5-9-18 - Play It Again

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Tomorrow is Ascension Day, so we’ll look at that story for the rest of this week. Ascension is an odd story and an odd doctrine – but it does get Jesus back to the heavenly precincts where he is said to be seated on the right hand of the Father. (Which inspired a child once to ask me the vexing question, “Who’s sitting on God’s left hand?”)

Jesus hung out for forty days after his resurrection, the Gospels tell us, instructing and inspiring his followers to believe the impossible, and to act as though they believed it. It’s hard to convince the world all things are possible with God when you’re holed up in a room in Jerusalem for fear of your life. So Jesus kept showing up when least expected, and going through the lessons again. Once more, with feeling…

Jesus said to his disciples, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you – that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

This time he does more than tell them where they’ve been – he tells them where they’re going: to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins to all nations, starting from Jerusalem. In the Acts version of the Pentecost story, Jesus gives a fuller itinerary: “… you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The book of Acts shows us how closely the spreading of the Good News followed that trajectory.

Why do we need to be reminded of where we’ve been in order to get on with where we’re going? I can be impatient with readings from the Hebrew Bible – they strike me more and more as scriptures for an ancient, alien people, not for today’s followers of Christ. And yet I know why I continue to read them, and why we read them in church on Sundays, why we don't want to get too far away from them: they remind us where we stand in the big picture of God’s courtship of an alienated humanity. We may not always like the way those ancient people spoke of God, or the words or motives they attributed to God, but the overarching story is one of love. As Jesus reminded his followers of what he'd taught them in the recent past, we too need to be reminded.

What is your relationship with the stories of the Hebrew bible? What about the New Testament?
Does the bible help you to proclaim forgiveness and wholeness to the people you know?
If you’re not in the habit of reading the bible regularly, spend some time with a small chunk today.

The bible is our anchor as we grow in faith and in the love of God. It tethers us to a rich tradition and a vast and diverse community of faith, living now and gone before. Consider it the rearview mirror of faith – if we want to go forward in God’s mission as Jesus tells us, we have to keep our eyes on the road and at the same time be aware of what’s behind us. It’s called driving.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here.

5-8-18 - Is Unity Possible for Christians?

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Split decision this year: I will spend two days on the Gospel appointed for next Sunday, and three on the readings for Ascension Day, which is Thursday. Here's Day 2 of Easter 7:

One day I was reading Amos, a prophet to whom God gave symbolic visions. So I said to God, “If I were a prophet, what would you show me?” Right away a picture formed in my mind. To my left, I saw a crowd of people frantic, their faces turned toward the sky, their mouths open like baby birds waiting for food. I understood they were ravenous. Then my attention was drawn to another crowd nearby, angry, shouting at each other. I realized these were bakers, arguing about who had the best recipe for bread. The interpretation came into my mind almost as quickly as the images: the bakers were the churches, squabbling over their differences, while people hungered for the Bread of Life.

One prominent strand among many in Jesus’ farewell discourse is unity among Christ-followers. In his prayer for his disciples on his last night among them, Jesus expresses a deep concern for them. He prays that they be protected from the world, and from the evil one. And it seems that what he most wants to see them protected from is disunity.

“Love one another as I have loved you,” he tells them. And he prays, “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

It’s as though the worst thing that could happen to them is not bodily harm or failure, but breaking faith with one another. When we look at how fractured the church of Jesus Christ is and has been, we can understand his concern. The power of God is unlimited except when it comes to the human heart. God still gives us choice, and we can hear the longing in Jesus that we exercise our choice to come together, not stand divided.

I don’t see in this passage an indictment of denominations and different expressions of Christianity – that’s just the way human nature and human institutions work. Jesus doesn’t need us all worshipping the same way or even emphasizing the same points of doctrine. What Jesus does plead is that we regard one another with love, and that the world see his church as united in love for him and for God’s children.

So much divides us – history, theology, interpretation of scripture, divergent views on justice and holiness. Much of this is real and important. Is it possible for us to set aside those things that divide, and focus on the One True thing – or, more biblically, the True One, our Lord Jesus, Son of God, risen savior of the world?

Or is it the worst sort of denial to say, “Oh, let’s just get together and love Jesus, and I'll overlook your homophobia/ racism/defense of privilege/disregard for the sanctity of life/cherry-picking Scripture/fill-in-your-own-rant-here?” Where do the claims for Christian unity crash against the call for justice? That’s a huge question. I can’t answer it. I only know this polarization, even injustice, is not godly.

Jesus prayed, “While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me.” He promises he is still praying for his apostles, those called to reveal the Good News of restoration in Christ. I don’t know how to lay aside my outrage at some of the things my fellow Christians say or do, any more than some of them could honor my positions.

But we all know how to pray to the One we call Lord, whose power to heal and transform can work even on our stubborn hearts if we’re willing to invite him in. Enough prayer and enough humility, enough allowing the Holy Spirit to work in us, we might live into Jesus' prayer that we be one.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here.

5-7-18 - Yours, Mine & Ours

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Split decision this year: I will spend two days on the Gospel appointed for next Sunday, and three on the readings for Ascension Day, which is Thursday. Here's Day 1 of John 17:

When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was Yours, Mine and Ours, the true story of a blended family (a widower with ten children married a widow with eight, and they had two more…). I got the biggest kick out of the shenanigans in that household. (The book was made into a film with Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball in 1968, and then a more forgettable remake in 2005.)

None of which has anything to do with this week’s gospel, except that the way Jesus talks to his heavenly Father about his disciples always reminds me of the title:
“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me… they are yours.”

This prayer for Jesus’ disciples is almost tidal, moving forward in overlapping waves. In this first part, it’s hard to track who belongs to whom. Jesus refers to his disciples as “those you gave me,” those entrusted to him by the Father. “They were yours, and you gave them to me…”

What if clergy more often thought of their congregants in this way – as those who belong to God, entrusted into their care for a time, not “mine.” What if a congregation viewed its pastor this way? And a wife, her husband; and parents their children; and teachers their students, doctors their patients, stockbrokers their clients. How different the web of human relationships would be if we all viewed the people in our lives as belonging to God first and foremost, and only secondarily and in a very limited way, to us. How much heartache might be avoided.

Regarding other people as belonging to God, we might treat them with more reverence and care. Maybe this is why Jesus was so easy sitting with lepers and outcasts, the greedy and the deranged – because he knew they were God’s precious creatures and therefore worthy of honor. He healed not to make them more acceptable; he healed because wholeness more perfectly reflected their status as God’s beloved.

Periodically I encounter the advice to “Remember you are a child of God” or words to that effect. It is a valuable spiritual practice; most of us would be kinder to ourselves if we lived it. Today, though, let's turn it around. Think of a person or group or type of person in whom you find it hard to see anything good, to respect, let alone love. Call that person to mind. And then overlay this caption over that picture: “Belongs to God.” How does that change the way you regard that person? Try it every day this week. Note what feelings come up, and pray through them.

Jesus ended with a statement of mutual possessing: “All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.” We are invited into that mutual belonging, in this gigantic blended family we call the human race, loved beyond measure by the God who created, redeemed and sustains us. We continue to bring Jesus glory as we treat everyone around us as both ours and God’s.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here.

5-4-18 - Chosen

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Most people like to be chosen. Whether it’s for a team in grade school, a dance in high school, a job, an award, a date, it makes us feel good to be seen and selected (stalkers notwithstanding…). But being chosen is passive – we can’t ensure we’ll be picked, as hard as we might try to be the best candidate.

That makes some people more comfortable being the chooser, even choosy. Choosing puts us in control. Freedom of choice is a huge value in American life. (So don’t say “we only serve Pepsi” when I want a Diet Coke!) We champion the right to choose our jobs, spouses, healthcare and reproduction, even gender. Freedom to choose is a core value for all human life and interaction.

Jesus’ disciples thought they chose to follow him. He didn’t compel them – he came along and said, “Follow me.” They made that choice, often at great cost to their families and communities. So imagine their surprise to hear Jesus say that’s not the way it happened:
“You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.”

Did Jesus really choose this motley crew of hard-headed, occasionally thick-headed men and women? Maybe he should have used a head-hunter. Or maybe Jesus has different values than we do. Maybe this mixed up group was just exactly who he wanted to graduate as his first team of apostles. And maybe he has chosen us for the same reason, because he believes that we too are gifted and lovable, capable of bearing fruit, abundant fruit that will endure.

Do you feel chosen by God to be a follower of Jesus Christ? Or did it feel like something you chose, or someone else chose for you? There has to be an element of response on our part; we’re not puppets. I believe it is the realization of being chosen that elicits a response in us. That’s how it works when two people are courting. And this relationship with Jesus is more love story than hiring process.

How do you respond to being chosen by God? Does it affect the way you live your faith?
How does knowing God’s desire for us is fruitfulness affect the way you live your faith?

The fruitfulness and the chosen-ness go together. We cannot make ourselves fruitful any more than we can get ourselves chosen. When we let in the mystery of how precious we are to God, the wonder that God would choose us to participate in God’s great mission of reclaiming, restoring and renewing all of creation to wholeness in Christ – that knowledge of our chosen-ness generates a desire in us to bear fruit in that mission, the fruit of lives transformed and hearts opened.

Our hearts become opened by the awareness of Love, and then we bear the fruit of Love into the lives around us, as God's transforming power works through us as Jesus promised. That is how we see fruit that will last.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here.

5-3-18 - No Longer Servants

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

There are promotions – and then there is the status upgrade Jesus' followers got on his last evening among them. He was telling them what it means to abide in his love, to live by his rules, to love one another with the kind of love they received from him. He said, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.”

In a culture in which people attached themselves to a spiritual master, whom they served and revered, followed and learned from, this language of friendship might have sounded jarring. So Jesus explained, “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.”

Being someone’s servant and being their friend are very different. Servanthood can be easier – you have no responsibility to strategize, plan, or achieve the grand vision. You need only fulfill the tasks assigned you with all the skill and commitment you can muster, anticipating needs as appropriate. And then collect your paycheck and take your assigned time off. There is a simplicity to contractual, hierarchical relationships.

Friendship, with its mutuality and intimacy, is much messier; covenantal, not contractual; committed to nurturing the friend and growing the friendship. Friends are responsible for one another in a way that a supervisor and servant are not. Friends are recipients of each other’s joys and worries and confidences. This is what Jesus highlights; he says he has entrusted his followers with everything he has heard from God the Father. That must have been daunting to hear.

Yet it must also have been exhilarating to be told they were no longer servants, but friends. If we work for someone we respect and admire, it’s a rush to be elevated from employee to friend. There is more freedom and collegiality, along with more responsibility.

Have you have taken Jesus up on his offer of friendship? Sometimes in the church we can act more like pack mules struggling up a hill than as independent, respected, friends of the Living God. Is it easier to think we work for Jesus rather than with him?

Jesus didn't ask us to work for him. He wants us working with him, filled with his Spirit, not checking off tasks and having him sign off on our time-sheets. He has entrusted us with the honor and responsibility of being his friends. Have we accepted? Do we hang out in prayer with him as a friend? Do we go out, healing and transforming people with him, sitting with sinners, challenging oppressors, loving the loveless?

How do we move and talk and sit and listen as friend of the Risen and Anointed One? 

Figuring that out - that's the work of ministry.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here.

5-2-18 - Love One Another

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Jesus set a pretty high bar for friendship. On his last night in human life, he told his followers, 

“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

I don’t know many people likely to be asked to lay down their lives for friends, though some under persecution or threat of war are faced with such choices. The highest sacrifice asked of most of us is that we lay aside our prerogatives, preferences, convenience for our friends.

But Jesus knew what was ahead – for him, and for his friends. The persecution that would be unleashed after Jesus' arrest, crucifixion and resurrection would eventually claim the lives of most of those with him at that momentous Last Supper. Before they could offer that kind of sacrifice, though, they would have to be willing to truly love each other. Jesus had said that keeping his commandments would enable them to abide in his love. “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” Now he spells out the heart of that mandatum novum.“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” 

"But we do love each other," they may have thought. They had spent three years in close quarters and sometimes no quarters at all. But the gospels tell us how much squabbling and jockeying went on among these disciples. And no matter what affection they may have had for each other, Jesus was now upping the stakes: they were to love each other as he loved them. His was a love that laid down everything to draw near them, that bore their misjudgments and inability to grasp the ways of the Kingdom he was trying to inculcate in them. His was a love that would ultimately lead to sacrificial death, and then an empty grave and new life eternally.

These men and women were to be the agents of sharing that new life with the world. They couldn’t do that if they didn’t love each other as Jesus had loved them. And so he commanded them to love, even unto death.

We are the beneficiaries of their love. The legacy they left, even with all the strains and dysfunction common to human institutions, grew into an incubator from which sacrificial love can pour out in God’s mission. That kind of love is asked of us if we are to be part of God’s mission to reclaim, restore, and renew all things to wholeness.

How do we love like that? We begin by allowing Jesus to love us like that, truly taking in the depth and breadth of his love, not only “back then” but now, forever and always. Those moments in which we grasp the extent of God’s love for us, deserved or not, help form us as vessels of that love for others. We can also ask Jesus to show us his love for people we find it a challenge to love. His vision can help us love people when it’s difficult to get past what we see and hear in them.

The church of Jesus Christ is increasingly divided among factions and peoples who find it nearly impossible to "love one another as he has loved us." It’s no wonder our proclamation has so little impact. So we have ample opportunity to practice loving those who interpret the Good News is ways that radically diverge from our ways of seeing, who seem to us to miss the whole point of Jesus’ grace and love. That's who we are commanded to love. Yikes!

Yet if we can find a way to love one another across the barriers that separate us… I do believe the world might finally know that Love of which we are stewards.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here.

5-1-18 - Joy

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Joy is an elusive state of being – and a gift. We cannot acquire it, can only receive it. We can't achieve joy by striving, or by talking about it. I’ve tried. And yet joy is something Jesus wants his followers to possess: "I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”  (Here is this Sunday's gospel reading.)

Joy defies easy definition. It is not the same as happiness or contentment, though it shares attributes with those conditions. It goes deeper, a way of being and seeing that comes from the core of us, and gives us a sense of “alrightness” no matter what our circumstances. It takes deep faith, decisive faith to believe that “all things shall be well” in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. The evidence God provides, of resurrection life triumphing over evil and degradation, disease and death, can seem flimsy in the face of what our natural senses tell us. Those who possess joy are able to proclaim life in the face of death, not denying the reality of pain and evil, yet living in the "already" of Christ’s victory over these ills.

Joy cannot be acquired or fabricated, but it can be cultivated. We can expand our capacity to receive Christ's joy. We can take the kernel that is there in us, which we are promised as a gift of the Spirit, and help it to grow. How do we cultivate and increase our capacity for joy?

We start with gratitude. The spiritual practice of gratitude waters the seeds of joy in us. Calling to mind God’s gifts to us, unexpected blessings, all the times things do work out against the odds, or in spite of them, creates an atmosphere in us in which joy can grow and flourish. Similarly, compassion for ourselves and for others helps nurture a climate in which joy can thrive.

We can also flex our “joy muscles.” We must decide to be people of joy, apart from how we feel on a given day or hour. If we accept that joy is a gift of the Spirit, and we accept that Jesus names it as a mark of Christ-followers, we can commit ourselves to letting it grow in us. So often we let anxiety or grief take root in us, sometimes so deeply, we can’t imagine life without them. What if we allow God to plant the seed of joy that deep in us, to gradually uproot those life-squashing states of being?

What is your relationship to joy? Is it familiar to you, or rare? Some of us didn’t learn joy growing up, or have had it suppressed by circumstances. We need to make space for it now, as a choice and a decision.

If we allow that God has already planted the seed of joy in us, then we need to water it and weed around it and make sure it gets plenty of sunlight. We water it with gratitude and compassion and generosity. We weed away the cares and preoccupations that threaten to choke our joy – worry, envy, competitiveness, greed, gluttony – the usual suspects. And we give it plenty of exposure to the light of the Son in prayer, and worship and mission.

Jesus told his followers he wanted their joy to be complete. Not just a little – the whole deal. We can feel and show forth joy in times of trial and sadness, stress and adversity. I just lost my best beloved cat Dandelion; I’m inviting joy to spring up in the midst of my grief. Perhaps, like the light cast by a beacon on a stormy night, joy is most visible in the dark.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here.