Water Daily

5-20-22 - Healing of Nations

You can listen to this reflection here.

We move now from the healing of persons to the healing of the nations; from the pool of healing in our Gospel story to the healing river mentioned in the end of Revelation:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

What a beautiful picture of the new heavens and the new earth, picking up on the vision of a restoring river in Ezekiel 47, which also had fruit trees on each bank, their leaves for healing. In the new vision the healing has been broadened to the healing of the nations. This resonates with a theme in our reading from Acts as well:

...Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

Does the healing power of Christ extend to nations? There is only one way to find out. Perhaps we feel feeble in our prayers for peace and an end to brutal invasion, terror and starvation, oppression and exploitation, because the needs are so vast, the pain so entrenched. It is hard to see dramatic outcomes to such prayers. The bigger the wound, the more complex the condition, the longer it can take to heal it – but our prayers do not go unheard. Maybe through our prayers we strengthen peace-makers. Maybe our prayers influence people in authority, or grass-roots activists. Maybe circumstances change. We don’t know – we only know that the healing stream that flows through and around us is intended for the whole world.

Maybe each day we should comb the news for one name in a conflict-ridden area, one name that leaps out at us, and make it our task to pray for that person to be fully blessed. Who knows?

When Paul and his companions acted on his vision and traveled to Macedonia, they found a river there, by which there was a place of prayer. And there they met a woman named Lydia, who was brought to faith in Jesus Christ through Paul’s words, and she and her whole household were baptized. No one would have expected that – but strangers now became family in faith. Who knows what fruit came of that encounter – generations of Christ-followers, perhaps.

We don’t know where the healing stream is to flow, but It is up to us to be water-carriers, bearing that water of life to every place and person in need of it. In the end, all nations will be healed, and God will reign.

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5-19-22 - Walk

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

I was privileged to know Canon Jim Glennon, an Anglican clergyman from Australia who had an extraordinary gift and ministry of healing. We corresponded quite a bit before he died, and I invited him to lead a healing mission I organized at my church in New York. I will never forget his clear, simple teaching about God’s healing: plant the seed of faith, in Christ; give thanks for God’s activity, even before you see it (“first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn…” he’d quote); and don’t be afraid to test it.

At that healing mission, to demonstrate his teaching, he asked if someone with severe back pain would come up for prayer, and a man did. The process by which Jim prayed, then checked in, then responded to the feedback is an incredible story in itself; it included the man’s realization that he needed to forgive the person who’d caused his injury. But after he prayed to release that, and we prayed some more, Jim asked the man how his pain was now, and he said, “It’s gone! It’s been with me for 15 years, and it’s gone!” “Well, twist around,” Jim said. “Move your back. Try it out. Get up and walk.” One of the ways we accept the healing God offers us is by moving into it.

Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Sometimes we pray for healing or transformation, and think God has not answered. And why do we think that? Because we haven’t moved! We’re still sitting in our dis-ease and sometimes despair and mistrust, still seeing the matter from the same angle, perhaps influenced by disappointments in the past. But as we get up and move around, we have to see it differently, for our position changes. (Not to mention the physiological benefits for our brain chemistry of moving…).

We can assume that God has heard our prayers, and assume that the God who loves and desires freedom and wholeness for us is indeed acting in and through us. So we give thanks even before we see the fullness of the healing we desire. We begin to walk, to move ourselves into the healing stream of God’s love and power. Maybe we limp at first; maybe we move cautiously; but we are to move toward that freedom and wholeness, our attention fixed not on our remaining symptoms but on the unwavering love of God in Jesus Christ.

God’s healing stream is that Living Water Jesus promised would well up inside us to eternal life. And God’s healing stream is that mighty river of God Life that flows around us as we move in the Spirit. If the flow is impeded by anxiety or anger or unforgiveness or unhealed trauma, we invite the Spirit to help remove those obstacles. It is remarkable how much healing can happen even as we’re getting free of some of these impediments.

Today, pray for healing in whatever area you’ve been considering this week. (Or pray with another – the faith of two is stronger than one). Believe that God desires wholeness and freedom for you, whatever that will look like. Give thanks for God's activity even before you see the fruits. And then begin to walk in faith, into healing. First the blade, then the ear, then the fullness of life!

5-18-22 - Another Way

You can listen to this reflection here.

I once knew someone whose life had become a living hell. So many traumas and losses had accrued, exacerbated by and exacerbating physical and mental illness, family and financial troubles, she was like a fly caught in the web of a very busy spider. Listening, I didn’t know where to begin; she was sure no good outcome was possible.

Isn’t there always a good reason to lose hope? We don’t have the support we need; something came up that derailed us; we’re in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong people. The sick man in this week’s gospel story laid the blame for his continued infirmity on the other sick people around him who, he said, never let him get into the healing waters when they were stirred.

The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”

I love Jesus’ response: he says nothing about the pool. He doesn’t tell the man to stop feeling sorry for himself. He doesn’t advise how to compete with the other people. He simply gives a command that has the power to effect what it commands: “Stand up, take your mat, walk.”

I wonder how these words landed on this man, so sure there was only one dim possibility for reversal, if he could get into that pool at the right moment. Did he think Jesus was mocking him? Crazy? Or did he feel a sensation in his body and limbs that told him something was awakening, something had changed? Did he worry what people would think if he attempted to stand? We don’t know; we’re told only that he did stand and began to walk.

This man did not heal himself. He did not change his attitude and become more open to healing. This was Jesus’ work entirely. That’s important for us, both as we seek healing for ourselves, and as we minister to others. We don’t have to put ourselves or others into the right frame of mind. We only need to bring Jesus into the picture and believe in his presence. And if we hear a command – we may not always – act on it.

If you were to tell Jesus in prayer today about the most “stuck” area of your life, the one about which you feel the most despair, what would it be? Try it, and try listening inwardly for a response. It might come through a word that fixes in your mind, or an image or scene, or you might find yourself sitting or walking with Jesus in your imagination. Whatever unfolds, go with it. Do you think Jesus will discuss your reasons for stuckness with you? Or will he just command you to be free?

In the life of God there is always another way healing can come. It may come through prayer, or medical care, or new information, or none or all of the above. We are to take the actions before us, but not get tied to them. At any moment, even thirty-eight years later, Jesus can come into our picture and set us free. He doesn’t have to unbind the spider’s web; he has only to command it in love, and the bonds fall away. As we invite him in, healing can come that much sooner.

5-17-22 - Do You Want Healing

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

There is something deeply frightening about asking for healing. Alarmed as we might be by illness, symptoms, loss of freedom and mobility, or even approaching death, it can be scarier still to ask for God’s transforming power to effect a change. What if God doesn’t answer in a way we can recognize? Then, in addition to the scourge of illness, our faith has taken a hit. This fear is enough to keep many people stuck in infirmity.

One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”

It’s a fair question. I have wanted to ask it of quite a few people, and maybe some have wanted to ask it of me. Thirty-eight years seems like a long time to endure illness, but dis-ease can easily become a habit. I’ve known robust, active people rendered prematurely homebound by pain or difficulty moving around as they used to; it seems to the people around them that they’ve given up way too soon – but the shock of limitations deals its own blows to the psyche.

We don’t know the circumstances of the man in our story. He comes off as a bit of a whiner. But whiners take to whining when no one listens to them, and this man may have had very good reasons why his illness became chronic. And once that became his way of life, and possibly his livelihood through the charity of others, he may no longer have been able to imagine himself well. After all, when we are sick all our energy goes into getting through the day; we don’t have much left for imagining wellness or praying for healing.

But God can always imagine us well. God’s desire for us is wholeness. Perhaps the first prayer we make is not “Heal me,” but “Show me your vision of me whole.” Perhaps in prayer we imagine Jesus looking at us and asking, “Do you want to be made well?” in whatever area of our life we feel broken or wounded.

And answer honestly. Do you want to be healed? Do I? Are there advantages to our conditions, physical, emotional or spiritual; attention we get, or ways in which expectations are comfortably lowered, responsibilities shifted to other people? Are there relationships that would be upset if we were healed and whole?

The power to heal comes from God, and has already been given to us, as Christ lives in us through baptism. The question for us is what impedes the flow of that healing stream in and around us? What keeps us on the banks of that stream, afraid to jump in? Knowing that can help release the Love that restores us to wholeness.

5-16-22 - Faint Hopes

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

Context is everything. If you read about a bunch of people lying around a pool every day, you might think it a place of joy and leisure. This place was anything but. This was a spot where invalids gathered, drawn by a tradition that said healing could be found when the pool’s waters were stirred.

Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.

The invalids may have been there for several reasons – it might have been a good place for their caretakers to park them for the day, where they could keep one another company. People blemished or infirm in any way were considered ritually unclean and thus unfit for entry into the temple courts where they might defile others. It was a harsh, isolating life for the blind, the lame, the paralyzed, with no promise of medical treatment. We are told that the man at the center of this week’s story had been ill for thirty-eight years; how many of those had he spent in this place? This faint hope of healing in the pool must have kept them going one day to the next, a community of invalids stuck together by misery, hope and occasional blessing.

You don’t have to be blind, lame or paralyzed to know the power of faint hope. Usually when people say, “I’m hoping for the best…” they have long since abandoned any hope for the best and have settled for a dim “maybe things will change…” Often we will endure unhappy or unfulfilling circumstances for far longer than we should because of our stubborn hope that something could change. And often the only thing likely to cause a positive change is our changing the way we engage that situation.

As we begin to explore this story, let’s bring to mind the places we feel stuck or running on fumes. Where in your life might clinging to a faint hope actually be blocking movement toward a more robust change?

Who do you know who puts up with circumstances that could perhaps be altered – enduring pain or misconnection or half-life because it seems too scary or difficult to seek a better strategy? This story might give us some clues into how we might facilitate some movement in our stories of stuckness.

The invalids gathered at that pool were hoping for the best without knowing what the best really was – that the Best had walked into their midst that day when Jesus showed up. Even we who know his power sometimes hesitate to hope for his best in our lives. And to us he whispers, “Let me show you!”

5-13-22 - We're Going To Need a Bigger Box

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

“Even to the Gentiles.” That is what the Jewish Christian believers in Jerusalem concluded when Peter finished his story about why he was keeping company with the “uncircumcised.” God has given “even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.” This was shocking, unprecedented (though not really...), outside their categories. And what convinced Peter and, through him, the other leaders, was evidence of the Holy Spirit.

“And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

We see that scene in Cornelius’ house in greater detail in the previous chapter. Peter has arrived, noted that it would not ordinarily be lawful for a Jew to enter the home of a Gentile, described the supernatural occurrences that led him there, and then begins to preach to them. His opener is startling: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” Wow. Is God really that accepting? Even Peter had trouble holding on to this truth, and Christ’s church has ever struggled with it.

As Peter winds into his sermon, something even more extraordinary happens: the Holy Spirit comes upon those listening, though they are not Jews nor, as yet, Christians. They begin to speak in tongues and praise God, just as the disciples did at Pentecost. Peter and his companions are astounded. Then Peter said, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

Jesus had told Nicodemus that the Spirit blows where it will. But we’re still surprised when that wind of God carries seeds into ground we did not think prepared to receive it. Where else have we been thinking too small or limiting the way or to whom we share the Good News of Jesus Christ? One excuse people give for not sharing their faith is “people have perfectly good religions of their own.” Some do, some don't - and maybe all might receive the Holy Spirit if we go where God sends us and bring our faith and our love.

It’s not our job to persuade, only to witness to our own experience. New grandparents will tell anyone they meet their good news, but they’re not trying to make other people into grandparents. They’re just sharing their joy. That's our call too.

I wrote yesterday that it is human nature to sort and categorize people. It is also human nature to try to define God and God’s activity. So we read our texts and repeat our stories and make our definitions and pronouncements and try to put God in a box that is manageable and vaguely comprehensible. And the history of God in humankind tells us this: We will always need a bigger box. Make more space for the Holy Spirit, and maybe we’ll also need bigger baptismal fonts.

5-12-22 - No Distinction

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

One of my favorite things about the book of Acts is the timing – more than once, people in different places are given instructions by the Holy Spirit more or less simultaneously, or in such a way that the timing dovetails perfectly. Each has to act on the instructions, exercising more than a little faith, and then finds confirmation when the other party is revealed. This happens with Saul after his Damascus road experience, and Ananias, whom God sends to heal Saul's blindness. And it happens with the centurion Cornelius, when he is visited by an angel who instructs him, “Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter…” Then we learn that his messengers arrive at Peter’s lodging at the very moment Peter’s vision of unclean foods ends. As Peter tells it,

“At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’”

There are so many remarkable details in that paragraph – angels, messengers, divine timing, salvation. But perhaps the most startling is what Peter reports the Spirit saying to him: to go with these Gentile strangers and “not to make a distinction between them and us.” So much of Jewish law and identity lay in making distinctions between Jew and non-Jew, sacred and secular, clean and unclean. In times of persecution, allegiance to these identity markers became even more pronounced. The early Christians were already struggling with whether and how to integrate "uncircumcised" – non-Jewish – believers in Christ. Now God is telling Peter to make no distinctions between Gentiles and Jews. How could this be?

It’s not only Judaism which excels in making distinctions; it is human nature to define oneself and one’s tribe in ways that include some and rule out others. I would go so far as to say it is human nature not only to make distinctions but to rank people based upon them. Could we function with no distinctions at all, just seeing every person as equally worthy of our love and attention and provision? What a wonderful world that would be! Or would it be total chaos?

And what about Christians? We’ve made a fine art of distinctions with our multiple denominations and their variations and permutations. Are we not to distinguish ourselves from those who do not follow Christ? Jesus said his followers were to be known by their love for each other; that assumes they should be recognizable as Christ-followers.

Once again, love is the answer. It’s not that we shouldn’t note, even celebrate, differences. We are just not to judge one more worthy than another, and we certainly are not to decide that we can consort with some and not others. Every person is worthy of our company and attention, no matter their beliefs, background – or even behavior. Peter’s experience tells us that the Spirit may indeed lead us to people who do not know Jesus as Lord. And often that is because he wants us to make the introduction.

Cornelius had to take a step of faith to believe that angel and send for Peter. Peter had to take a step of faith to believe that the Spirit had urged him forward, and then to go with the messengers and enter the home of a Gentile. Both men responded in faith – and created space for God to show up. And boy, did God show up! Stay tuned…