Water Daily

4-12-22 - Tuesday in Holy Week: Philip

Each day this week we will use the gospel appointed for the day, and hear from one of the main characters in the story, as I imagine they might speak. I hope this will help engage your own imagination as you walk this story with Jesus.
You can listen to this reflection here.

Philip of Bethsaida: People always wanted to see Jesus; what was so different about these Greeks, that their seeking him out should cause him such sadness?

I wasn’t even sure I should bother him when they approached me. I mean, a LOT of people wanted to see Jesus – not all of them friendly – and he seemed tense and tired. So I checked in with Andrew, who's closer to the inner circle than I. We went together to Jesus. His response surprised me. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified,” he said. I wasn’t sure what that meant but he just looked resigned, and added, “I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

I couldn't pretend not to know what he was talking about – the rumors of plots against him have been flying for weeks now. It got a lot worse after Lazarus. The religious leaders are not happy with Jesus’ popularity, or his miracles. And now even Greeks in Jerusalem for Passover want to see him? This will not be good.

Or is it “good” in a much bigger picture? Jesus keeps hinting at a mission broader than we can imagine, that God is up to something huge. Is that what he means by “fruit?” Could something good come from the death of one so amazing as Jesus? Whom I, we, believe to be the Anointed One, the Messiah himself? What kind of fruit might he bear if he dies?

Is he talking about us too? Are we all called to be grains of wheat, broken open so the life of God can break out?

“Whoever serves me must follow me,” he said. “And where I am, there will my servant be also.” Well, I am his servant. I can think of no greater purpose for my life than to serve Jesus. I will stay as close to him this week as I can, and hope against hope he’s just speaking in metaphors…

How about us? Are we willing to stay close to Jesus this week? What do you find most unsettling about the whole story of Holy Week? Is there a part you routinely want to avoid? Why do you suppose that is?

I pray that we might walk closely with Jesus this week, allowing him to be real in our lives - not the suffering crucified one, but the risen Lord of heaven and earth, bearing abundant fruit through us.

You are welcome to join me tonight at 7 pm EDT for an online service for Tuesday in Holy Week - link is here. Our Holy Week schedule of services, most of which can be accessed online, is here.

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4-11-22 - Monday in Holy Week: Mary of Bethany

Each day this week we will use the gospel appointed for the day, and hear from one of the main characters in the story, as I imagine they might speak. I hope this will help engage your own imagination as you walk this story with Jesus.
You can listen to this reflection here.

Mary of Bethany:
I know it was an intimate thing to do, even scandalous. You should have seen my sister Martha’s face when I poured a whole pound of pure nard on Jesus’ feet! But Jesus was like my brother. Yes, he was my Lord, but I also loved him like I loved Lazarus. It seemed the most natural and full way to honor him before he… before, you know…

How did I know he was going to leave us soon? It wasn’t because he said so. I just felt it. After Lazarus’ death, when Jesus… raised him… I just stood at that tomb and was filled with a knowing: “Before too long we will have to bury the Teacher.” It was like I could see into his spirit; I knew he would be taken from us. He said it often enough; we just didn’t want to believe him.

This might be the last time he was in our home. I had bought the nard to anoint him after his death; I didn’t want them using anything cheap on him. I used all the money I’d gotten from the clothes I made and sold. I wanted the best for him. But that night I looked at him in the flickering light, as we all sat at the table after the meal, talking and talking, as we always did… and I thought, “Why waste this on him after his death. He should be honored like this in life.” And that was it; I just got up and took the jar and broke it and poured it all over his feet, the whole thing, everything for him.

“Oh the waste!” they cried, Judas leading the charge. “This could have been sold and given to the poor!” Well, of course it could have. But that wasn’t the point. The point was to honor Jesus, to give him comfort and love and protection because we would not be able to protect him from what was ahead. This was one way I could show love to him.

It was shocking to hear him say it so bluntly, that we wouldn’t always have him with us. I still don’t think they really heard him, or understood. But he let me know I had done the right thing, as wrong as it seemed to everyone else there. He was going to lay down his life for us. I didn’t know what would happen after that. He had talked about being raised on the third day. He had said something to Martha at the tomb about being the resurrection and the life, and “Do you believe this?” But how could we know what would be?

Now I do know, and I ask you: was my action any more “wasteful” than the Son of God pouring out his life for the likes of me? For those who wouldn’t even recognize the gift?

Mary’s act of devotion and worship is unbelievably extravagant, seemingly wasteful. She held nothing back. Do you ever feel that toward Jesus… maybe toward someone else in your life?

The time you are spending now is precious to God… and as we give this, we can begin to look at what we’re holding back and release that too.

You are welcome to join me tonight at 7 pm EDT for an online service for Monday in Holy Week - link is here. Our Holy Week schedule of services, most of which can be accessed online, is here.

4-8-22 - Do Stones Sing?

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

One person’s praise is another’s blasphemy. When the Pharisees heard Jesus’ disciples calling him the “King that comes in the name of the Lord,” they asked him to shut them up: Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Praise is part of the natural order in God’s world. Sometimes it’s obvious in a riotous sunset or an explosion of spring flowers, the grandeur of waterfalls, symphony of birdsong. But do stones really shout out the praises of the One who made them? One day I asked one. Sitting on a rock in the sun during a Spa for the Spirit morning retreat, it told me a lot:

I sing.
I sing of God’s love.
Even if I cold and solid and unmoving – I sing.
I sing a song rooted in ancient times
I have been singing, and the song has changed and grown –
oh, not so you could notice unless
you were watching for the past 20,000 years or so –

But I sing.
Of love unmoving, unmovable
I sing of earth, of lichen and moss
and living things that grow on me
I sing with birds, whose song blends with mine
I sing of grass and trees with whom I share this spot
of sunlight that warms me
moonlight that bathes me
rain that refreshes
The rain and the wind
bring new verses into the song I sing,
chord changes, shifts in melody –
as wind and rain in your life
make your song deeper, richer.

I sing to remind you of enough,
that God has thought of everything,
God’s love is a rock you can put all your weight upon.

I sing with joy.
I’m singing with all my might,
so that you might hear me and join my song.
Sing out!

Prayer Poem on a Rock, Kate Heichler, September 2013

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4-7-22 - Mobs and Multitudes

You can listen to this reflection here.

Given current trends of adoration and hate-speak at political gatherings, it’s hard not to bring that lens to the Palm Sunday story. Certainly there are multitudes on display:
As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”

We will soon see how quickly these multitudes praising God and lauding Jesus as “the king who comes in the name of the Lord” morph into mobs braying for blood. As is true today, there was some manipulation on the part of leaders in fomenting that transition, an appeal to fear and inciting to anger. But we also have in the mix unrealistic expectation and disappointment, and those are incendiary ingredients.

Why does this crowd of disciples praise God? Because of the deeds of power they have seen in Jesus. He exercised spiritual power that had immediate effect in the temporal realm – palsied limbs visibly restored to strength; leprous skin made clear; water become wine; notorious extortioners become models of generosity. The fact that this power resided in a man of such holiness, above reproach in every way, excited their expectations that at last God had sent the king who would deliver them from the Roman occupiers. They refused to believe that his kingship was of a nature other than what they wanted.

So when Jesus is overcome by the authorities, and handed over and mocked and spit upon and beaten, and raises not a finger to help himself, it’s not hard to see how dashed hopes like that could curdle into venom, yielding to cries of “Crucify him.”

And how about us? We might not have joined in the bloodlust, but have we too experienced disappointment in our faith? Dashed expectations of what we thought God could or would do for us in Christ? We don’t tend to get mad so much as withdraw, distance ourselves, afraid to trust in this One who is more powerful than any force in the universe – indeed, who made the universe – yet can’t seem to keep our loved ones from harm and our world from becoming a mass of unmitigated terror and pain.

How do we hold our hosannas in the face of failure and loss? By singing not to Jesus, but with him. By staying close to him, telling him when we’re mad or disappointed, by saying “I don’t understand. But I believe. Show me.” We don’t have to give way to rage. He didn’t. And as we demonstrate his peace in the face of rage and outrage, we just might help to sow peace ourselves, to keep multitudes from becoming mobs.

4-6-22 - Consecrated

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

I’m always amused that we call this Palm Sunday, when in some of the versions of the story – like Luke’s – there is no mention whatsoever of palm branches. But they all say that the people spread their cloaks on the road as they accompanied Jesus on the road into Jerusalem.

Then they brought [the colt] to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road.

Why did they spread their cloaks on the road? Probably because they so honored the holiness in Jesus that they didn’t want even the hooves of the colt carrying him to touch the bare ground. In that moment, the colt became a holy vessel, consecrated to God’s purpose, as holy as the tabernacle of old in which the presence of God was thought to dwell. In fact, we are told that this colt whom Jesus’ disciples found tied up in the next village, as Jesus said they would, was one which had never been ridden. This was an animal set apart to mediate the divine into ordinary life.

That is what we call sacramental – ordinary things which are consecrated to the Lord’s purposes, to bring the holy into the everyday. Cups and plates, even if they are made of silver and called chalices and patens, are just cups and plates until the time they are called into holy use. Water is just water until it becomes blessed as the water that gives new life. Bread and wine are things we enjoy at a restaurant, until we set them aside to carry the holy into our lives.

And you and I are just ordinary people, yet also consecrated to carry the holy presence of Christ into the world. As it did for the colt, that call can come at any time. In our lives it comes frequently, and some of the time we discern it and act on it. In those times, we remember that our truest vocation is to be bearers of Christ’s light and love and presence to the places and people who need to see him. Remembering that, we are able to look past our own reactions in the situation, lay ourselves aside and bring Christ forward.

I pray we might share the vocation of that little colt, knowing ourselves to have been found and untied, released for service as a bearer of Christ. I pray we might walk around the streets and roads of our towns aware that we are carrying a holy presence, expecting that presence to make a difference. People may not lay down cloaks before us – in fact, they may throw obstacles in our way. But if we’re carrying Jesus where he has asked to go, we need fear no obstacles. We are holy vessels, consecrated to God’s use, and that is enough.

4-5-22 - The Lord Needs It

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

License to borrow without permission? Or an example of provision in the realm of God? Jesus has an interesting way of obtaining the beast upon which he will ride into Jerusalem. His way calls for a great deal of trust on the part of the disciples whom he instructs to go get it, and the owners.

When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’”

They do find the colt exactly where Jesus said it would be – how did he know that? And the owners do happen upon them untying it and ask what they're doing. They answer just as Jesus told them to, “The Lord needs it.” And that seems to satisfy the owners. Did they know Jesus? Had they heard of him? Or where they just people of strong faith?

What if we were to start saying that when people ask us why we invest so much time or money or resources in God’s mission through our churches. “The Lord needs it.” That would end the conversation very nicely - and start a more important one.

And when we ask others to invest in our ministries, we don’t have to say, “We need it.” We can say – if it’s something we feel God wanting to do through us – “The Lord needs it.”

And what if we gave that answer to ourselves, when we look at our priorities and question where to invest our time or money or talents. “The Lord needs it” could be incentive to reprioritize quite a lot. It could also provide a nice evaluative lens – “Does the Lord need this?” we might ask about something we’re spending a lot of energy on. “Or is it just something I think should be done?”

And what if we made our resources available for the Lord’s use, as the owners of that colt seem to have done, so that people came along and asked us to use our stuff – or just helped themselves, knowing it would be alright? That happens in the “sharing economy,” where people make tools or talents or bicycles available through websites for others to take, use and return. How might our life of faith and ministry be a sharing economy?

A system based on “The Lord needs it” could be bustling, creative and efficient. It calls for a lot of faith, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. If s/he tells you where to find something, assume it will be there, waiting for you. And if anyone asks you what you’re up to, say, “The Lord needs it.”

4-4-22 - Going Up To Jerusalem

You can listen to this reflection here.

Anytime we see a “then,” or an “after,” or a “therefore” in the Bible, we need to ask what the “therefore” is there for. So it is with the gospel reading for the Liturgy of the Palms, which we will explore in Water Daily this week. The reading begins, “After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.” After he said what?

Just prior to his entry into Jerusalem, Jesus told a rather harsh parable about a man who went on a trip to gain “kingly power.” His own citizens sent him word that they did not want him as their king. On his return he sought an accounting from servants to whom he had entrusted one pound each. The first had traded successfully, yielding a ten-fold profit; the second had made five pounds. The third had buried his so as not to lose anything, provoking his master to take away his one pound and give it to one who’d made ten. The ending is vengeful, even violent:

“I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them - bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.”

Is Jesus the man in the parable who will return with kingly power and deal with those who rejected him? That would be a hard message from the Prince of Peace – especially one who will in coming days resist all attempts to manifest a worldly show of kingship. “After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.”

Jesus knows what will happen to him in Jerusalem; he’s told his followers several times: "The Son of Man must go to Jerusalem, be arrested, tried and killed. And on the third day he will rise again.”He knows that those who want him to be king will be militant this week – and those who are disappointed that he is not the kind of king they want will turn violent. Is he subverting the whole notion of “kingship” from the very beginning of the week, riding into the city not on a steed but on a colt, lauded not by leaders and soldiers but by children and multitudes of the ordinary?

That question, “After what?” leads us to more questions than answers – and maybe that’s not bad as we approach our own journey to Jerusalem during Holy Week. We’re not there yet. We’re still outside the city, making preparations. Maybe for us that means reflecting on any spiritual practices or activities we’ve taken up during Lent, asking how they have brought us closer to Jesus. Maybe it means looking at our calendars for next week and making sure we’ve set aside time to participate in Holy Week and Easter activities. (Download our Holy Week schedule here– many services are accessible online.)

I pray that exploring this story, the story before The Story, will bring us closer to Jesus this week, close enough to pet the donkey, feel the cloaks and palm branches, hear the “Hosannas!” of the crowd. We don't necessarily want to go to Jerusalem, knowing what awaits us there. Yet it is there that we are born anew. So let's go up.