6-19-26 - Family Values

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

I am amused when “family values” are equated with a 1950s two-parent nuclear unit, as though that were a perfect reflection of Christian virtue. In fact, Jesus disregarded his own mother publicly when she showed up with his brothers to quiet him down and bring him home. He also said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”

For those who would follow Jesus, family is not blood kin, but the community of fellow Christ-followers. Loving God comes first, no matter what. As a pastor frequently frustrated when the claims of nuclear family impede involvement in church family, I read those words with a certain grumpiness. Sigh! It’s been a hard week in Water Daily Land, trying to interpret one hard teaching about priorities after another. Putting Jesus first is more counter-cultural all the time. Our culture says family comes first, no matter what. And we are much more formed by our culture than by what Jesus taught.

You may be familiar with the Jesus Doll, a rag doll with brown hair and a beard, a tunic, coat and sandals. He's soft and squishable and great for kids. In a previous parish, we let kids bring Jesus the Doll home for a week. They were encouraged to take Jesus everywhere they went, and to write in the journal that accompanied him. Where did Jesus go this week? Gymnastics? The swimming pool? Walking the dog? Fishing? Kids loved it. Mothers found it more wearing.

“Oh my God,” one said, “It’s unbelievably stressful having Jesus! I was afraid the dog would eat his sandals, or him. I was afraid we’d leave him somewhere!” Another, unable to get Jesus back to us for several weeks, wrote an apologetic email. She’d been sick, the kids had been sick, her husband had been away on business, Jewish friends visited, so they put him away; some other things happened… she concluded, “It just wasn’t a good week to have the Son of God at our house!”

News flash: it’s never a good week to have the Son of God at our house! Life is a whole lot easier with the priorities the world presents us: “Take what you want, when you want it, with whom you want it.” Chances are, if you’re reading this, you have already decided that is not your choice. Maybe you’ve entered the relationship into which Jesus invites you, or you are curious and exploring it. Maybe you’ve already discovered what Christians have known for 2000 years, that life is infinitely richer – though no less painful – when we are aware of having the Son of God around our house.

Jesus did not come to make us feel better about our lives. Jesus came to draw us closer in the one relationship we will have for eternity, in intimacy with God. Starting that relationship here and now makes our lives more purposeful – and often more stressful. “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it,” Jesus says at the end of this teaching.

• What are some of the ways Jesus’ claims have caused you to “lose your life,” or at least to give up some patterns that felt easy but were not life-giving?
• What are some of the ways you resist putting God in first place in your life?
• Who or what would have to be moved to second or third? 
• Can you offer that to God in prayer, inviting the Spirit in?

The gift – which we can only discover by doing it – is that when we move God-life into first place, we engage our other priorities more fully, because we don’t try to own them. We appreciate them as gifts, and can stop ranking them. Maybe that’s what Jesus means by “finding our life…”

© 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.

9-1-25 - Family Values

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

In our current culture, the most benign-seeming things can become controversial, and nothing so much as family. The term “family values” is often associated with conservative Christian groups and their positions on social issues. More liberal elements in society might redefine the term "family" beyond biological kin to include those we choose to love, be they adoptive children or romantic partners.

Jesus had something to say about family values, but I doubt our arguments about family would have interested him much. He told his followers to leave the whole concept behind and focus on making his Gospel of forgiveness and freedom known to the world: Now large crowds were travelling with him; and he turned and said to them, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”

Did Jesus really say that? Well, this was the man who, when told that his mother and brothers wanted to see him, said, “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mt. 12:50) This is the man whose followers left their homes and families to travel with him, checking in now and then, but committing themselves to a bigger, messier, non-biological family.

Jesus’ teaching radically undermines how human nature and culture lead us to think and act. Our earthly families can be great blessings – and they are among the “things that are passing away.” In the perspective of eternity, they pale in importance to our membership in the family of God. We are invited to walk a fine line in loving and nurturing our human families and not letting our love for them distract us from cultivating our relationship with God and God’s people.

That means prizing our family members as gifts from God given in us trust to nurture and help grow, not to possess or cling to. We don’t have to love our biological families less – we are invited to love our mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters and brothers in the household of God more. Then we are able to be even more loving to those in our human families.

Today, let’s give thanks for our families of origin – the gifts, the challenges, the truth.

• If your experience of family is painful, can you invite the living water of healing into those wounds?
• Then reflect on who you’ve come to know and love in your “God-family” – grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins in the faith. Who comes to mind? What has she or he brought to your life?
• And who are your “children” in faith – people whom you’ve mentored and supported in their faith life?
• Finally, who do you know who could use a new family, whom you might bring into the household of God?

During the Covid pandemic, my congregation expanded to enfold some Canadians who still regularly worship, study, pray and minister with us online. We’ve visited one another, marveling at the warm reception – but that’s how you welcome family. Two of our Toronto flock even drove for two days to help me unpack in Halifax when I moved. The family of God is ever growing, as we expand our circles of love and healing to include ever more brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews. That’s a lot of birthday cards!

© 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.

8-30-23 - Are We Following?

You can listen to this reflection here. (I mistakenly introduce this recording as being for August 29 - it is indeed the one for August 30.) Sunday's gospel reading is here. 

The culture in which most of us live is not high on self-denial, unless it’s in the service of health or beauty. Once upon a time, self-sacrifice and sharing one’s resources for the common good were high values. These days generosity is often sporadic, a reaction to emergencies and based on our perception of whether we have enough to share – we might make impulsive donations to places ravaged by fires or floods, but not ongoing support to local agencies working to end hunger or homelessness.

“Do we have enough?” stands in stark contrast to Jesus’ core teachings – and one of his most hardcore teachings was this: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Did Jesus mean “cross” in a general, “whatever-your-calling-from-God” way? Or did he mean a specific willingness to endure martyrdom? For him, death on a cross was a literal eventuality. That’s not the case for every follower. Since I hope never to be in a position of having to choose my faith in Jesus over my physical life, I look at this teaching more figuratively. Our “cross” might be anything that represents the way we are called to participate in the mission of God to make all things whole. It may or may not involve suffering; it likely will include inconvenience and even discomfort.

Perhaps before we contend with the call to self-denial and taking up of crosses, we should look at the first part of Jesus’ sentence: “If any want to become my followers.” Why would anyone today who did not already know about Jesus want to follow him? Where is he going that we want to be?

Why am I a follower of Christ? Partly, it’s habit and custom and a lifetime of choices. But why today? It’s because I believe he is Life and Truth as well as Way. Because following him gives meaning to what might otherwise appear a meandering path through life. Because I believe his power to heal is still real and still with us. And because he says he loves me. I don’t know what that means, fully, but I want to find out.

How do you answer that question? Why are you a follower of Christ? If you're not, do you want to be? Whatever your answers, you can talk to Jesus about it. If that feels impossible, talk to a person whose spiritual life you trust.

When we decide that we want to be Christ’s followers we’re more ready to lay down our privileges and prerogatives and take up our crosses. And, as we allow ourselves to be transformed in that relationship, we may also discover a stronger desire to introduce others to this way of Jesus, cross, self-denial and all.

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.

6-23-23 - Family Values

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

I am amused when “family values” are equated with a 1950s American two-parent nuclear unit, as though that were a perfect reflection of Christian virtue. In fact, Jesus disregarded his own mother publicly when she showed up with his brothers to quiet him down and bring him home.

He also said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” For those who would follow Jesus, family is not blood kin, but the community of fellow Christ-followers. Loving God comes first, no matter what.

As a pastor frequently frustrated when the claims of nuclear family impede involvement in church family, I read those words with a certain grumpiness. Sigh! It’s been a hard week in Water Daily Land, trying to interpret one hard teaching about priorities after another. Putting Jesus first is more counter-cultural all the time. Our culture says family comes first, no matter what. And we are much more formed by our culture than by what Jesus taught.

You may be familiar with the Jesus Doll, a rag doll with brown hair and a beard, a tunic, coat and sandals. He's soft and squishable and great for kids. In my previous parish, we let kids bring Jesus the Doll home for a week. They were encouraged to take Jesus everywhere they went, and to write in the journal that accompanied him. Where did Jesus go this week? Gymnastics? The swimming pool? Walking the dog? Kids loved it. Mothers found it more wearing.

“Oh my God,” one said, “It’s unbelievably stressful having Jesus! I was afraid the dog would eat his sandals, or him. I was afraid we’d leave him somewhere!” Another, unable to get Jesus back to us for several weeks, wrote an apologetic email. She’d been sick, the kids had been sick, her husband had been away on business, Jewish friends visited, some other things happened… she concluded, “It just wasn’t a good week to have the Son of God at our house!”

News flash: it’s never a good week to have the Son of God at our house! Life is a whole lot easier with the priorities the world presents us: “Take what you want, when you want it, with whom you want it.” Chances are, if you’re reading this, you have already decided that is not your choice. Maybe you’ve entered the relationship into which Jesus invites you, or you are curious and exploring it. Maybe you’ve already discovered what Christians have known for 2000 years, that life is infinitely richer – though no less painful – when we are aware of having the Son of God around our house.

Jesus did not come to make us feel better about our lives. Jesus came to draw us closer in the one relationship we will have for eternity, in intimacy with God. Starting that relationship here and now makes our lives more purposeful – and often more stressful. “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it,” Jesus says at the end of this teaching.

What are some of the ways Jesus’ claims have caused you to “lose your life,” or at least to give up some patterns that felt easy but were not life-giving? What are some of the ways you are resisting putting God in first place in your life? Who or what would have to be moved to second or third? Can you offer that to God in prayer, inviting the Spirit in?

The gift – which we can only discover by doing it – is that when we move God-life into first place, we engage our other priorities more fully, because we don’t try to own them. We appreciate them as gifts, and can stop ranking them. Maybe that’s what Jesus means by “finding our life…”

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.

7-29-22 - Can't Buy Me Love

You can listen to this reflection here.

Jesus told a story about a rich man who thought he could store up all his wealth, eat, drink and be merry, only to find that his number was up. At the end, Jesus sums it up in a moral – which it is highly tempting to apply to quite a few people in our national life: 

“So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.”

What does it mean to be rich towards God? And why would we need to be rich towards the Maker of all worlds, the One who has everything? What does God need from us? Nothing… But God wants our love, our lives, our trust, our willingness to receive God’s gifts without trying to repay them. God desires our presence in relationship, to love and be loved.

The man in the parable thinks he can buy everything he needs. But when his life suddenly ends, he finds out that in his greed he’d lost out on the one commodity that lasts for an eternity – love. He’d invested in the wrong places.

When we’re concerned with storing up treasure for ourselves, that’s where our focus is. When we’re storing up treasure in heaven, that’s where our focus is. A God-ward focus inevitably leads our attention to the most vulnerable of God’s children, because God’s concerns become ours. Being rich toward God means blessing God’s beloveds.

Sometimes we do it backward, giving to people in need and just “checking in” with God on occasion. That’s well and good – but it means we’re always in control of the giving, and we’re not growing with God. Something amazing happens when we let God be the focus; then our giving to others feels just right, even when it’s more than we ever imagined we could give.

How might you make God more the focus your time, your energy, your emotional life? Where do you feel the Spirit nudging you to share your wealth? Everyone has to find their own way – all I can do is tell you that our destination is Love. And that is the one thing money just can’t buy.

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