You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
It is packing season – summer vacations, weekend getaways; many of us will be taking down our suitcases and tote bags and deciding what to bring along and what to leave behind. What we pack depends largely on where we’re going – a weekend at the beach may call for shorts and t-shirts, while packing for a wedding can require five pairs of shoes.
And what if we’re packing for a mission trip? Jesus says, “Don’t. Just go.” His instructions to his disciples are perplexing: “Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food.”
He wants them to go out without any resources or safety net, to rely completely on the hospitality of those to whom they are sent. “Wait a minute,” they may have thought – “I thought we were bringing the gift. Now you want us to ask them to take us in and feed us, so we can preach the gospel to them? What’s that about?”
Maybe it’s about vulnerability. Maybe it’s about mutuality, not going to people with the resources or answers we think they need, but inviting them into relationship in which they can meet Jesus. Maybe it’s about allowing people to give to us, so that that we’re sharing on level ground, not from a place of power or control.
And for the ones who carry the Gospel to others, it is also an invitation to build the kind of trust muscles we need in God's service. Having no money or change of clothes, no toothbrush or even a staff to lean on is an invitation to lean totally on God’s provision and love. “Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?” we ask baptismal candidates. It is very hard to put our whole trust in anything, let alone a force we can know but not see or feel. But that’s the kind of faith Jesus invites us to grow.
When have you been in a situation where you had to rely totally on God? Where you couldn’t see what good was going to come, and could only trust that it would? These are trust-building opportunities.
It is not easy, but the testimony of those who live this way is that God comes through, again and again, often in completely unforeseen ways, often through the very people they thought they were there to help. When we break down the "us" and "them" and become just "us," all kinds of mutual giving becomes possible.
This story was about being sent on mission. Perhaps it is also an invitation to live more lightly always, less encumbered with stuff and space and security. Every day we have an invitation, right in our own lives, to simplify, to free up.
And every day we have opportunities to go to someone in the name of Christ, seeing what meals are provided to us when we don’t try to get them for ourselves. We don’t get to set the menu, but we will be fed. That’s the life of faith.
© 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 provision. Show all posts
Showing posts with label provision. Show all posts
3-29-23 - Provision
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
As Jesus moved through his final days in this life, many details seemed to be supernaturally pre-arranged. Twice he sent out disciples to take care of needs, adding a mysterious element – “Go to x, do y, and if anyone asks you, here’s what you say…” When they needed a room in which to celebrate the Passover feast, it was very “cloak and dagger” – “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters and tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished; prepare it there.”
And here, when the need is for a donkey, the disciples sent are also told what signs to look for: "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, 'The Lord needs them.' And he will send them immediately.’”
How did Jesus know they would find a donkey as soon as they entered the next village? And that the donkey’s owner would respond affirmatively to the notion that “the Lord” needed the animals? That means he was someone who knew Jesus to be Adonai, the Lord, not just Master and Teacher.
In the Bible, we find a principle at work: God provides what God needs to accomplish God’s mission, whether it’s stables, rooms, loaves and fish, donkeys – or tombs. AND we see that God relies upon human beings to collaborate in that mission if it is to bear fruit. Theoretically the man with the donkeys could have refused, or asked a fee, or the man with the guest room say, “It’s already rented.”
Can you think of a time when you’ve received provision unexpectedly as you went about God’s work? I bet that’s a story to tell… who needs to hear it?
And how would you respond if something as precious as livestock or a car were asked of you? Think back… What have you given for God’s use? What have you held back?
What do you sense God asking you to lend at this time in your life? Time? Family? A skill or talent? A house, or money? I’m not asking what you have to offer – I’m asking what you sense the Holy Spirit asking for. It could be that there isn’t anything… or it could be that we need to inquire, to offer, to make ourselves receptive to the request.
Think about it: God tied himself in with human beings a long time ago, at least in the Story we have (maybe God has a whole other story going with wolves or pigeons or bees…). God created the world without help, and then created humankind to help tend the whole enterprise. And even after that little initiative ran into trouble, God continued to rely upon people - upon the faith of patriarchs, and the voices of prophets, and the hands and feet of apostles to spread God’s message and reveal God’s power. It’s an intricate relationship between us and the Holy Spirit at work in us – and it is how God will continue to reveal God’s self in the world until he has restored all things to wholeness.
Which makes me wonder how much more whole things would be if we all offered our donkeys and extra rooms and special gifts as generously as the unnamed people in our stories did. What you got?
As Jesus moved through his final days in this life, many details seemed to be supernaturally pre-arranged. Twice he sent out disciples to take care of needs, adding a mysterious element – “Go to x, do y, and if anyone asks you, here’s what you say…” When they needed a room in which to celebrate the Passover feast, it was very “cloak and dagger” – “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters and tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished; prepare it there.”
And here, when the need is for a donkey, the disciples sent are also told what signs to look for: "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, 'The Lord needs them.' And he will send them immediately.’”
How did Jesus know they would find a donkey as soon as they entered the next village? And that the donkey’s owner would respond affirmatively to the notion that “the Lord” needed the animals? That means he was someone who knew Jesus to be Adonai, the Lord, not just Master and Teacher.
In the Bible, we find a principle at work: God provides what God needs to accomplish God’s mission, whether it’s stables, rooms, loaves and fish, donkeys – or tombs. AND we see that God relies upon human beings to collaborate in that mission if it is to bear fruit. Theoretically the man with the donkeys could have refused, or asked a fee, or the man with the guest room say, “It’s already rented.”
Can you think of a time when you’ve received provision unexpectedly as you went about God’s work? I bet that’s a story to tell… who needs to hear it?
And how would you respond if something as precious as livestock or a car were asked of you? Think back… What have you given for God’s use? What have you held back?
What do you sense God asking you to lend at this time in your life? Time? Family? A skill or talent? A house, or money? I’m not asking what you have to offer – I’m asking what you sense the Holy Spirit asking for. It could be that there isn’t anything… or it could be that we need to inquire, to offer, to make ourselves receptive to the request.
Think about it: God tied himself in with human beings a long time ago, at least in the Story we have (maybe God has a whole other story going with wolves or pigeons or bees…). God created the world without help, and then created humankind to help tend the whole enterprise. And even after that little initiative ran into trouble, God continued to rely upon people - upon the faith of patriarchs, and the voices of prophets, and the hands and feet of apostles to spread God’s message and reveal God’s power. It’s an intricate relationship between us and the Holy Spirit at work in us – and it is how God will continue to reveal God’s self in the world until he has restored all things to wholeness.
Which makes me wonder how much more whole things would be if we all offered our donkeys and extra rooms and special gifts as generously as the unnamed people in our stories did. What you got?
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