Water Daily

5-10-23 - God Within Us

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

I am uncomfortable when I hear people talk about “the God within,” or “the divine spark” in each of us. It can be a short distance from that to saying that we are all little gods, with ultimate power over our own destinies. As attractive as that notion might be to some (not very appealing to me – God help me if I am my own god!), it is not the Way that Jesus invites his followers to travel.

However, Jesus did promise his full-time presence in our persons through the gift of his Holy Spirit. “You know him,” Jesus says to his disciples, “because he abides with you, and he will be in you.” The New Testament teaches that the presence of Christ is within each of us by virtue of our baptism. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me,” Paul writes, not because his identity has been supplanted in an “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” way, but because his identity has been fulfilled, perfected in union with Christ through baptism. He has become most truly who he is in union with Christ.

The promise that Christ’s life abides – rests, stays, hangs out – within us offers tremendous resources and ultimate power, the power that made all things and restores all things. “Same power that conquered the grave lives in me…” we sing. And when we live aware of Christ’s life within us we pray differently, act differently, hope differently. We don’t beg God's power to descend on us from above, but that his power already in us through our union with Christ be released in us, and through us for others. We pray not as though we’re on a long distance call, but like we’re having a heart-to-heart conversation, because we are, Christ’s heart in our heart.

We act differently, because we are acting on the power, promise and presence of God, not waiting for those to be manifest outside us. And we hope differently, knowing that God’s love is so very near, so very “already.” Of course, there is a “not yet fully realized” dimension, but so much more in the here and now than we often recognize.

I came to know “Christ within me” better through learning the practice of centering prayer, becoming somewhat still and able to tune in to the Spirit’s prayer in me, to “pray/imagine” Jesus in conversation. I get to that still place most quickly through praying in tongues – which Paul tells us is the Spirit’s prayer released in us. “…for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit prays within us with sighs too deep for words.” (Romans 8:26) I can't say I know Christ well, but he isn’t “out there”; he’s in here.

How do you experience Christ within you? You might try sitting in stillness, in prayer, and say, “Jesus – I am told you live with me and in me. I would like to experience more of your life in me. How do I do that?” Wait in silence, and pay attention to any images that form in your mind, or words. If your shopping list forms, gently invite it to wait over there, and return your focus to your prayer. You can repeat, “Jesus,” or another word or phrase. Try it for five minutes, and see what comes. Write down whatever transpires, and do it again another day.

Some people experience the reality of Christ within more keenly in action than in contemplation, or in worship. There is no “right” way. There is only invitation to more fullness and life than we’ve ever dreamed of.

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.

5-9-23 - Love Capacity

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

Yesterday, we explored the relationship between loving Jesus and following his commands. Though these can be summed up generally as loving God and our neighbor, he gave plenty that were specific: “Love your enemies.” “Give to anyone who asks.” “Take up your cross and follow me.” “Proclaim the Good News and heal the sick.” Many of Jesus’ commandments are so counter-cultural, counter-intuitive, not to mention inconvenient, that keeping them is possible for us only from a place of love.

Such love also enables us to receive the gift Jesus promised his disciples that night before he was taken from them: ”And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.”

Jesus calls the Spirit “another Advocate,” suggesting "advocate" had been one of his roles with them, to stand with them against spiritual danger, to strengthen them in God’s mission. In this role, he was limited by his time in this earthly life. But the Advocate whom the Father will send, he says, will be with them forever - a promise with no close-out clause.

Jesus says this "Spirit of truth” is a force whom the world - humanity at large - does not see or recognize, and therefore cannot receive. The gift of the Holy Spirit is given to all who have the capacity to receive him – and what increases our capacity is love, giving and receiving love. Swimmers and singers find their capacity for taking in and holding breath increases with practice. It is the same with love. Our capacity grows as we exercise it.

In what ways do you feel you are inhibited in giving love?
What gets in the way of your ability to receive love?
What are some ways you might expand your capacity for love, given and received?

You might try on a discipline of learning to love someone whom you find challenging – start by praying for them each day to be blessed. Or is there someone whose love you keep at a distance, or someone who wants to help you in some way that you won’t allow… can you, as an experiment, allow that person into your life a little more, allow the assistance they could render?

When our capacity to give and receive love increases, it has a ripple effect. Our being more loving invites the people around us to receive more and give more in turn. Imagine if we lived in a culture based on love and more love? Think how many stuck systems and stuck people might be released to function in wholeness.

We don’t have to dwell in such utopian visions – let’s just start with ourselves, and our own hearts, inviting the Spirit to expand our capacity for love. That's the way we can help God with the big picture.

5-8-23 - Unconditional

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

I’m not fond of “if” statements where love is concerned. “If” smacks of contracts, and who wants love to be contractual? Especially the love of God, which we’re promised is unconditional, not contingent upon our response or behavior?

I’m also not crazy about the word “commandments.” So the first line of this week’s Gospel passage, which continues Jesus’ farewell remarks to his followers before his arrest and crucifixion, has a double whammy: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

On first glance, I read, “Oh boy, if I want Jesus to love me, I’d better be a good girl…” A closer look suggests that Jesus means quite the opposite. It’s not, “If you keep my commandments, I will love you.” Or “If you keep my commandments, I will know that you love me." It’s that keeping Jesus' commandments – to love God fully, and my neighbor as myself – is a natural consequence of loving Jesus. First we receive God’s love; our love flows from that.

How many times do I need to be reminded that this is the order in which grace operates? God’s love is not something we must, or even can, earn. Saying that the love of God is unconditional, not contingent upon our response or behavior, means we are free to receive it and respond as we will. Some people respond by ignoring it, putting the gift away, still wrapped. Others respond by trying to earn it anyway… which only exhausts us and makes it harder to receive blessing.

As we comprehend how truly “off the hook” we are and find ourselves in that place of humble gratitude for God’s gift of grace, something is released in us. We find we want to choose the good, we want to follow Jesus' way to increase our love, even when it costs us. Jesus says later, “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

Recall some times in your life when that grace has gotten through to you, and what your response has been. Those are good moments to remember and dwell in again. (And if you’re in the “I’d rather earn it, thank you very much – don’t do me any favors,” place, consider how that is giving life to you and those around you.)

Today, we might ask God to show us how his commandment to love might be more fully reflected in our lives. Think about the people you know, in all the places you know them. Where is God inviting you to let His love flow?

As we pay more attention to the “if you love me," the “you will keep my commandments,” part will become the most natural thing in the world.

5-5-23 - Greater Things

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

How did the church’s expectations get so small? Maybe not all churches – some do expect that God will move in power among them. But many churches, and Christians, seem to ask very little of God, as if unsure what they can count on. Just listen to what Jesus said:

“Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”

Greater works than what Jesus did? He who transformed water into vats of finest wine, who extended a snack into a meal for 5,000, who healed the lame and lepers and gave sight to the blind? He who rose from the dead? It’s not possible. And yet, for a time, after the Spirit came at Pentecost, the apostles did indeed perform just such amazing works in God’s name and power. So what happened?

Well, God still works among us in miraculous ways, despite lukewarm faith or hesitance to ask too much of the Lord, as though God’s power were finite. Perhaps one obstacle comes from what Jesus is quoted as saying next, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” And, in case they didn’t get it, “If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

I have asked for things in Jesus’ name that I have not seen come to pass. Good things, holy things – healing and restoration, the gift of faith for those who wanted to believe but didn't. What are we to make of these words? Bad translation? Maybe the writer of John adding things for effect? I say that’s too easy. However this came into our sacred writings, we are invited to deal with it.

In part, that means dealing honestly with our disappointment with God for the “unanswered prayers.”* It means opening our spirits to the operation of the Holy Spirit so that more and more we pray for what God already intends – and maybe was waiting for us to be willing to be the conduits for. Praying in Jesus' name means praying in his will, in his Spirit. It means praying Jesus’ prayers.

It is a fine balance to pray with huge faith and boldness and yet release our desires into the mystery of God’s will. We can only do that, I believe, from within an honest relationship with God, trusting in God’s love, even when that is hard to feel. That’s why they call it faith.

Name a “great work” you would like God to accomplish through you. Don’t be timid, don’t be rational – go for broke. Let God know that today in prayer. Ask the Spirit to help refine that prayer in you until you have an inner conviction that you are praying God’s prayer. If we have to say, “If it is your will,” we don’t yet have that conviction. We are invited to keep praying and keep inviting the Spirit to knead that prayer in us until it is ready to rise and become bread.

If we don’t ask, if we don’t step out on the promises of God in faith, we will see mostly small works. Jesus said it; let’s lean on it. The more we pray, in faith, in the Spirit, the more amazing activity of God we will see. Amen! Let it be so!

*We’ll go 5 for 5 with the song links this week… Garth Brooks gets the nod today, if not the prize for theology…

5-4-23 - A Family Likeness

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

We’ve all met children who were the spitting image of one parent – there can be no question whose child they are. That, the scriptures tell us, is how closely Jesus reflected the image of his heavenly Father. Paul wrote, “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” (Col. 1:15)

“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” Jesus says in response to Philip’s plea, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Then Jesus goes on:

“How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.”

Jesus' features may have been Semitic, his language Aramaic, his manners and speech shaped by his Galilean upbringing – but his spiritual authority, his healing power, his supernatural intuition, his relational instincts, those revealed his Father’s life in him.

This family likeness extends to those of us who are happy to be called his sisters and brothers. As we “put on Christ," as we let his life shine out through us, we grow into his likeness. Or perhaps it’s more precise to say we grow more transparent so that the world sees less of us and more of Christ in us. As Paul writes in his letter to the Galatian Christians, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Gal. 2:20a)

I don’t have a classic pop song today, but here’s a link to Disappear, by Bebo Norman, a song about getting out of the way so that God’s life shines through us. "And you become clear as I disappear,” he sings in the refrain.

In whom have you noticed glimpses of God-life? What was it that caught your attention?
When do you feel you best reflect the love of God to the world? When do you feel most in sync with your heavenly nature, the true self you're in the process of uncovering?

A good prayer is, “Lord, increase your life in me. Increase my capacity to receive your life. Let any willfulness in me that obscures people seeing you be brought into alignment with your will, so that when people see me they see you.”

That prayer takes a lifetime being answered, but we can experience the shift as we pay attention. We are the only way the world will see Christ this side of glory. And when he is visible in us, people notice, and they want more.

5-3-23 - If You Don't Know Me By Now

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

“If you don’t know me by now…” Today’s pop tune link goes to Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. And that is just what Jesus might have sung when he realized yet again how scarcely his closest friends have really known him, seen him, recognized what was most authentic and true about him:

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?"

I believe that human beings have a deep need to be known, perhaps even deeper than our need to be loved. After all, real love presumes knowledge about the one we love, all that is wonderful about them and much that is not. Jesus’ words are poignant: “All this time, and still you do not know me?”

In fairness to the disciples, it must have been very hard to take at face value the things Jesus said about his union with his “father in heaven,” despite witnessing the spiritual power he demonstrated. Surely he’s being metaphorical, symbolic, hyperbolic, they thought… Often we say the same things about this One whose truth we can never fully grasp.

We can never grasp the truth about another until we can “walk a mile in their shoes.” Our sacred story tells us that Jesus came in human flesh to walk a mile in our shoes. How might we walk in his sandals? By letting his Spirit, whom we name Holy, fill us. By truly being His Body in the world. By entering into conversation with him in prayer, reading about him, talking to other people who know him. The same way we seek to get to know anyone.

Today, in prayer, take a bold step. Ask Jesus something you want to know about yourself, or about him. Try to sit in quiet awhile and see if you sense any response – it may not come in words. It may come in an image that you see in your mind, or something that catches your eye around you. It may come later in the day in song lyrics or in an encounter with someone, in a thought or insight. And maybe in words. And see if Jesus has a question for you.

Our Good News diverges from the song in that it’s never too late to get to know Jesus (a few scary parables notwithstanding...) As with any relationship, getting to know him takes an investment of time and vulnerability and desire. Billions of people have found it worthwhile. Meet him for coffee and see where it goes.

5-2-23 - I'll Take You There

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

“I know a place,” sings Mavis Staples, “Ain't nobody cryin', ain't nobody worried;/ Ain't no smilin' faces, lyin' to the races… I’ll take you there.”

“And you know the way to the place where I am going,” says Jesus.

Do we? Do we know how to get to that place where pain and anxiety and injustice are no more, where “sorrow and sighing will flee away?” (Isaiah 51) Thomas surely didn’t.

Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."

In a relational system like the Christian faith, everything – places, routes, truth, even life – comes down to a person. And not just any person – the person of Jesus of Nazareth, whom we claim was the humanly embodied Son of God. Beyond following a way, assenting to a truth, living a life, as Christ followers we are invited to know Jesus. Knowing Jesus is the Way to know God most fully. Knowing Jesus brings us into a relationship with Truth. Knowing Jesus allows us to fully live that abundant Life he promised.

Of course, scholars have, do and will argue about how exclusive that next sentence was intended to be. Did Jesus really say that, and what did he mean? I just focus on what he said after that: “If you know me, you will know my Father also.” Jesus said he was the Way. Best? Only? Fastest? I don’t know. This is the revelation I have received, so this is where I rest. I seek to know the fullness of God by allowing Jesus into my life in relationship, in conversation, in guidance and sensing and love. If I ever know Jesus well enough, I might explore other spiritual ways. Certainly I can appreciate them, but this one is deep enough for me.

If we’ve grown up with the notion that God is very close, like a grand-dad sitting in his rocker, then Jesus’ proclamation might have little power. But if, like his hearers, you’ve been taught that God is far away and too impossibly holy to be known, then you can understand how radical it was for Jesus to proclaim that one could know God through knowing him.

How do you know Jesus? Through prayer? Books? Stained glass windows? Movies? Bible study? How well do you want to know Jesus? Do you want to let him come close, or stay at arm’s length?

If we say to God in prayer, “I’d like to know you more,” I believe the Spirit will begin to reveal God to us. I don’t know in what way – if you offer that prayer, you might want to keep a prayer notebook to write down whatever you experience in coming to know God better.

God wants to be known by us. That is why Jesus came like us – so we could at least recognize him enough to draw near. And when we draw near to that place… we find God.