Water Daily

12-13-21 - Haste

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

In Sunday Gospel Land, we’re going backward. Having spent two weeks with John the Baptist (when Jesus was already a grown man), we zip back to both men’s pre-natal life. (My own churches have had the readings out of lectionary sequence, but more chronologically.) Back we go to Galilee, or rather to Judea, where young Mary has gone “with haste” to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Having received the rather alarming news of her impending pregnancy by the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary is told by that frightening angel that Elizabeth, “who is in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”

One piece of news or the other sent Mary quickly away from her native Nazareth:

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.

What induced her haste? Was she anxious to verify the angel’s claims, to be reassured that she was not crazy, had not hallucinated the whole stupefying encounter? Was she eager to get away from prying eyes and nagging tongues, and gossip that could have exposed her to more than disgrace – were she found to have committed adultery while betrothed, she could have faced a penalty of death. Luke doesn’t tell us why she went “with haste,” but the phrase stands out in this season when we are invited to embrace waiting and watching. Mary didn’t wait – she just went. Perhaps guided by the Holy Spirit, perhaps by her own raging emotions, she high-tailed to the hill country.

There is a place and time for waiting in the life of faith. "Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength,” we read in Isaiah 40. “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage,” says Psalm 27. Certainly there is a lot of waiting during a pregnancy. Yet there is also a time and a place for action, for moving quickly to right a wrong, or to stand with someone under attack, or to discern what exactly God is doing when you feel the Spirit’s nudge.

Discernment is a tricky business. Often we need to wait for things to unfold in God’s time. But when we do get a word or prompt, even a hint of where God is inviting us to serve, we can seek confirmation right away.

What stirrings of the Spirit are animating you these days?
What activity of God are you drawn to participate in?
What injustice do you wish you could set right?
What person or people do you feel called to encourage and support?

Do you feel called into a new job or vocation? To pick up a new friend or pastime?

Whatever may be stirring, ask God to make it clear. That prayer doesn’t always get answered quickly, but we should not tire of asking it. And we should be ready to move with haste when we have a chance to find out just what it is God is up to now. For nothing will be impossible with God.

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12-10-21 - Advance Man

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

He wore skins and lived off the grid. Way off, deep in the wilderness. He ate locusts, washing them down with wild honey. He was a freak show – and a holy man. Crowds of people came out of the city to find him and hear his often harsh message: “Repent! God is coming! Quit whining and return to the ways of your Creator.”

They listened, they responded and went into the River Jordan in droves. They wondered if he was the prophet Elijah or even the long-awaited Messiah. They wanted to worship him. But that’s where he drew the line: “Listen, I’m not the one you’re looking for. I’m just the advance man for a much bigger show. The opening act.”

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals.”

Even after Jesus began his public ministry receiving John’s baptism, after Jesus began to draw away the crowds and even some of John’s disciples, there were some who sought John. I imagine his message was easier to swallow, in many ways. "Stop sinning and start living righteously." Good and bad, black and white, not like Jesus' elliptical stories and counter-intuitive teachings that made no sense. John was simpler.

It can still be tempting to focus on the servants of God when they are really holy, fully devoted to loving and serving God; to confuse worshiper and worshiped. Clergy are taught to be wary of congregants who project onto them qualities they want to see rather than the real, flawed human leader in front of them. Leaders of real holiness have the humility to know their function is to help lead people into relationship with Christ.

And when people are in a relationship with Jesus, they can go beyond the simplicity of “repent” and “be a better person.” They become ready to dwell in the both/and world of the father’s love for the sinner, the sister’s laying aside her needs for her family, the cheating tax collector becoming a great philanthropist, the slave trader becoming a forgiven abolitionist.

John knew who he was, and who he wasn’t, and that makes him one of the greatest saints in history. And yet Jesus said, “The one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” John got to usher people to the gates of the Kingdom; we get to live there.

12-9-21 - Fire

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

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire… isn’t this the season for nice cozy fires? Well, not when we let John the Baptizer in. The fire he’s talking about, which he says Jesus will bring, is another force altogether, which will do more than warm us:

“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

That doesn’t sound like such good news to me – the ax, the winnowing fork, the unquenchable fire. I prefer my fires contained in a candle or crackling merrily in a fireplace. And unquenchable fire? Isn’t that an image of eternal damnation?
Yet fire is also one of our symbols for the power of the Holy Spirit. Our life in Christ begins with water, the transforming water of baptism by which we are made one with Christ and members of God’s family. And then God’s life is released in us as we are baptized with the fire of the Holy Spirit. That’s where we get the power by which God works transformation through us. We need water and fire.

I once had a prayer experience in which I fervently asked the Spirit to “set my heart on fire with love for you.” A good and holy prayer, isn’t it? But God shot right back: “Do you know what you’re asking? My fire consumes everything that is not of me.”

The fire of God is a purifying flame, and if we let it, it will indeed purify us. I once heard a story that describes this process beautifully. I have no idea how accurate it is, but it’s a lovely image of how gold was purified in olden times. The smelter would take the gold and put it into a pot and put a fire under it. As the gold melted, the impurities in it would rise to the surface, all that is known as “dross,” everything that’s not gold, that’s gotten mixed in, all of that would rise to the surface… and the refiner would skim it off.

And then he’d make the fire hotter, and more impurities would rise to the surface, and he’d skim them off. And then he’d make the fire hotter and more elements that were not pure gold would rise, and he’d skim them off. And then he’d make the fire hotter. Until there were no impurities left. Until, when the refiner looked into the pot, he saw his own image perfectly reflected back to him in the gold.

In this metaphor, we are the gold, of course. And you know the Refiner. But there’s something else: the pot which contains us is the Love of God, the One who was called Love. This pot has been fired in the furnace and will not crack. This Love bears the fire with us. This Love contains us as we are purified, and made ready to spend eternity with him.

If we want to open ourselves to a deeper experience of God’s love and power, we need to ask for a deeper filling of the fire of God, the Holy Spirit. There may be parts of our lives we don’t want to see scorched - can we offer God access anyway? Can we let God burn away the parts of us that are inauthentic, not true to who God made us to be? Can we let in the purifying flame? Can we become the fire of God that the world sees?

12-8-21 - Power

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

Every day seems to bring a fresh outrage, reports of words or actions by people in authority that demean others or diminish their civil rights. From policemen shooting unarmed citizens, to hyper-wealthy financiers and huge corporations using legal loopholes to avoid paying their share of taxes, to Christian leaders using the rhetoric of hatred and violence, it’s hard to trust anyone with power.

And, once again, John the Baptist is up to the minute:

Even tax-collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do.” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”

How are we to respond to abuses of power as people of faith called to humility and love. Much of what is being said and done publicly is so contrary to what Jesus proclaimed and lived, it seems to demand a response from anyone with a Christian conscience. We need to stand against distortions and demagoguery – Jesus did a lot of that. And yet he also said we are to love those who would persecute us. How?

What John did was to call people back to their true selves and remind them of their charge as public servants. He told them to be satisfied with the compensation they were receiving, not to crave more. Now, he was speaking to people who came to him. They were open to counsel on how to live more righteously. A lot of the people who cause my blood pressure to rise don’t think they need to be taught anything about humility or how to be a bearer of Christ.

The most powerful thing we can do, really, is to pray for those who speak and act destruction. Pray for the most abusive and outrageous. That is exactly who Jesus told us to pray for. And for terrorists. And for destroyers of wildlife. And for those who game the system. The whole lot.

Every time we hear about a new outrage, how about we stop and pray for the perpetrator? Pray for God to bless them and recall them to their true selves.

Imagine what changes could come about if we wielded the only weapon we’re given: the spiritual power in the name of Jesus to transform even the coldest heart. My Facebook feed is going to inspire an awful lot of praying!

12-7-21 - Greed

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

How many coats is too many? Sweaters? Shoes? Cans of tuna? Does it count if the coats are old? Where is the line between thrift and greed? I fear John the Baptist would say I crossed it a long time ago.

In response to his harsh words about the judgment to come upon those who do not “bear fruit worthy of repentance,” John’s listeners were perplexed – and anxious:

And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.”

I like stuff. I like accumulating it, and I must like storing it and moving it, because much of my stuff has been with me awhile. In fact, I look forward to one day getting some of my mother’s stuff! (Happily, she’s still enjoying it at 96…) And yet I’m also burdened by it, and deeply moved by the need of so many in the world. I suspect I’m not the only person who squirms in that cognitive dissonance.

Greed is not hard to define. It is keeping more than you need, and not sharing it with people who do need it. Almost everyone I know is complicit in a system that fosters greed, even encourages it – after all, buying things is our duty to keep the economy going, right? Except that we could as well keep the economy going by buying things for other people, people who are not related to us, who do not have the resources we have.

Part of my problem, when I am reminded of the hold greed has on me, is that I go to the “all or nothing” place. I’m not ready to downsize to a 300-square-foot tiny house and a 20-item wardrobe and give everything else away, so I guess I just stay greedy until I’m ready to change, right?

Maybe not. Maybe we try the incremental approach. Maybe we figure out some strategies to slow down our rate of accumulation and accelerate our giving to others – and by others, I mean people in genuine need, not gift-giving to our loved ones.

What if we commit to buying one item for a homeless family for every two gifts we buy this Christmas season? (Or buy a gift for a youth in foster care as part of my church’s Giving Tree… click here for the list.) What if we make an equivalent donation each time we buy something for ourselves that is not strictly needed? Even beginning to evaluate our purchases would go a long way toward making us more aware of how much we have relative to so many others. And I suspect linking our accumulation to giving would help us release a lot more.

Am I trying to take all the joy out of prosperity? No. I just think it's possible that John – and Jesus, and St. Francis and thousands of other saints over millennia – had a point. If our joy is located in our prosperity, we’re not ready to dwell in the Life of God. And when our joy is located in the Life of God… we're apt to redefine prosperity.

12-6-21 - Holy Ranting

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here. Scroll down for info about an upcoming online Advent Retreat this Saturday.

Today is St. Nicholas Day – a day of cheerful giving in the tradition of the great Bishop of Myra. Yet, though he was known for generosity, lending his name to the jolly figure we now know as Santa Claus, St. Nicholas could be fierce and combative when he felt Christian belief was being attacked. One of the many legends about him has him slapping the Egyptian theologian Arius in the face at the Council of Nicea over whether or not Jesus the Son was the equal of God the Father. (The Council eventually came down on the side of the full equality of all three persons of the Trinity, and Arius has gone down in history as a heretic…)

Old Nicholas, like anyone with a social media account today, was no stranger to the rant: an impassioned articulation of support or denunciation, fueled by indignation, righteous or otherwise, sometimes punctuated by biting wit. A good rant can leave you feeling somewhat singed, or slightly sick. John the Baptist, like many a prophet in Israel’s tradition, was a master of the good rant. He let the crowds who’d come out to see him know just what he thought of their sight-seeing curiosity and trendy repentance.

John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor”; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.’

Wow. In a few short words, he’s called them a nest of poisonous snakes and warned them of wrath, fire and axes. He’s told them their history as “God’s chosen people” will not protect them from God’s righteous judgment. Is this the kind of preaching that fills churches?

It didn’t seem to hurt John’s numbers… nor did he care. Like the prophets of old, he had a message from God to deliver, and he delivered it without concern for the outcome. He was there to tell them what they needed to hear, and to offer them a ritual that made visible the internal repentance to which he called them. What people did with that message was between them and God.

The prophets we meet in the Hebrew Bible didn’t mince words either. Their prophecies veered between doom and promise, and were often terrifying. A prophet doesn’t have to be frightening, but the prophet does have to honestly say what she or he believes God wants the people to hear. That’s the tricky part – to speak for God, and not just out of your own sense of right or wrong – or grievance.

John’s essential message, if we take out the scary bits, was that people were to bear the fruit of repentance, not just say the words. If they were genuinely sorry for the way they had been living, conducting business and relationships, there should be a visible effect in changed lives and behaviors.

We are not to stop calling out injustice and untruth when we see it. We are to work for equity and access to resources and security for all people, and if necessary to speak against those who would deny those basic rights. Sometimes that speaking out will include ranting. More often it will entail a steady, relentless process of forming relationships in which communication can happen in humility and honesty.

Jesus could get up a good rant too – yet usually he brought transformation by drawing people into a relationship of love. A good prophet speaks the truth; a good leader fosters relationships to bring about outcomes that reflect that truth. That is our mission, transformation in Christ’s love.

Advent Spa for the Spirit - Saturday, December 11

Taking the Advent theme of awakening, we'll explore how we can wake to the still voice in our own spirits, to the lives of others, and to the Life of God all around us.
We'll gather on Zoom at 9 and be done around noon. You can register here - more information and the link will be sent. Please invite others who may like to come.

12-3-21 - Another Song of Zechariah

Today we turn from Sunday's gospel to the story of two elders whom God invited into our story of Incarnation, Zechariah and Elizabeth, the aged parents of John the Baptist. This imagined monologue is based on Luke 1:5-25, 57-66. You can listen to this reflection here.

…the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

I didn’t hear much after “Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son.” She would what? We would have what? How? Why now? Why not… The questions filled me, knocking each other out of the way, jostling for attention. I will have a son? Elizabeth will bear a son? I am to have a small child in the house, to teach and raise? I am to have a namesake?

Ah no, I remember that much from what followed. He is to be called John. The angel, or whatever he was, said a lot of other things about this child yet to be, almost like someone already knew him quite well. An ascetic, he would be. A leader. A prophet. A holy man.

I only asked one thing – you wouldn’t have thought it so bad. “How will I know? I’m old, and Elizabeth is long past childbearing, not that that we were ever able to conceive.” How I can I now conceive the inconceivable?

“I said so,” said Gabriel, like that should be enough. “God sent me. You think an angel is going to show up in front of you and tell you something imaginary?” And for my temerity in asking a logical question, he made me mute. He took my speech. He took my language, my precious words, my ability to express, to convince, to curse, to bless.

Or did he give me something? The time, the space, the silence, to digest the crazy promise, the mission my son, my child, my already-beloved will have?

Time and space to try to grasp the promise of salvation, of a savior – for I know my son is to be connected to one who will deliver humanity, all the world, even the cosmos…

Time and space to contemplate being the father of one who will speak for God, a teacher, a path-maker, going before the coming savior, making hearts ready to receive that new life.

Time and space to absorb mercy, mercy I have never felt I needed, as a good and upright man from a priestly line. Mercy not only for me, but for all who sit in shadows and hopelessness.

Mercy not only for sin; mercy that brings new life into being, as the dawn brings forth a new day… Mercy that makes whole.

Have I been made silent to receive that gift of peace?