congress. “Peace” on the highway, train, in the grocery store, at family dinner. Really sharing our peace at church instead of just saying hi.
That’s all we would need to do. If the person had no interest in the peace we have to give, it would bounce back to us. But if we don’t even offer it, someone who really needs God’s peace might miss out.
God’s peace becomes part of us, something we can share, the same way we share our intellect, our compassion, our money and time. We could give our peace a shape or color so we can become more conscious about sending it to others. Like any good boomerang, it will always come back to us.
I tend to think of peace as a static thing; I associate it with stillness, stability, rootedness. The way Jesus describes peace, though, it is dynamic, bouncing from person to person, house to house, community to community. This peace sounds downright restless: “Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.”
What is the peace of God? It is power and purpose and presence. Different from ordinary human peace, the peace of God is strong as iron, filling us unexpectedly, able to keep us rooted in times of anxiety or conflict. As I have grown in faith, I’ve often been surprised by the peace I’ve experienced; sometimes I just can’t find the anxiety I expect to be there. The peace of God is pure gift – Paul says it is a gift that comes when we make our petitions known to God with thanksgiving. (Philippians 4).
Jesus goes even further, speaking of peace as a force that can be directed to another person. The idea of saying, “Peace to you,” or “Peace to this house” when we encounter another person, and really meaning it – speaking it as a command to heavenly powers – could be world-changing. What if, instead of “Hello” we said, “Peace” – which, after all, is what the greeting “Shalom” or “Salaam” means. And what if, as we were saying it, we prayed that God would fill that person with the peace we feel? “Peace” to institutions we deal with. "Peace" to Congress. “Peace” on the highway, train, in the grocery store, at family dinner. Really sharing our peace at church instead of just saying hi.
That’s all we would need to do. If the person had no interest in the peace we have to give, it would bounce back to us. But if we don’t even offer it, someone who really needs God’s peace might miss out.
God’s peace becomes part of us, something we can share, the same way we share our intellect, our compassion, our money and time. We could give our peace a shape or color so we can become more conscious about sending it to others. Like any good boomerang, it will always come back to us.
6-1-22 - Shake, Rattle and Roll
You can listen to this reflection here.
For the rest of the week, we will explore the reading from Acts about what happened to Jesus’ followers on that Day of Pentecost. Pentecost was the Greek name for the Jewish festival of Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks, which marked both the grain harvest and the giving of the Torah. As observant Jews, Jesus’ disciples were gathered for prayer when the Holy Spirit began to make some noise:
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
It must have been terrifying – the sound like a hurricane, the sight of these divided fire-like tongues appearing, with one resting on each person… and then the utterance of speech in languages unknown to the speaker. But maybe they weren’t frightened at all, for we’re told they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. It’s amazing when God acts in so definite a way.
And it’s always wonderful when the Spirit is poured out on the whole assembly - then no one thinks she has gone crazy. In my experience, though (admittedly, a fairly restrained Episcopalian experience), the Spirit comes more quietly and gently, inciting an sense of God’s presence and deep feeling but not necessarily a lot of noise. I have seen manifestations of tears and outbreaks of peace more often than I have felt the foundations shaking.
Which makes me wonder: does the Spirit bring only as much power as we’re willing to receive? Is our impact limited by our capacity to be Spirit-carriers? Or does the Spirit bring as much power as is needed for what God wants to accomplish on a given day. That day, God was about changing the course of history. If the rest of the New Testament is true, those newly anointed apostles so boldly and constantly proclaimed the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ that the movement they began is still rolling, if with a little less shaking and rattling.
It wouldn’t hurt to increase our capacity to hold and move with the Spirit of God. “Come, Holy Spirit” is never a wasted prayer. And if you’re not used to praying it, I commend it to you. For with the Spirit of God working through us, God continues to transform the world. Are you ready? Let's roll!
For the rest of the week, we will explore the reading from Acts about what happened to Jesus’ followers on that Day of Pentecost. Pentecost was the Greek name for the Jewish festival of Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks, which marked both the grain harvest and the giving of the Torah. As observant Jews, Jesus’ disciples were gathered for prayer when the Holy Spirit began to make some noise:
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
It must have been terrifying – the sound like a hurricane, the sight of these divided fire-like tongues appearing, with one resting on each person… and then the utterance of speech in languages unknown to the speaker. But maybe they weren’t frightened at all, for we’re told they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. It’s amazing when God acts in so definite a way.
And it’s always wonderful when the Spirit is poured out on the whole assembly - then no one thinks she has gone crazy. In my experience, though (admittedly, a fairly restrained Episcopalian experience), the Spirit comes more quietly and gently, inciting an sense of God’s presence and deep feeling but not necessarily a lot of noise. I have seen manifestations of tears and outbreaks of peace more often than I have felt the foundations shaking.
Which makes me wonder: does the Spirit bring only as much power as we’re willing to receive? Is our impact limited by our capacity to be Spirit-carriers? Or does the Spirit bring as much power as is needed for what God wants to accomplish on a given day. That day, God was about changing the course of history. If the rest of the New Testament is true, those newly anointed apostles so boldly and constantly proclaimed the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ that the movement they began is still rolling, if with a little less shaking and rattling.
It wouldn’t hurt to increase our capacity to hold and move with the Spirit of God. “Come, Holy Spirit” is never a wasted prayer. And if you’re not used to praying it, I commend it to you. For with the Spirit of God working through us, God continues to transform the world. Are you ready? Let's roll!
5-31-22 - God Speed
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
In his last words to his disciples, Jesus told them to expect a gift from his Father: the Holy Spirit, who is the spirit of God. Jesus spoke about the Spirit as having a definable personality, characteristics, traits, functions. That’s one reason Christians arrived at the notion of God as three distinct yet united persons.
“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
Jesus suggests his teaching and training have been partial, limited. The Holy Spirit will teach everything, reinforcing all that Jesus spoke to them. He promises to leave his peace with them, a gift he would give again when he first saw them – perhaps in this very same room? – after he rose from the dead. He invites them to let go of the sorrow and anxiety that has gripped them, to let go of fear.
How might we do that? We need to receive this gift of peace in the spiritual part of our being and let it transform our natural selves. We cannot attain it with worldly strategies; it is not a gift to be taken, but received. Perhaps that is what Jesus meant by “I do not give to you as the world gives.”
How does the world give? Capriciously, inconsistently, often conditionally. The world rewards achievement and productivity, privilege and connections. God rewards humility and faithfulness, weakness as well as strength. Above all, God seems to give as a function of relationship, to honor a relationship that already exists, not to win us over.
We pretty much know how to play by the world’s rules, some of us more successfully than others. Lasting peace, peace that stays with us even in unpeaceful circumstances, is a fruit of running our lives on God’s operating system, learning to live by radical trust rather than by self-saving strategies. Is there a concern in your life right now that you might try to approach in God’s way rather than the world’s?
When my nephew was little, he heard someone say “God speed” to someone departing, and thought it meant moving at the speed of God. I like that. Learning to live on God-speed is a transition. We choose to put that relationship above all the others that claim our hearts, to offer everything we have – and receive far more in return.
In his last words to his disciples, Jesus told them to expect a gift from his Father: the Holy Spirit, who is the spirit of God. Jesus spoke about the Spirit as having a definable personality, characteristics, traits, functions. That’s one reason Christians arrived at the notion of God as three distinct yet united persons.
“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
Jesus suggests his teaching and training have been partial, limited. The Holy Spirit will teach everything, reinforcing all that Jesus spoke to them. He promises to leave his peace with them, a gift he would give again when he first saw them – perhaps in this very same room? – after he rose from the dead. He invites them to let go of the sorrow and anxiety that has gripped them, to let go of fear.
How might we do that? We need to receive this gift of peace in the spiritual part of our being and let it transform our natural selves. We cannot attain it with worldly strategies; it is not a gift to be taken, but received. Perhaps that is what Jesus meant by “I do not give to you as the world gives.”
How does the world give? Capriciously, inconsistently, often conditionally. The world rewards achievement and productivity, privilege and connections. God rewards humility and faithfulness, weakness as well as strength. Above all, God seems to give as a function of relationship, to honor a relationship that already exists, not to win us over.
We pretty much know how to play by the world’s rules, some of us more successfully than others. Lasting peace, peace that stays with us even in unpeaceful circumstances, is a fruit of running our lives on God’s operating system, learning to live by radical trust rather than by self-saving strategies. Is there a concern in your life right now that you might try to approach in God’s way rather than the world’s?
When my nephew was little, he heard someone say “God speed” to someone departing, and thought it meant moving at the speed of God. I like that. Learning to live on God-speed is a transition. We choose to put that relationship above all the others that claim our hearts, to offer everything we have – and receive far more in return.
5-23-22 - To Be One
You can listen to this reflection here.
The Seventh Sunday of Easter Dilemma: Use the readings appointed for the that Sunday, or those set for Ascension Day – knowing that no one, unless their church happens to be named Ascension, attends Ascension Day services anymore? I will split the difference this week, starting with the Easter 7 gospel. This takes us back yet again to that upper room on Jesus’ last night in earthly life. After his long discourse to his disciples, he embarks upon a lengthy prayer for them; that’s where we tune in now:
“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
One reason to skip this reading entirely is that it is heart-breaking to engage this prayer. Unity was Jesus’ deepest desire for his followers, almost his last wish, we might say, and it has proved impossible for the church that bears his name to keep. And one of the reasons the world does not believe that God sent Jesus as Redeemer is that those who follow Christ so excel at division when our mission should be multiplication.
We have vastly different ways of reading and interpreting Scripture, what we think is important in worship, how we live out the calls to justice and generosity, care for the poor and the marginalized. We are divided by history, language, and culture, by conflicts both ancient and recent. Maybe we shouldn’t feel so bad about the current state of Christ’s church – his followers were locked in bitter divisions within a few years of his resurrection.
I am most convicted by this line, "on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word.” If we don’t speak our word, the word of grace and forgiveness and our experience of God’s overwhelming love; and if we don’t back that up by our actions, fewer and fewer will believe through us. And friends, the community of Christ-followers is spread by human contact, like a virus, a good virus, one that strengthens the immune system and promotes healthy growth and a just and secure world. We should find this as urgent a matter as Jesus did.
If we speak the words of grace and live them, and allow the Spirit to really rule our hearts and direct our actions, we will find ourselves unable to condemn our brothers and sisters, even when their words or actions are reprehensible. We will be able to pray for them and commit them to God’s hand, and keep our eyes on Jesus, and spread the message of his love. Maybe if all Christians put that first, we’d have less energy for fighting with each other. And one day we will make Jesus’ dream of unity a reality.
The Seventh Sunday of Easter Dilemma: Use the readings appointed for the that Sunday, or those set for Ascension Day – knowing that no one, unless their church happens to be named Ascension, attends Ascension Day services anymore? I will split the difference this week, starting with the Easter 7 gospel. This takes us back yet again to that upper room on Jesus’ last night in earthly life. After his long discourse to his disciples, he embarks upon a lengthy prayer for them; that’s where we tune in now:
“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
One reason to skip this reading entirely is that it is heart-breaking to engage this prayer. Unity was Jesus’ deepest desire for his followers, almost his last wish, we might say, and it has proved impossible for the church that bears his name to keep. And one of the reasons the world does not believe that God sent Jesus as Redeemer is that those who follow Christ so excel at division when our mission should be multiplication.
We have vastly different ways of reading and interpreting Scripture, what we think is important in worship, how we live out the calls to justice and generosity, care for the poor and the marginalized. We are divided by history, language, and culture, by conflicts both ancient and recent. Maybe we shouldn’t feel so bad about the current state of Christ’s church – his followers were locked in bitter divisions within a few years of his resurrection.
I am most convicted by this line, "on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word.” If we don’t speak our word, the word of grace and forgiveness and our experience of God’s overwhelming love; and if we don’t back that up by our actions, fewer and fewer will believe through us. And friends, the community of Christ-followers is spread by human contact, like a virus, a good virus, one that strengthens the immune system and promotes healthy growth and a just and secure world. We should find this as urgent a matter as Jesus did.
If we speak the words of grace and live them, and allow the Spirit to really rule our hearts and direct our actions, we will find ourselves unable to condemn our brothers and sisters, even when their words or actions are reprehensible. We will be able to pray for them and commit them to God’s hand, and keep our eyes on Jesus, and spread the message of his love. Maybe if all Christians put that first, we’d have less energy for fighting with each other. And one day we will make Jesus’ dream of unity a reality.
5-20-22 - Healing of Nations
You can listen to this reflection here.
We move now from the healing of persons to the healing of the nations; from the pool of healing in our Gospel story to the healing river mentioned in the end of Revelation:
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
What a beautiful picture of the new heavens and the new earth, picking up on the vision of a restoring river in Ezekiel 47, which also had fruit trees on each bank, their leaves for healing. In the new vision the healing has been broadened to the healing of the nations. This resonates with a theme in our reading from Acts as well:
...Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.
Does the healing power of Christ extend to nations? There is only one way to find out. Perhaps we feel feeble in our prayers for peace and an end to brutal invasion, terror and starvation, oppression and exploitation, because the needs are so vast, the pain so entrenched. It is hard to see dramatic outcomes to such prayers. The bigger the wound, the more complex the condition, the longer it can take to heal it – but our prayers do not go unheard. Maybe through our prayers we strengthen peace-makers. Maybe our prayers influence people in authority, or grass-roots activists. Maybe circumstances change. We don’t know – we only know that the healing stream that flows through and around us is intended for the whole world.
Maybe each day we should comb the news for one name in a conflict-ridden area, one name that leaps out at us, and make it our task to pray for that person to be fully blessed. Who knows?
When Paul and his companions acted on his vision and traveled to Macedonia, they found a river there, by which there was a place of prayer. And there they met a woman named Lydia, who was brought to faith in Jesus Christ through Paul’s words, and she and her whole household were baptized. No one would have expected that – but strangers now became family in faith. Who knows what fruit came of that encounter – generations of Christ-followers, perhaps.
We don’t know where the healing stream is to flow, but It is up to us to be water-carriers, bearing that water of life to every place and person in need of it. In the end, all nations will be healed, and God will reign.
We move now from the healing of persons to the healing of the nations; from the pool of healing in our Gospel story to the healing river mentioned in the end of Revelation:
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
What a beautiful picture of the new heavens and the new earth, picking up on the vision of a restoring river in Ezekiel 47, which also had fruit trees on each bank, their leaves for healing. In the new vision the healing has been broadened to the healing of the nations. This resonates with a theme in our reading from Acts as well:
...Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.
Does the healing power of Christ extend to nations? There is only one way to find out. Perhaps we feel feeble in our prayers for peace and an end to brutal invasion, terror and starvation, oppression and exploitation, because the needs are so vast, the pain so entrenched. It is hard to see dramatic outcomes to such prayers. The bigger the wound, the more complex the condition, the longer it can take to heal it – but our prayers do not go unheard. Maybe through our prayers we strengthen peace-makers. Maybe our prayers influence people in authority, or grass-roots activists. Maybe circumstances change. We don’t know – we only know that the healing stream that flows through and around us is intended for the whole world.
Maybe each day we should comb the news for one name in a conflict-ridden area, one name that leaps out at us, and make it our task to pray for that person to be fully blessed. Who knows?
When Paul and his companions acted on his vision and traveled to Macedonia, they found a river there, by which there was a place of prayer. And there they met a woman named Lydia, who was brought to faith in Jesus Christ through Paul’s words, and she and her whole household were baptized. No one would have expected that – but strangers now became family in faith. Who knows what fruit came of that encounter – generations of Christ-followers, perhaps.
We don’t know where the healing stream is to flow, but It is up to us to be water-carriers, bearing that water of life to every place and person in need of it. In the end, all nations will be healed, and God will reign.
4-18-22 - Fear and Rejoicing
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
The Big Day is over. Put away the Easter bonnets and all those lilies – we’re back to regular life. (And if you’re clergy, you’re in the Easter Monday brain fog of exhaustion…). Christ is risen? Oh yeah, Alleluia.
Only, it’s not over. In church time Easter goes on for seven weeks – seven weeks to begin to comprehend what those Alleluias are all about. And in Gospel time, it’s still Easter Day, still that First Day of the week, First Day of the new creation, First Day of forever. And Jesus’ disciples are not celebrating; they’re terrified.
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
They may have begun to wrap their minds around the fact that Jesus appeared to be very much alive, inexplicably, miraculously. But they certainly haven’t figured out how. And his risen-ness presents a more immediate problem: now they are at even greater risk. They were already anxious – witness Peter’s haste to disavow his friendship with Jesus after his arrest. But now they are truly scared. The authorities who put Jesus to death will not welcome these developments. They might well want to stamp out any hint of this Jesus movement, and eliminate all witnesses.
Into this turmoil, Jesus appears. Not through the door. Not through a window. He is just suddenly there, standing among them, speaking peace to them, showing them his wounds.
So it can be for us, as we can become aware of him. When we’re in the midst of turmoil or terror, malady or malaise, sometimes we forget that Jesus can get into the room. We think we have to invite him, or worse, that we have to get our act together before he’ll drop by. But he just shows up, speaks peace upon us and upon our circumstances, and shows us his wounds like a calling card, a calling card that says, “I know a bit about suffering. I know what it’s like to be alone and forsaken. I have not forgotten you, I will never leave you or forsake you. You can find healing for your wounds in mine.”
In what situation in your life might you need to recall Jesus’ presence? Pray to become aware of where he is in that room. Talk to him, tell him what you’re going through, listen for his responses. Receive his peace, for it is hard won and it sticks.
The disciples found their terror turned to rejoicing as they realized he was truly alive among them. Five minutes earlier they would been unable to fathom rejoicing. And yet, there they were. And there he was. And joy is.
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
The Big Day is over. Put away the Easter bonnets and all those lilies – we’re back to regular life. (And if you’re clergy, you’re in the Easter Monday brain fog of exhaustion…). Christ is risen? Oh yeah, Alleluia.
Only, it’s not over. In church time Easter goes on for seven weeks – seven weeks to begin to comprehend what those Alleluias are all about. And in Gospel time, it’s still Easter Day, still that First Day of the week, First Day of the new creation, First Day of forever. And Jesus’ disciples are not celebrating; they’re terrified.
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
They may have begun to wrap their minds around the fact that Jesus appeared to be very much alive, inexplicably, miraculously. But they certainly haven’t figured out how. And his risen-ness presents a more immediate problem: now they are at even greater risk. They were already anxious – witness Peter’s haste to disavow his friendship with Jesus after his arrest. But now they are truly scared. The authorities who put Jesus to death will not welcome these developments. They might well want to stamp out any hint of this Jesus movement, and eliminate all witnesses.
Into this turmoil, Jesus appears. Not through the door. Not through a window. He is just suddenly there, standing among them, speaking peace to them, showing them his wounds.
So it can be for us, as we can become aware of him. When we’re in the midst of turmoil or terror, malady or malaise, sometimes we forget that Jesus can get into the room. We think we have to invite him, or worse, that we have to get our act together before he’ll drop by. But he just shows up, speaks peace upon us and upon our circumstances, and shows us his wounds like a calling card, a calling card that says, “I know a bit about suffering. I know what it’s like to be alone and forsaken. I have not forgotten you, I will never leave you or forsake you. You can find healing for your wounds in mine.”
In what situation in your life might you need to recall Jesus’ presence? Pray to become aware of where he is in that room. Talk to him, tell him what you’re going through, listen for his responses. Receive his peace, for it is hard won and it sticks.
The disciples found their terror turned to rejoicing as they realized he was truly alive among them. Five minutes earlier they would been unable to fathom rejoicing. And yet, there they were. And there he was. And joy is.
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
4-7-22 - Mobs and Multitudes
You can listen to this reflection here.
Given current trends of adoration and hate-speak at political gatherings, it’s hard not to bring that lens to the Palm Sunday story. Certainly there are multitudes on display:
As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”
We will soon see how quickly these multitudes praising God and lauding Jesus as “the king who comes in the name of the Lord” morph into mobs braying for blood. As is true today, there was some manipulation on the part of leaders in fomenting that transition, an appeal to fear and inciting to anger. But we also have in the mix unrealistic expectation and disappointment, and those are incendiary ingredients.
Why does this crowd of disciples praise God? Because of the deeds of power they have seen in Jesus. He exercised spiritual power that had immediate effect in the temporal realm – palsied limbs visibly restored to strength; leprous skin made clear; water become wine; notorious extortioners become models of generosity. The fact that this power resided in a man of such holiness, above reproach in every way, excited their expectations that at last God had sent the king who would deliver them from the Roman occupiers. They refused to believe that his kingship was of a nature other than what they wanted.
So when Jesus is overcome by the authorities, and handed over and mocked and spit upon and beaten, and raises not a finger to help himself, it’s not hard to see how dashed hopes like that could curdle into venom, yielding to cries of “Crucify him.”
And how about us? We might not have joined in the bloodlust, but have we too experienced disappointment in our faith? Dashed expectations of what we thought God could or would do for us in Christ? We don’t tend to get mad so much as withdraw, distance ourselves, afraid to trust in this One who is more powerful than any force in the universe – indeed, who made the universe – yet can’t seem to keep our loved ones from harm and our world from becoming a mass of unmitigated terror and pain.
How do we hold our hosannas in the face of failure and loss? By singing not to Jesus, but with him. By staying close to him, telling him when we’re mad or disappointed, by saying “I don’t understand. But I believe. Show me.” We don’t have to give way to rage. He didn’t. And as we demonstrate his peace in the face of rage and outrage, we just might help to sow peace ourselves, to keep multitudes from becoming mobs.
Given current trends of adoration and hate-speak at political gatherings, it’s hard not to bring that lens to the Palm Sunday story. Certainly there are multitudes on display:
As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”
We will soon see how quickly these multitudes praising God and lauding Jesus as “the king who comes in the name of the Lord” morph into mobs braying for blood. As is true today, there was some manipulation on the part of leaders in fomenting that transition, an appeal to fear and inciting to anger. But we also have in the mix unrealistic expectation and disappointment, and those are incendiary ingredients.
Why does this crowd of disciples praise God? Because of the deeds of power they have seen in Jesus. He exercised spiritual power that had immediate effect in the temporal realm – palsied limbs visibly restored to strength; leprous skin made clear; water become wine; notorious extortioners become models of generosity. The fact that this power resided in a man of such holiness, above reproach in every way, excited their expectations that at last God had sent the king who would deliver them from the Roman occupiers. They refused to believe that his kingship was of a nature other than what they wanted.
So when Jesus is overcome by the authorities, and handed over and mocked and spit upon and beaten, and raises not a finger to help himself, it’s not hard to see how dashed hopes like that could curdle into venom, yielding to cries of “Crucify him.”
And how about us? We might not have joined in the bloodlust, but have we too experienced disappointment in our faith? Dashed expectations of what we thought God could or would do for us in Christ? We don’t tend to get mad so much as withdraw, distance ourselves, afraid to trust in this One who is more powerful than any force in the universe – indeed, who made the universe – yet can’t seem to keep our loved ones from harm and our world from becoming a mass of unmitigated terror and pain.
How do we hold our hosannas in the face of failure and loss? By singing not to Jesus, but with him. By staying close to him, telling him when we’re mad or disappointed, by saying “I don’t understand. But I believe. Show me.” We don’t have to give way to rage. He didn’t. And as we demonstrate his peace in the face of rage and outrage, we just might help to sow peace ourselves, to keep multitudes from becoming mobs.
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