You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
“…so whoever eats me will live because of me.” – Jesus of Nazareth
It’s August. In Michigan, where I am vacationing, I’m enjoying glorious weather, sunny skies and low humidity. My Facebook feed is full of people vacationing in beautiful places. Who wants to think about Jesus’ “I am the bread” discourses and their cannibalistic implications? What relevance is there to this ancient argument between Jesus and some would-be followers, in which he invokes the name of God and Israel’s history of disobedience, and then goes on to say that what he really means by “bread” is “his flesh,” which he will give for the world?
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you....Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.”
These words made little sense to those listening to Jesus that day. In fact, for Jews whose food laws required the draining of all blood from meat before it could be eaten, they must have seemed deliberately offensive. For many Christians, these words only have meaning in the context of the eucharistic meal of bread and wine signifying Christ’s body and blood – and we only have that understanding because of what the three other gospels – and not John – record as his words at the Last Supper. And they are certainly mystifying to people exploring Christianity.
The words require too much unpacking, I believe. But the action – the taking and blessing, breaking and eating – that has power even for people who have no background with this language or texts. In some mystical way, when we receive the consecrated bread and wine, by faith we become the body and blood of Christ. His life in us, received at baptism, is renewed. Our tired blood is refreshed by a transfusion of Jesus, our flagging flesh made whole in these signs of healing brokenness. And that can happen even for people who know little about Jesus when they encounter the Eucharist. (Read Sara Miles' Take This Bread.)
We don't need more words about words. I just invite you to remember how you feel when you take in those mystical signs, how that meal nourishes you for the week ahead. And if you feel nothing, ask Jesus in prayer what he wants you to experience in that taking and blessing, breaking and eating. The words may be strange to our ears; the Love that makes them real is where we get life.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
8-9-24 - Light of the World
You can listen to this reflection here. The gospel reading for the Feast of the Transfiguration is here.
Tuesday was the Feast of the Transfiguration. It is an odd event to celebrate, with its mystical magnificence and down-to-earth reactions from the three men who witnessed it. It is an event that takes place on a retreat, during prayer: Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.
When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai after 40 days in God’s presence, his face shone so brightly people found it blinding. Perhaps there is a physiological effect when a human is in the fullness of God’s presence, as Jesus was in prayer that day. When I feel filled with the Spirit, my face gets hot – is that just a very limited manifestation of the same effect?
August 6 is also the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, where a blinding light heralded not a divine manifestation but the unleashing of unimaginable destructive force, which vaporized some people, burned others alive and killed or sickened a whole populace. Between 90,000 and 146,000 people died as a result of the atomic bombing, (39,000-80,000 in Nagasaki); roughly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day. Some maintain that killing prevented a much greater slaughter had the war continued; we will never know. We must live with what happened, and mourn the children and elderly and families, and survivors who were never again the same.
On the face of it these two events have nothing in common save a date of commemoration. But the power displayed in Jesus on that mountain and the dazzling light have forged a connection of sorts in my mind. The confluence invites us to remember that light does not always signal the presence of God; after all, one name in the bible for the devil is Lucifer, which means “light-bearer.” And though God is the most powerful agent in the universe, there are other powers which humans can access as well. In fact, when a person gives him or herself over wholly to evil, he can become quite powerful and unleash unbelievable and wide-ranging destruction.
Yet even such people can be countered by those who know the true light, the One who said he was the Light of the World. And He has called us to bear this true light, to come against the forces of darkness with the power that is in the Name of Jesus. Wherever we see destruction unleashed today, whether on our borders, or in the tyranny of a drug lord in a broken neighborhood, or a dictator with no regard for the wellbeing of his people, or a corporation with no regard for the future of our planet, we can invoke the greater light we’ve been promised in Christ.
We can speak truth to power, and justice to oppression. We can sit with those in terror for their lives, bearing witness, doing our best to ensure they are treated justly. And how do we do this? By inviting the power of the Spirit to fill us as we pray and as we do ministry. It is God’s work; we are merely the vessels. And God will prevail. Whether or not our faces shine with God’s light, as we serve and proclaim and carry forth the greater light of Jesus Christ, the flashes of evil will be put down under his feet. God will be made known.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
Tuesday was the Feast of the Transfiguration. It is an odd event to celebrate, with its mystical magnificence and down-to-earth reactions from the three men who witnessed it. It is an event that takes place on a retreat, during prayer: Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.
When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai after 40 days in God’s presence, his face shone so brightly people found it blinding. Perhaps there is a physiological effect when a human is in the fullness of God’s presence, as Jesus was in prayer that day. When I feel filled with the Spirit, my face gets hot – is that just a very limited manifestation of the same effect?
August 6 is also the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, where a blinding light heralded not a divine manifestation but the unleashing of unimaginable destructive force, which vaporized some people, burned others alive and killed or sickened a whole populace. Between 90,000 and 146,000 people died as a result of the atomic bombing, (39,000-80,000 in Nagasaki); roughly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day. Some maintain that killing prevented a much greater slaughter had the war continued; we will never know. We must live with what happened, and mourn the children and elderly and families, and survivors who were never again the same.
On the face of it these two events have nothing in common save a date of commemoration. But the power displayed in Jesus on that mountain and the dazzling light have forged a connection of sorts in my mind. The confluence invites us to remember that light does not always signal the presence of God; after all, one name in the bible for the devil is Lucifer, which means “light-bearer.” And though God is the most powerful agent in the universe, there are other powers which humans can access as well. In fact, when a person gives him or herself over wholly to evil, he can become quite powerful and unleash unbelievable and wide-ranging destruction.
Yet even such people can be countered by those who know the true light, the One who said he was the Light of the World. And He has called us to bear this true light, to come against the forces of darkness with the power that is in the Name of Jesus. Wherever we see destruction unleashed today, whether on our borders, or in the tyranny of a drug lord in a broken neighborhood, or a dictator with no regard for the wellbeing of his people, or a corporation with no regard for the future of our planet, we can invoke the greater light we’ve been promised in Christ.
We can speak truth to power, and justice to oppression. We can sit with those in terror for their lives, bearing witness, doing our best to ensure they are treated justly. And how do we do this? By inviting the power of the Spirit to fill us as we pray and as we do ministry. It is God’s work; we are merely the vessels. And God will prevail. Whether or not our faces shine with God’s light, as we serve and proclaim and carry forth the greater light of Jesus Christ, the flashes of evil will be put down under his feet. God will be made known.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
8-8--24 - Bread For the World
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
In his “I am the bread of life” discourse, Jesus becomes increasingly, alarmingly precise. He moves from “I am the bread of life” to “I am the bread that came down from heaven” to “I am the living bread that came down from heaven,” and finally to this astonishing statement: “… the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
We will explore next week how graphically Jesus “fleshes this out” and becomes yet more controversial. Today let’s stay with this idea – that his flesh is bread that he will give for the life of the world. What connections and responses does that evoke in us?
For sacramentally oriented Christians, it is easy to read back into Jesus’ words a eucharistic connotation. Beneath that is the sacrificial understanding of his crucifixion, that something life-saving, world-transforming occurred in Jesus’ offering of himself and his brutal death, something that forever broke the hold of sin and death upon humankind.
In these words are also written the story of his incarnation – God choosing to save the world through flesh and blood. For some people, that is the most radical idea of all – that the One who is Spirit came into Flesh in order to redeem flesh. We have no salvation without the Holy Spirit, but also none without Jesus becoming human, healing the human condition from the inside out.
And God still works through flesh. We, gathered at the communion table (even virtually), become the bread of life, and the Spirit of Christ now dwells in our frail and fallible flesh to make known the love of God to the world. It is simultaneously a huge responsibility, for we must be willing and show up, and none at all, for it remains God’s work, accomplished once and for all by Jesus on the Cross, and worked out in the world through us, one encounter at a time.
Do you bring your body into this faith life along with your mind and spirit? Are you willing to be the embodiment of God's love to those whom you meet today? We might begin the day by opening our arms in a big gesture of offering and openness to the Spirit, even kneeling in humility.
It is because Jesus was God and Man that he was living bread that saves. It is as we take his life into our flesh that we too become bread for the world that brings healing.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
In his “I am the bread of life” discourse, Jesus becomes increasingly, alarmingly precise. He moves from “I am the bread of life” to “I am the bread that came down from heaven” to “I am the living bread that came down from heaven,” and finally to this astonishing statement: “… the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
We will explore next week how graphically Jesus “fleshes this out” and becomes yet more controversial. Today let’s stay with this idea – that his flesh is bread that he will give for the life of the world. What connections and responses does that evoke in us?
For sacramentally oriented Christians, it is easy to read back into Jesus’ words a eucharistic connotation. Beneath that is the sacrificial understanding of his crucifixion, that something life-saving, world-transforming occurred in Jesus’ offering of himself and his brutal death, something that forever broke the hold of sin and death upon humankind.
In these words are also written the story of his incarnation – God choosing to save the world through flesh and blood. For some people, that is the most radical idea of all – that the One who is Spirit came into Flesh in order to redeem flesh. We have no salvation without the Holy Spirit, but also none without Jesus becoming human, healing the human condition from the inside out.
And God still works through flesh. We, gathered at the communion table (even virtually), become the bread of life, and the Spirit of Christ now dwells in our frail and fallible flesh to make known the love of God to the world. It is simultaneously a huge responsibility, for we must be willing and show up, and none at all, for it remains God’s work, accomplished once and for all by Jesus on the Cross, and worked out in the world through us, one encounter at a time.
Do you bring your body into this faith life along with your mind and spirit? Are you willing to be the embodiment of God's love to those whom you meet today? We might begin the day by opening our arms in a big gesture of offering and openness to the Spirit, even kneeling in humility.
It is because Jesus was God and Man that he was living bread that saves. It is as we take his life into our flesh that we too become bread for the world that brings healing.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
8-7-24 - Eternity
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
For centuries, the key selling point for becoming a Christian was the guarantee of a life that never ends. In a culture that has managed to increase the average life span to eight, nine, even ten decades, that isn’t the draw it once was. I meet quite a few churchgoers who assume they’ll just be pushing up daisies when they die.
On the other hand, technologies to prolong life, retain youth, maintain consciousness, move to another planet, store yourself for awakening at a later, greater time continue to be developed – and make a lot of money. Maybe people aren’t so ready to let go of life.
Jesus said eternal life can be ours without signing away our life’s savings. It can be ours through believing in him: "Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die."
All the blessings the people of God had known, he says, even a blessing as great as manna in the desert, were temporal. The only truly lasting, eternal gift is the bread of life – and that, Jesus said, was him, available to those who believe. That’s too hard for some; they don’t want to just take him at his word. After all, they can’t see Jesus; but they’re willing to plunk down millions for a place in a cryogenics pod.
Is it really so hard to believe that promise? Jesus makes it easy for us. We don’t even have to wait until we’re dead to begin to see the fruits of what we’ve signed up for. The power that raised Christ from the dead becomes a part of our lives in the here and now. The peace that transcends understanding becomes woven into our dealings with the world. The presence of God already surrounds and transforms us more and more into the likeness of Christ.
And as we allow those gifts to work in us, we become better able to manifest the love that we’re told is to mark the Christian community in this world, and will be the sole currency in the life to come. When no one lacks for anything, and no one prefers one person or thing to another, there are no impediments to love.
How does eternity sound to you? Inviting? Scary? Tedious? Exciting? When we begin to see our lives, our travails and challenges, and even joys from the perspective of eternity, the bad things don’t look as daunting, and the good we recognize as foretastes of the feast to come. This life is but an antechamber to the palace in which we will dwell – a beautiful antechamber, but just the beginning of the glory in store for us.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
For centuries, the key selling point for becoming a Christian was the guarantee of a life that never ends. In a culture that has managed to increase the average life span to eight, nine, even ten decades, that isn’t the draw it once was. I meet quite a few churchgoers who assume they’ll just be pushing up daisies when they die.
On the other hand, technologies to prolong life, retain youth, maintain consciousness, move to another planet, store yourself for awakening at a later, greater time continue to be developed – and make a lot of money. Maybe people aren’t so ready to let go of life.
Jesus said eternal life can be ours without signing away our life’s savings. It can be ours through believing in him: "Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die."
All the blessings the people of God had known, he says, even a blessing as great as manna in the desert, were temporal. The only truly lasting, eternal gift is the bread of life – and that, Jesus said, was him, available to those who believe. That’s too hard for some; they don’t want to just take him at his word. After all, they can’t see Jesus; but they’re willing to plunk down millions for a place in a cryogenics pod.
Is it really so hard to believe that promise? Jesus makes it easy for us. We don’t even have to wait until we’re dead to begin to see the fruits of what we’ve signed up for. The power that raised Christ from the dead becomes a part of our lives in the here and now. The peace that transcends understanding becomes woven into our dealings with the world. The presence of God already surrounds and transforms us more and more into the likeness of Christ.
And as we allow those gifts to work in us, we become better able to manifest the love that we’re told is to mark the Christian community in this world, and will be the sole currency in the life to come. When no one lacks for anything, and no one prefers one person or thing to another, there are no impediments to love.
How does eternity sound to you? Inviting? Scary? Tedious? Exciting? When we begin to see our lives, our travails and challenges, and even joys from the perspective of eternity, the bad things don’t look as daunting, and the good we recognize as foretastes of the feast to come. This life is but an antechamber to the palace in which we will dwell – a beautiful antechamber, but just the beginning of the glory in store for us.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
8-6-24 - He's From Where?
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Often, when a popular public figure starts making comments that are just too outrageous, a movement will kick in to cut them down to size. We certainly see that process unfold when Jesus begins to talk about being the “bread that came down from heaven.” People who had come to him, eager for his teaching, waiting for his next miracle, now start to grumble: Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
Knowing Jesus’ roots, they couldn’t stomach what sounded like grandiose claims. In fairness to the grumblers, his words do sound far-fetched, especially if you know his human ancestry and have no reason to guess divine origins. Much of the Gospel of John chronicles people exploring and confronting Jesus’ claims of relationship with God the Father. But he lays it out quite clearly and boldly: Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.”
This is more outrageous still! Jesus rests his authority on his divine Son-ship – and says that anyone who fails to discern his Son-ship has not been drawn by the Father. For those who believe Jesus is indeed the Son of God, that makes perfect sense. For those who don’t, this circular reasoning just makes him sound all the more mad, and more than a little manipulative.
And there it is: the life, teachings, actions, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ make sense if you believe that he came from the Father and returned to the Father, and that he is entitled to call God “Father.” If you don’t buy that, if you see him solely as a human creature, he is someone to be feared, not revered. Given that, the fact that so many billions across so many centuries have recognized Jesus’ divine origins lends some support to the truth we claim about this one who said he was Truth itself.
So how do we make this Truth known to the people around us? Should we bother? I say we introduce him as the friend and redeemer we know, and ask the Holy Spirit to make the spiritual introduction that initiates faith. We don't have to convince, only bear witness to our experience with him. We have not seen the Father. But we have seen Jesus, and can know Jesus. And in Him, God is.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
Often, when a popular public figure starts making comments that are just too outrageous, a movement will kick in to cut them down to size. We certainly see that process unfold when Jesus begins to talk about being the “bread that came down from heaven.” People who had come to him, eager for his teaching, waiting for his next miracle, now start to grumble: Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
Knowing Jesus’ roots, they couldn’t stomach what sounded like grandiose claims. In fairness to the grumblers, his words do sound far-fetched, especially if you know his human ancestry and have no reason to guess divine origins. Much of the Gospel of John chronicles people exploring and confronting Jesus’ claims of relationship with God the Father. But he lays it out quite clearly and boldly: Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.”
This is more outrageous still! Jesus rests his authority on his divine Son-ship – and says that anyone who fails to discern his Son-ship has not been drawn by the Father. For those who believe Jesus is indeed the Son of God, that makes perfect sense. For those who don’t, this circular reasoning just makes him sound all the more mad, and more than a little manipulative.
And there it is: the life, teachings, actions, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ make sense if you believe that he came from the Father and returned to the Father, and that he is entitled to call God “Father.” If you don’t buy that, if you see him solely as a human creature, he is someone to be feared, not revered. Given that, the fact that so many billions across so many centuries have recognized Jesus’ divine origins lends some support to the truth we claim about this one who said he was Truth itself.
So how do we make this Truth known to the people around us? Should we bother? I say we introduce him as the friend and redeemer we know, and ask the Holy Spirit to make the spiritual introduction that initiates faith. We don't have to convince, only bear witness to our experience with him. We have not seen the Father. But we have seen Jesus, and can know Jesus. And in Him, God is.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
8-5-24 - No Hunger, No Thirst
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
When Jesus says that he is the bread of life, he also makes a big claim: “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Is he only speaking figuratively? On the face of it, it would seem so. Many people believe and yet experience hunger or thirst on a regular basis. We have not received all that we need so that we have no wants. Or have we?
The realm of God is an already/not yet place. Often we focus too much on the not-yet, when Jesus’ message in word and action was “It’s already here, folks! This God who loves you is near, is here, with power to heal and to provide.” The healings and the miracle of the loaves and fish were yet more ways to show that this Good News has implications in our material lives here and now, not only in our spirits. Even in the face of persecution, Jesus taught, God provides. How hard it is to trust that! Those trust muscles need to be developed and then exercised.
If anyone had reason to be thirsty, it was Rosie, a woman I met at a nursing home where I used to do a monthly service. She often added to my homilies, conveying my point better and more eloquently than I did. She lived semi-reclined in a wheelchair, and looked to me to be in her mid-40s. And she was radiant, always smiling, grateful. One time I had spoken about the living water of Christ always within us, and she said, “I know about that living water. Before I knew Jesus I had this emptiness inside me, nothing could fill it. But the moment I learned about him and said yes to faith, I felt full. Now I always feel full of God, all the time, no matter what.”
Rosie’s “no matter what” is particularly challenging, living in a nursing home, confined to a wheelchair. I’m sure she had other plans for her life. But her joy is palpable. That living water of Holy Spirit life truly runs in her and causes her to be focused on other people, on spreading God's joy and peace.
St. Paul put it well: “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:11-13)
We have received the bread of life; we renew that awareness around the communion table. We have received the water of life; Jesus promises it is like a stream welling up within us to eternity. As Rosie knows, eternity has already begun. Be fed, be quenched, be blessed. God-Life is already!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
When Jesus says that he is the bread of life, he also makes a big claim: “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Is he only speaking figuratively? On the face of it, it would seem so. Many people believe and yet experience hunger or thirst on a regular basis. We have not received all that we need so that we have no wants. Or have we?
The realm of God is an already/not yet place. Often we focus too much on the not-yet, when Jesus’ message in word and action was “It’s already here, folks! This God who loves you is near, is here, with power to heal and to provide.” The healings and the miracle of the loaves and fish were yet more ways to show that this Good News has implications in our material lives here and now, not only in our spirits. Even in the face of persecution, Jesus taught, God provides. How hard it is to trust that! Those trust muscles need to be developed and then exercised.
If anyone had reason to be thirsty, it was Rosie, a woman I met at a nursing home where I used to do a monthly service. She often added to my homilies, conveying my point better and more eloquently than I did. She lived semi-reclined in a wheelchair, and looked to me to be in her mid-40s. And she was radiant, always smiling, grateful. One time I had spoken about the living water of Christ always within us, and she said, “I know about that living water. Before I knew Jesus I had this emptiness inside me, nothing could fill it. But the moment I learned about him and said yes to faith, I felt full. Now I always feel full of God, all the time, no matter what.”
Rosie’s “no matter what” is particularly challenging, living in a nursing home, confined to a wheelchair. I’m sure she had other plans for her life. But her joy is palpable. That living water of Holy Spirit life truly runs in her and causes her to be focused on other people, on spreading God's joy and peace.
St. Paul put it well: “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:11-13)
We have received the bread of life; we renew that awareness around the communion table. We have received the water of life; Jesus promises it is like a stream welling up within us to eternity. As Rosie knows, eternity has already begun. Be fed, be quenched, be blessed. God-Life is already!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
8-2-24 - Bread From Heaven
You can listen to this reflection here.
At week’s end, let’s turn to a Hebrew Bible passage appointed for Sunday, about the “bread of life” we’ve been discussing. The story of how the Israelites were fed during their 40-year sojourn in the wilderness after escaping Egypt is what the people in our gospel reading were reminding Jesus about as they asked him to produce “magic bread.”
The account of the Exodus contains a lot of whining. No matter how the Lord provides for the people, soon enough they come back with their grievances, often revolving around food. “Oh, the onions and leeks we had in Egypt!” they wail, conveniently forgetting their harsh existence as slaves and day laborers, from which they were delivered when God walled up the waters of the Red Sea so they could escape Pharaoh’s pursuing army. Here they are again: The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
Does God turn away from their ingratitude? No – God provides, extraordinarily, but with a twist: Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not.”
The instruction is that they are to gather only enough of the manna for each day, and not to try to save it to the next day. They have to trust in God’s provision each day. Sure enough, they try to save it and it goes rancid and buggy. God provides enough on the sixth day to get them through the Sabbath, but otherwise, it’s just for each day, and more than enough.
They also have trouble recognizing this flaky substance on the ground, said to look like coriander, as food. But they soon learn they can make flour from it. Bread from heaven has been provided, not on their timetable and not as they expected it to look, but there all the same.
God wants us to experience his blessings daily as well – and they often don’t look like what we’re expecting. That’s why I’m learning to expect blessing in general, and try not to get specific about it. Most of my greatest blessings are things I wouldn’t even have known to look for.
And we are to expect blessing each day. I challenge anyone to get to the end of a day and not be able to name a single blessing from God, some unlooked-for gift, whether from God or another person, or uncanny timing, an insight given or progress made. Even in perilous times, God remains in the blessing business.
To expect blessing every day, without storing up gifts from the day before; to learn to recognize blessing when it looks different than what we envisioned – these are skills we need on our journey into faith. As we become able to live into these graces, we are more available for God to give others daily bread through us.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
At week’s end, let’s turn to a Hebrew Bible passage appointed for Sunday, about the “bread of life” we’ve been discussing. The story of how the Israelites were fed during their 40-year sojourn in the wilderness after escaping Egypt is what the people in our gospel reading were reminding Jesus about as they asked him to produce “magic bread.”
The account of the Exodus contains a lot of whining. No matter how the Lord provides for the people, soon enough they come back with their grievances, often revolving around food. “Oh, the onions and leeks we had in Egypt!” they wail, conveniently forgetting their harsh existence as slaves and day laborers, from which they were delivered when God walled up the waters of the Red Sea so they could escape Pharaoh’s pursuing army. Here they are again: The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
Does God turn away from their ingratitude? No – God provides, extraordinarily, but with a twist: Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not.”
The instruction is that they are to gather only enough of the manna for each day, and not to try to save it to the next day. They have to trust in God’s provision each day. Sure enough, they try to save it and it goes rancid and buggy. God provides enough on the sixth day to get them through the Sabbath, but otherwise, it’s just for each day, and more than enough.
They also have trouble recognizing this flaky substance on the ground, said to look like coriander, as food. But they soon learn they can make flour from it. Bread from heaven has been provided, not on their timetable and not as they expected it to look, but there all the same.
God wants us to experience his blessings daily as well – and they often don’t look like what we’re expecting. That’s why I’m learning to expect blessing in general, and try not to get specific about it. Most of my greatest blessings are things I wouldn’t even have known to look for.
And we are to expect blessing each day. I challenge anyone to get to the end of a day and not be able to name a single blessing from God, some unlooked-for gift, whether from God or another person, or uncanny timing, an insight given or progress made. Even in perilous times, God remains in the blessing business.
To expect blessing every day, without storing up gifts from the day before; to learn to recognize blessing when it looks different than what we envisioned – these are skills we need on our journey into faith. As we become able to live into these graces, we are more available for God to give others daily bread through us.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
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