12-24-24 - Made Children of God

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

People often say that Christmas is for children. It may be more accurate to say that it is a holiday best enjoyed by those whose capacity for wonder and enchantment is untarnished, who still believe in what cannot be seen, who love the anticipation of wrapped gifts and visiting family.

I confess my capacity for wonder is a little tarnished these days, given the state of the world. So what good news it is to hear that I have received power to become a child again!

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

Not everyone accepts the Light of the World; some have grown too accustomed to the familiarity of shadows. Not everyone wants light shined in dark places. And by our own strength, we cannot always turn ourselves toward the Light. The way John puts it is that Jesus gives us power to become children of God. We become God’s children not by virtue of lineage or procreation or our own will, but by the power of God which comes from outside us and takes root inside us.

How do we claim – or reclaim – our identity as children of God? How might that reawaken our sense of wonder and delight? Remember, children do not generally feel responsible for everything the way adults tend to. Can we remind each other that we’re not actually in charge of making Christmas, or the world, right for everyone?

And children don’t generally let life’s disappointments diminish their ability to expect good things. Remember when there was one gift you were so hoping would be there under the tree? What would that be for you now? Let yourself hope.

Tonight is a time for wonder – a church filled with worshippers, beautiful carols we love to sing, poinsettias and greens and gold ribbon everywhere we look. And that moment when we dim the lights and light our candles and sing Silent Night and the world seems to stop for a few moments. Maybe that will help us rediscover the joy of being claimed as beloved by the God who is Love, and let our “inner children of God” come out and play.

© 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.

2-14-23 - Son Et Lumiere

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

As a child tourist, one of my favorite things was the “Son et Lumière” shows often mounted at major attractions like ruins or castles or natural wonders. Colored lights played off the site, synchronized with music, punctuated by the “ooohs” and “ahhhs” of the appreciative crowd. I loved it.

Something like that awaited Peter, James and John during their trip up the mountain with Jesus. First the light:  And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.

The sound part came a moment later – and it wasn’t music, but conversation with two people long since departed this earth: Moses and Elijah, Israel’s prophets extraordinaire, and mountain-top witnesses of divine glory. There they were, chatting away with Jesus. “Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.”

Were they there to signal that the revelation of God in Christ was in continuity with the revelation of Israel’s past? Were they Exhibits A and B for The Law and The Prophets? Matthew doesn’t tell us what they’re discussing, though Luke says, “They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.” Whatever the meaning, their presence was a major sign that God was up to something. “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Most of us don’t experience God with sound and light and visions. Is that because God isn’t revealing God’s self in that way, or because we’ve so reduced our expectations that we figure a glorious sunset is the closest we’re going to get? It’s tricky – we can’t conjure up manifestations of divinity. We can, however, be open to them – and notice when we come across them.

How do you most powerfully experience the holy? 

Have you had experiences that you’d categorize as supernatural? 

What happened, and what was the fruit of that experience in your life? 

And do you share that story? It builds up other people's faith to hear our holy stories.

God shows up in so many ways in our lives. The more we become attuned to the movement of the divine in and around us, the more we experience it.

And whether it’s eavesdropping on Biblical heroes or marveling at the presence of wild creatures in our back yards, there are sound and light shows all over for us to stumble upon, as we keep our spiritual eyes and ears open.

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10-1-21 - Child's Eye View

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

There are exercises for training care-givers, to help them better understand the experience of given populations. People working with the sight-impaired don light-proof blindfolds and try to get around; people who serve the infirm are told to navigate spaces with canes or wheelchairs.

I don’t know if any such exercises exist to better understand the world as a child experiences it, but I wonder what we’d have to do to recover that way of seeing. Certainly we’d have to get several feet closer to the floor, and maybe be told to regard every object as a potential plaything, and be encouraged to ask every question that comes to mind.

As Jesus tells it, we need to be able to get back into our “child mind” if we want to be serious about our faith journey: “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

This comment may well have shocked the serious adults to whom he addressed it. His own disciples had been busy shooing away the children who were crowding around Jesus, and he told them to let the children come. But to go further and say we need to emulate them if we want to enter the kingdom of God? That’s a radical notion.

That means we need to embrace dependency instead of going it alone. It means we are able to believe in things that we cannot see – and even see them, as our faith vision develops. It means we come to expect joy and playfulness, and strengthen our capacity for wonder. It means we ask our questions when we’re curious, and cry when we're sad, and act silly when something tickles us, and sit down for stories that capture our fancy. And we share these good things with each other.

How much of that applies to your experience of church and Christian community? How might we adapt our circumstances to foster this way of being?

I’ve been talking about how we might perceive the Kingdom as children do. But Jesus didn’t say “perceive,” he said “receive.” We must become receptors if we are to truly accept God’s gifts, even God’s calls to action. When working and giving outweigh receiving, we find ourselves stuck outside the threshold of God-Life, yearning to get in.

That’s kind of where those children were who wanted to get close to Jesus. And here’s what he did: And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
If we come to Him like that, he will offer us no less.

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