You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
A healthy sense of self-worth does not rest on what other people think of us. Jesus did not act or speak like he cared what other people said about him. Yet even a secure public figure will check his polls every now and then. So we find Jesus asking his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”
They answer readily; someone as powerful and unusual as Jesus would surely generate debate, even an assumption that he carried the spirit of a luminary from the distant or recent past: And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’
This is like entertainment writers who compare up and coming stars to those of old. “She’s the new Meryl Streep,” He’s the new Springsteen,” as though the only way to apprehend someone is to categorize them in relation to someone else. Jesus was frequently asked if he was John the Baptist returned to life. To ask that question was to miss the reality of the man standing right in front of them. Jesus thought his closer followers might have a different perspective. He asked, ‘But who do you say that I am?’
How do you answer that question? It can be as hard for us to see Jesus for who he intrinsically is, apart from what we’ve heard about him through church, history, familial and cultural assumptions, as it was for people in his day to see him apart from the great prophets of old and their own expectations in a time of national powerlessness. The only way we can truly answer that question is to seek to know Jesus as he is revealed in the Gospels, as we see his power at work through his church, and as we experience him personally in prayer.
Which also means that, if we’re active in study, action and prayer, our answer will evolve. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever (Hebrews 13:8) – but our discernment of who he is not fixed, not until that day when we see no longer “through a glass, dimly,” (I Corinthians 13) but face to face. In the meantime, we can read through the gospels for clues about who this Jesus guy is. We can pray to be aware of him in worship and in the ministries of those who gather around his Word and Life. And we can invite him to make himself known to us in our listening prayer times, and seek actual conversation with him in our imaginations, as the Holy Spirit leads us.
Peter's answer reflected Israel’s history, the promise of future redemption, and the knowledge of Jesus Peter gained in relationship with him: Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” In naming him as the promised One of God, Peter also claimed Jesus as one-of-kind, not the “new” anyone, but new creation. So we too, made in the image of God as unique persons, can get to know Jesus, the Lord who was, and is and is to come - and so discover the new creations we are in Him.
© 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.
9-9-24 - Back To the Real World?
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
If you’re having some trouble transitioning into the fall schedule from the slower rhythms of summer, Sunday’s gospel reading should hurry the process along. Jesus tells his followers that they have signed on for tough duty: He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?”
I don’t know if summertime is akin to “gaining the whole world,” but I enjoy it as a time of lower responsibility, slower engagement with tasks and intentions, loosening up on self-denial. Maybe you’re one of those marvelous saints who went on an incredible mission trip this summer, but I got so good at living the good life at the Lake and on the Creek, I may not remember where I left my cross to take it up again.
Is that what the “program year” is about, taking up our cross? In some measure, yes. We dial down the lazy, and quicken the pace of our days. We reengage the world more fully. We recommit ourselves to discerning what the Holy Spirit is up to around us, and join in as we are led to participate in the mission of God to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness in Christ.
None of that may involve putting our physical lives at risk, but it does entail putting God’s work and the world's needs ahead of our own comfort - while maintaining some healthy balance. I am recommitting myself to a more regular morning prayer and contemplation time. We might all find it a blessing to spend some time in the presence of God and ask where we’re being directed to share our energies and gifts and resources this season. Any ideas percolating in you?
Even as we look ahead, we are still called to live in the moment, only perhaps to indwell it more fully. We let our lives be filled with the Spirit’s energy and live for the sake of the gospel rather than for ourselves. We dwell in the Realm of God – which is the most real world there can possibly be.
© 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.
If you’re having some trouble transitioning into the fall schedule from the slower rhythms of summer, Sunday’s gospel reading should hurry the process along. Jesus tells his followers that they have signed on for tough duty: He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?”
I don’t know if summertime is akin to “gaining the whole world,” but I enjoy it as a time of lower responsibility, slower engagement with tasks and intentions, loosening up on self-denial. Maybe you’re one of those marvelous saints who went on an incredible mission trip this summer, but I got so good at living the good life at the Lake and on the Creek, I may not remember where I left my cross to take it up again.
Is that what the “program year” is about, taking up our cross? In some measure, yes. We dial down the lazy, and quicken the pace of our days. We reengage the world more fully. We recommit ourselves to discerning what the Holy Spirit is up to around us, and join in as we are led to participate in the mission of God to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness in Christ.
None of that may involve putting our physical lives at risk, but it does entail putting God’s work and the world's needs ahead of our own comfort - while maintaining some healthy balance. I am recommitting myself to a more regular morning prayer and contemplation time. We might all find it a blessing to spend some time in the presence of God and ask where we’re being directed to share our energies and gifts and resources this season. Any ideas percolating in you?
Even as we look ahead, we are still called to live in the moment, only perhaps to indwell it more fully. We let our lives be filled with the Spirit’s energy and live for the sake of the gospel rather than for ourselves. We dwell in the Realm of God – which is the most real world there can possibly be.
© 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.
9-6-24 - Healing Our Earth
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
This month my parishes are having a worship series on “Celebrating Creation,” following the “Season for Creation”resources developed for worship by the Episcopal church. How might we explore this story of how Jesus healed a man who could neither hear nor speak clearly through that lens?
First we have to discern – are we the man, who cannot hear and or make himself understood? We might add blindness to the list of ailments, if we’re talking about 21st century Western folk – for the evidence of damage is all around us, yet we seem not to see what’s right in front of us. We seem not to hear the cries of the poor upon whom the effects of climate change fall disproportionately, or the wildlife endangered, maimed and killed through our self-serving practices. (Straws! Plastic bags! Let’s give them up, people!) We cannot make ourselves understood to our fellow citizens who persist in destructive practices, refusing any change in lifestyle, any “inconvenience” to ensure a habitable planet for their grandchildren. If we’re the ones in need of healing, are we willing to let Jesus change our hearts?
Or, how does it alter our understanding of this story if we put the planet and its ecosystems in the place of the man? How might we stand in for Jesus, offering healing of waters and skies, forests and rivers, plants and animals? We see him draw near – very near. We see him use his own resources, and also use the earth, making a mud with his saliva. This offers us a model for environmental healing… to give of ourselves in partnership with the natural healing processes already operative in the natural.
I am reading a book on “Biomimicry,” the intentional imitation of processes we find in nature. This discipline is slowly revolutionizing the way people approach design, manufacturing, financial structures – there is no limit to how much we can learn from the organisms that have figured out how to survive, adapt and thrive. These organisms also know how to bring healing – to scorched earth, to denuded forests – but the pace of climate change is pushing many species past even their tremendous capacities. They need our help. And we need theirs. (Listen to this Krista Tippett "On Being" interview with biomimicry practitioners and get your mind blown! And this one…)
The earth is crying out to us. Can we bring the faith we’ve been given, join it to the perfect faith of Jesus, and begin to bring healing? It is likely we cannot heal our planet without inviting Jesus’ healing for ourselves. Let us pray, let us imagine, let us imitate, let us get to work.
© 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.
This month my parishes are having a worship series on “Celebrating Creation,” following the “Season for Creation”resources developed for worship by the Episcopal church. How might we explore this story of how Jesus healed a man who could neither hear nor speak clearly through that lens?
First we have to discern – are we the man, who cannot hear and or make himself understood? We might add blindness to the list of ailments, if we’re talking about 21st century Western folk – for the evidence of damage is all around us, yet we seem not to see what’s right in front of us. We seem not to hear the cries of the poor upon whom the effects of climate change fall disproportionately, or the wildlife endangered, maimed and killed through our self-serving practices. (Straws! Plastic bags! Let’s give them up, people!) We cannot make ourselves understood to our fellow citizens who persist in destructive practices, refusing any change in lifestyle, any “inconvenience” to ensure a habitable planet for their grandchildren. If we’re the ones in need of healing, are we willing to let Jesus change our hearts?
Or, how does it alter our understanding of this story if we put the planet and its ecosystems in the place of the man? How might we stand in for Jesus, offering healing of waters and skies, forests and rivers, plants and animals? We see him draw near – very near. We see him use his own resources, and also use the earth, making a mud with his saliva. This offers us a model for environmental healing… to give of ourselves in partnership with the natural healing processes already operative in the natural.
I am reading a book on “Biomimicry,” the intentional imitation of processes we find in nature. This discipline is slowly revolutionizing the way people approach design, manufacturing, financial structures – there is no limit to how much we can learn from the organisms that have figured out how to survive, adapt and thrive. These organisms also know how to bring healing – to scorched earth, to denuded forests – but the pace of climate change is pushing many species past even their tremendous capacities. They need our help. And we need theirs. (Listen to this Krista Tippett "On Being" interview with biomimicry practitioners and get your mind blown! And this one…)
The earth is crying out to us. Can we bring the faith we’ve been given, join it to the perfect faith of Jesus, and begin to bring healing? It is likely we cannot heal our planet without inviting Jesus’ healing for ourselves. Let us pray, let us imagine, let us imitate, let us get to work.
© 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.
9-5-24 - A Different Healing
You can listen to this reflection here.
This week’s gospel passage contains two great healing stories – the first about the Syro-Phoenician woman and her daughter, and a second about Jesus healing a man who is both deaf and mute: They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.
This healing is unique. First, Jesus healed the man in private. He doesn’t usually do that; in fact, some quite intimate healings happen in full view of a crowd. Perhaps the reason Jesus takes the man aside is related to the other distinctive feature of this healing – Jesus is unusually hands-on, even invasive. Jesus’ spiritual power is so great he can command a healing from afar. He need only speak healing and people are made whole. Why does he put his fingers in this man’s ears and touch his tongue with his own spittle before speaking a word of healing?
We can’t know the answer to that question, but it invites us to imagine. There is something powerful about Jesus using his physical life to bring healing to another – God does not eschew the material, fleshly world, but uses it for the purpose of redemption. That story is writ large in Jesus’ incarnation, of course, but we find it told in small ways throughout the gospels. That the God come in human flesh should use his bodily existence to reveal the spiritual power of God – how amazing is that?!
And this God-Man coming so close to someone who is suffering, willing to put his fingers in another’s ears, and to touch his tongue with his own spit – that shows a God who wants to come close to us, who does not shy away from our infirmities but gives of himself to heal us. What wounds are you trying to hide from God, afraid he doesn’t want to know about them, or can't help? Can we invite Jesus that close?
There is yet another unique element to this healing – Jesus’ looking up to heaven and sighing, and then speaking the command to the man’s ears and voice: “Be opened.” A similar sequence is reported when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead – maybe the sighs bespeak an inner effort to transmit this greater reality of God-Life into what we think of as reality. And he speaks the healing; he pronounces it into being, the way God “spoke” the world into being – “in the beginning was the Word.”
We too are invited to speak into being God’s transforming word. That is prayer, the prayer of faith that takes God up on God’s promises of spiritual authority over the material world. Paul writes in Romans 4:17 about, “the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.” Calling into being things that are not is what we are about. We can’t dictate God’s action, but we can direct God’s power and love into people and situations in need of transformation, as Jesus did with that deaf and mute man.
Prayer is bringing spiritual power to bear on physical situations. We can do that, right?
© 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.
This week’s gospel passage contains two great healing stories – the first about the Syro-Phoenician woman and her daughter, and a second about Jesus healing a man who is both deaf and mute: They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.
This healing is unique. First, Jesus healed the man in private. He doesn’t usually do that; in fact, some quite intimate healings happen in full view of a crowd. Perhaps the reason Jesus takes the man aside is related to the other distinctive feature of this healing – Jesus is unusually hands-on, even invasive. Jesus’ spiritual power is so great he can command a healing from afar. He need only speak healing and people are made whole. Why does he put his fingers in this man’s ears and touch his tongue with his own spittle before speaking a word of healing?
We can’t know the answer to that question, but it invites us to imagine. There is something powerful about Jesus using his physical life to bring healing to another – God does not eschew the material, fleshly world, but uses it for the purpose of redemption. That story is writ large in Jesus’ incarnation, of course, but we find it told in small ways throughout the gospels. That the God come in human flesh should use his bodily existence to reveal the spiritual power of God – how amazing is that?!
And this God-Man coming so close to someone who is suffering, willing to put his fingers in another’s ears, and to touch his tongue with his own spit – that shows a God who wants to come close to us, who does not shy away from our infirmities but gives of himself to heal us. What wounds are you trying to hide from God, afraid he doesn’t want to know about them, or can't help? Can we invite Jesus that close?
There is yet another unique element to this healing – Jesus’ looking up to heaven and sighing, and then speaking the command to the man’s ears and voice: “Be opened.” A similar sequence is reported when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead – maybe the sighs bespeak an inner effort to transmit this greater reality of God-Life into what we think of as reality. And he speaks the healing; he pronounces it into being, the way God “spoke” the world into being – “in the beginning was the Word.”
We too are invited to speak into being God’s transforming word. That is prayer, the prayer of faith that takes God up on God’s promises of spiritual authority over the material world. Paul writes in Romans 4:17 about, “the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.” Calling into being things that are not is what we are about. We can’t dictate God’s action, but we can direct God’s power and love into people and situations in need of transformation, as Jesus did with that deaf and mute man.
Prayer is bringing spiritual power to bear on physical situations. We can do that, right?
© 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.
9-4-24 - Who's Under Your Table?
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
There are few expressions of humility in the Bible more beautiful than the response of the Gentile mother when Jesus denies her request that he heal her daughter, saying, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
Jesus’ words sound harsh and unfeeling, no matter how we try to interpret them. In Matthew's version of this story Jesus gives a fuller reason for not helping her: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” By these lights, he is just staying “on mission.” His own people and target audience are “the children,” and outsiders are “dogs.”
Where is the Jesus who heals a Roman centurion’s servant, who frees a man in Gentile territory of a legion of demons, who stays for two days among Samaritans and holds up those disdained relatives of the Jews – outsiders, if not Gentiles – as models of compassionate service?
We’ll see him again shortly, when he fully digests this woman’s breathtakingly faithful reply: “Even the dogs under the table eat crumbs that fall from the table.” She knows that his “crumbs” hold power enough to heal her little girl, and she doesn’t care where she gets them or for whom they were intended. Her faith gets through to him, and he pronounces her daughter free and healed.
Who do we consider the “children,” and who do we regard as “dogs under the table?” Who is under your table? Some people who’ve never belonged to a church, or have heard the gospel only in its cultural iterations, might find it much easier than we to trust God, even if they use different language and rituals. Many of our churches offer feasts that precious few partake in, while at our margins there are many who would love to receive our “crumbs” of true faith: a loving community, the power of God’s Spirit, access to God in Christ. How do we make the invitation to those people who look and act so different from us?
My friend Mary Lynn once described her experience of eucharist beautifully: “Oh, you give us this little piece of bread, and we give it away all week, and then next Sunday we come back for more.” As we truly learn to understand the feast we receive through church, we can more intentionally offer our “crumbs” all over the place until all are fed.
© 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.
There are few expressions of humility in the Bible more beautiful than the response of the Gentile mother when Jesus denies her request that he heal her daughter, saying, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
Jesus’ words sound harsh and unfeeling, no matter how we try to interpret them. In Matthew's version of this story Jesus gives a fuller reason for not helping her: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” By these lights, he is just staying “on mission.” His own people and target audience are “the children,” and outsiders are “dogs.”
Where is the Jesus who heals a Roman centurion’s servant, who frees a man in Gentile territory of a legion of demons, who stays for two days among Samaritans and holds up those disdained relatives of the Jews – outsiders, if not Gentiles – as models of compassionate service?
We’ll see him again shortly, when he fully digests this woman’s breathtakingly faithful reply: “Even the dogs under the table eat crumbs that fall from the table.” She knows that his “crumbs” hold power enough to heal her little girl, and she doesn’t care where she gets them or for whom they were intended. Her faith gets through to him, and he pronounces her daughter free and healed.
Who do we consider the “children,” and who do we regard as “dogs under the table?” Who is under your table? Some people who’ve never belonged to a church, or have heard the gospel only in its cultural iterations, might find it much easier than we to trust God, even if they use different language and rituals. Many of our churches offer feasts that precious few partake in, while at our margins there are many who would love to receive our “crumbs” of true faith: a loving community, the power of God’s Spirit, access to God in Christ. How do we make the invitation to those people who look and act so different from us?
My friend Mary Lynn once described her experience of eucharist beautifully: “Oh, you give us this little piece of bread, and we give it away all week, and then next Sunday we come back for more.” As we truly learn to understand the feast we receive through church, we can more intentionally offer our “crumbs” all over the place until all are fed.
© 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.
9-3-24 - Cranky Jesus?
You can listen to this reflection here.
Those who doubt the full humanity of Christ might look no further than the 7th chapter of Mark's gospel. In the story we have this week, we meet a Jesus who appears out of sorts, brusque to the point of rudeness - and seemingly able to change his mind.
Jesus has come to this house to get away from the crowds and incessant need for his attention and power. He needs a break. And this woman, a Gentile yet, finds him and has the temerity to intrude upon his solitude, demanding spiritual deliverance for her daughter. At first he dismisses her, curtly saying she is outside his assigned mission. Then he likens her to a dog seeking scraps: She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
As she persists, refusing to take offense, he detects something beneath the annoyance she is causing. He discerns a woman of real faith who will not take "no" for an answer because she knows with all her heart that Jesus can heal her little girl. This is the kind of faith he has hoped to see in his own Jewish community – but familiarity can cloud faith vision. This Gentile woman has no such blinders. She sees clearly, and once Jesus' own blinders fall, he sees her truly too, and rewards her faith.
This story contains several invitations for us. One is to be persistent in prayer, with faith, even when it looks like God seems not to answer. Prayer is primarily about deepening our relationship with God, not "getting what we need," so we can pester and cajole and ask nicely and cry our need. Jesus hears us, and adds his perfect faith to ours, as we learn to trust his perfect will and timing.
Another invitation is to keep our senses tuned to discern faith in people outside the community of faith as we recognize it. Those of us who are longtime churchgoers and deeply steeped in our religious tradition don’t always see that the woman with the angel posters or the multiply "tatted" guy asking for money may have a clearer, less complicated, more powerful faith than we do. As we recognize that, we can make it our mission to invite such folks to draw nearer the community, nearer to Christ – and maybe find that it is they who make Christ known to 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.
Those who doubt the full humanity of Christ might look no further than the 7th chapter of Mark's gospel. In the story we have this week, we meet a Jesus who appears out of sorts, brusque to the point of rudeness - and seemingly able to change his mind.
Jesus has come to this house to get away from the crowds and incessant need for his attention and power. He needs a break. And this woman, a Gentile yet, finds him and has the temerity to intrude upon his solitude, demanding spiritual deliverance for her daughter. At first he dismisses her, curtly saying she is outside his assigned mission. Then he likens her to a dog seeking scraps: She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
As she persists, refusing to take offense, he detects something beneath the annoyance she is causing. He discerns a woman of real faith who will not take "no" for an answer because she knows with all her heart that Jesus can heal her little girl. This is the kind of faith he has hoped to see in his own Jewish community – but familiarity can cloud faith vision. This Gentile woman has no such blinders. She sees clearly, and once Jesus' own blinders fall, he sees her truly too, and rewards her faith.
This story contains several invitations for us. One is to be persistent in prayer, with faith, even when it looks like God seems not to answer. Prayer is primarily about deepening our relationship with God, not "getting what we need," so we can pester and cajole and ask nicely and cry our need. Jesus hears us, and adds his perfect faith to ours, as we learn to trust his perfect will and timing.
Another invitation is to keep our senses tuned to discern faith in people outside the community of faith as we recognize it. Those of us who are longtime churchgoers and deeply steeped in our religious tradition don’t always see that the woman with the angel posters or the multiply "tatted" guy asking for money may have a clearer, less complicated, more powerful faith than we do. As we recognize that, we can make it our mission to invite such folks to draw nearer the community, nearer to Christ – and maybe find that it is they who make Christ known to 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.
9-2-24 - Everybody Needs a Break
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
I had a lovely but slightly dull vacation this year. No dramatic destinations, no exciting excursions, just time at the cottage on a beautiful lake in Michigan. I didn’t produce anything, didn’t even think any particularly deep thoughts or have breakthrough insights that would ignite my congregations for mission. But every time I inwardly fussed about that, I’d remind myself, “Fields need to go fallow for a time. Give your imagination a break – it’ll come back stronger.” I’d been working really hard; it was time to take a break.
If I needed a vacation, imagine how much Jesus needed some rest time! He had been preaching and healing and traveling and disputing and training, never in the same spot for more than a day, it seems. And now he arrives at the shore, and he just wants some time apart. It’s his Garbo moment, “I vant to be alone!” But it’s not to be. From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.
It’s great to read that Jesus sought these times to rest and recharge, for it reminds us that he was human, and it gives us permission to recognize our limits as well. And, of course, he was also the God who ordained one day of rest in every seven; if we would only live into that promise, we might not even need vacations.
It’s also helpful to learn that Jesus was interrupted at his rest. The demands of the world do not subside just because we take some time out. The woman who came and found him had business she felt was much more pressing than his need to rest. And, though his initial response appears surly, in the end he agrees with her: her need, and her faith, were worthy of his attention.
When we’re on vacation we put down our regular work, our regular tasks, sometimes even our regular landscape, and seek to be renewed in the space that opens up. But we do not cease to be servants of the Living God, engaged in God’s mission of restoration and wholeness. We may find ourselves presented with needs in the people around us. We may fall into some interior, spiritual work we’ve neglected in our busyness, or find ourselves dealing with issues in our families or relationships. We may be surprised at how God wants to work through us in our time away. If the mission of God should find us despite our best intentions to rest, we have to trust that God will give us the R&R we need in some other way.
© 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.
I had a lovely but slightly dull vacation this year. No dramatic destinations, no exciting excursions, just time at the cottage on a beautiful lake in Michigan. I didn’t produce anything, didn’t even think any particularly deep thoughts or have breakthrough insights that would ignite my congregations for mission. But every time I inwardly fussed about that, I’d remind myself, “Fields need to go fallow for a time. Give your imagination a break – it’ll come back stronger.” I’d been working really hard; it was time to take a break.
If I needed a vacation, imagine how much Jesus needed some rest time! He had been preaching and healing and traveling and disputing and training, never in the same spot for more than a day, it seems. And now he arrives at the shore, and he just wants some time apart. It’s his Garbo moment, “I vant to be alone!” But it’s not to be. From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.
It’s great to read that Jesus sought these times to rest and recharge, for it reminds us that he was human, and it gives us permission to recognize our limits as well. And, of course, he was also the God who ordained one day of rest in every seven; if we would only live into that promise, we might not even need vacations.
It’s also helpful to learn that Jesus was interrupted at his rest. The demands of the world do not subside just because we take some time out. The woman who came and found him had business she felt was much more pressing than his need to rest. And, though his initial response appears surly, in the end he agrees with her: her need, and her faith, were worthy of his attention.
When we’re on vacation we put down our regular work, our regular tasks, sometimes even our regular landscape, and seek to be renewed in the space that opens up. But we do not cease to be servants of the Living God, engaged in God’s mission of restoration and wholeness. We may find ourselves presented with needs in the people around us. We may fall into some interior, spiritual work we’ve neglected in our busyness, or find ourselves dealing with issues in our families or relationships. We may be surprised at how God wants to work through us in our time away. If the mission of God should find us despite our best intentions to rest, we have to trust that God will give us the R&R we need in some other way.
© 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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)